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STRATEGIC

STUDIES

INSTITUTE

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Strategic Studies Institute Monograph

THE STRATEGIC LOGIC OF THE

CONTEMPORARY SECURITY DILEMMA

Max G. Manwaring

December 2011

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ii

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ISBN 1-58487-514-3
iii

FOREWORD

This monograph stems from the tactical and operational frustrations of the U.S. Southern Command 

(USSOUTHCOM) regarding citizen and collective 

security in the Western Hemisphere. These frustrations have been demonstrated in each of the annual 

colloquia that the Strategic Studies Institute and its 

partners, Florida International University, the National Defense University, and USSOUTHCOM have 

conducted over the past 8 years. This monograph also 

reflects similar frustrations expressed by other U.S. 

Government organizations and agencies, as well as by 

various hemispheric governments and security institutions.

The urgency and importance of the security issue have generated four related themes. First, several countries in Latin America are paradigms of the 

failing state and have enormous implications for the 

stability, development, democracy, prosperity, and 

peace of the entire Western Hemisphere. Second, the 

transnational drug and arms trafficking, paramilitary, 

insurgent, and gang organizations in Mexico, Central 

and South America, and the Caribbean Basin are perpetrating a level of corruption, criminality, human 

horror, and internal instability that—if left unchecked 

at the strategic level—can ultimately threaten the collapse of various states and undermine the security 

and sovereignty of neighbors. Third, poverty, social 

exclusion, environmental degradation, and politicaleconomic-social expectations—and the conflicts generated by these indirect and implicit threats to stability 

and human well-being—lead to further degeneration 

of citizen security. Fourth, these threats constitute a 

serious challenge to U.S. national security, well-being, 
and position in the global community. Unfortunately, 

a strategic-level debate has largely been absent from 

all this discourse.

The reality and severity of the threats associated 

with transnational security issues indicate that the 

United States and its national and international partners need a new paradigm for the conduct of contemporary warfare and an accompanying new paradigm 

for strategic leader development. The strategic-level 

basis of these new paradigms can be found in the 

fact that the global community is redefining security in terms of nothing less than a reconceptualization of sovereignty. In the past, sovereignty was the 

acknowledged and/or real control of territory and 

the people in it. Now, sovereignty is the responsibility of governments to protect the well-being of their 

peoples and to prevent great harm to those peoples. 

The security dilemma has now become: Why, when, 

and how to intervene to protect people and prevent 

egregious human suffering? Thus, we address some 

of the strategic-level questions and recommendations 

that arise from this elaboration. We will probably generate more questions than answers, but it is time to 

begin the strategic-level discussion. 

This monograph comes at a critical juncture—a 

time of promise for globalization, creating a world 

that has become increasingly interconnected and a 

positive force for good government, human rights, 

the environment, peace, and prosperity. At the same 

time, there is profound concern that the fragmentation 

associated with globalization is acting as a negative 

force—leading people everywhere to seek refuge in 

smaller groups, characterized by isolationism, separatism, fanaticism, and deteriorating citizen security and 

well-being. The Strategic Studies Institute is pleased 

iv
v

to offer this monograph as part of a continuing effort 

to inform the security debate, move it to a higher level, 

and support the best interests of the governments and 

peoples of the Western Hemisphere and the rest of the 

world.

 

DOUGLAS C. LOVELACE, JR.

Director

Strategic Studies Institute 

vii

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

MAX G. MANWARING is a Professor of Military Strategy in the Strategic Studies Institute (SSI) of 

the U.S. Army War College (USAWC), has held the 

General Douglas MacArthur Chair of Research at the 

USAWC, and is a retired U.S. Army colonel. He has 

served in various civilian and military positions, including the U.S. Southern Command (USSOUTHCOM), the Defense Intelligence Agency, Dickinson 

College, and Memphis University. Dr. Manwaring 

is the author and co-author of several articles, chapters, and books dealing with Latin American security affairs, political-military affairs, and insurgency 

and counter-insurgency. His most recent book is The 

Complexity of Modern Irregular War (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, forthcoming). His most 

recent article is “Three Lessons from Contemporary 

Challenges to Security,” in PRISM, Vol. 2, No. 3 (June 

2011). His most recent SSI monograph is The Strategic 

Logic of the Contemporary Security Dilemma (Carlisle, 

PA: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, forthcoming). Dr. Manwaring is a graduate of 

the U.S. Army War College, and holds an M.A. and 

a Ph.D. in political science from the University of 

Illinois.

ix

SUMMARY

From the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 to the end 

of World War II and beyond the Cold War period, 

the prevailing assumption was that interstate warfare 

would continue to be the dominant threat to global 

peace and prosperity. Today’s wars, by contrast, are 

intrastate conflicts that take place mainly within—not 

across—national borders. As a consequence, the disease of intrastate conflict has been allowed to rage relatively unchecked across large areas of the world, and 

has devastated the lives of millions of human beings. 

At the same time, indirect and implicit unmet needs 

(e.g., poverty) lead people into greater and greater 

personal and collective insecurity.

In the past, the traditional security dilemma was: 

What is defensive, and what is aggressive? This problem has never been sorted out. It depends entirely on 

one’s interpretation—based on culture, values, external relationships, interests, and concepts of threat 

to national security. As one contemporary example, 

China considers the development of a large, modern 

navy as defensive. Given the interests and vulnerabilities of Japan, that country considers China’s efforts to 

be offensive—and potentially aggressive. Clearly, the 

security dilemma of the past retains a certain validity. 

Nevertheless, contemporary realities have given rise 

to a new, broad, complicated, and more ambiguous 

security dilemma. Thus, two new types of threats have 

been introduced into the contemporary global security arena: 1) hegemonic nonstate actors (e.g., insurgents, transnational criminal organizations, terrorists, 

private armies, and gangs), which are taking on roles 

that were once reserved exclusively for traditional 

nation-states; and, 2) indirect and implicit threats to 
x

stability and human well-being (e.g., poverty; social 

exclusion; environmental degradation; and political, 

economic, and social expectations).

This monograph provides a brief examination of: 

1) the relatively recent evolution of international conventions and declarations that contribute directly to 

the contemporary diplomatic-legal definition of security; 2) salient scholarly thinking relating to politicaldiplomatic-legal principles that have become integral 

parts of the United Nations (and various other international efforts to confront threats to citizen and 

collective security and human well-being); and, 3) 

selected post-Cold War military responses to hegemonic non-state actors. The security dilemma, then, is 

more than a question of determining what aggression 

is and what aggression is not. Rather, it is now a question of: Why, when, and how to intervene to protect 

people and prevent egregious human suffering. This 

question, in turn, encompasses more than a redefinition of security. It is nothing less than a redefinition of 

sovereignty. Sovereignty was, in the past, the control 

of territory and the people in it. Sovereignty is now 

the responsibility to protect peoples’ well-being in a 

given territory.

Accordingly, we must adapt our approach to security and organize our institutions to address the 

concept of unconventional intrastate war (e.g., Fourth 

Generation War), and the overwhelming reality that, 

just as the world has evolved from an industrial society to an information-based society, so has warfare. 

The reality of this evolution demonstrates the need 

for a new paradigm of conflict based on the fact that 

information—not firepower—is the currency upon 

which war is now conducted. The new primary center 

of gravity is public opinion and political leadership. 
xi

The “new” instruments of power are intelligence, 

public diplomacy, media, time, and flexibility.

The next and probably most important effort in the 

process of developing a new strategic-level paradigm 

for conflict is educational (cognitive). The effort must 

be directed at civilian and military leaders to help 

them understand and use appropriate combinations 

of national and international power in institutionalizing a shift in the contemporary strategic leadership 

development paradigm. In the context of new paradigms of conflict and leader development, we will 

address conceptual and organizational questions and 

recommendations that arise out of that elaboration. 

In Clausewitzian terms, all these questions and recommendations are designed to help decisionmakers, 

policymakers, opinion makers, and operators understand precisely the kind of conflict they are thinking 

about, what it is not, and what they must understand 

to conduct it successfully. 

1

THE STRATEGIC LOGIC OF THE

CONTEMPORARY SECURITY DILEMMA

In 1996, Boutros-Boutros Ghali, the Secretary General of the United Nations (UN), described the most 

important dialectics at work in the post-Cold War 

world as globalization and fragmentation. He observed that globalization was creating a world that 

has become increasingly interconnected, and a positive force for, inter alia, decolonization, good government, development, human rights, and the environment. The Secretary General understood, too, that 

fragmentation was acting as a negative force—leading 

people everywhere to seek refuge in smaller groups, 

characterized by isolationism, separatism, fanaticism, and the proliferation of intrastate conflict. He 

also recognized that fragmentation can act as a major 

cause—related to poverty, social exclusion, and poor 

governance—of state failure. Fragmentation, in turn, 

exposes the global community to increased human 

migration, the proliferation of nonstate actors (good 

and bad), and transnational criminal activity. At the 

same time, indirect and implicit unmet needs (e.g., 

poverty) lead people into greater and greater personal and collective insecurity. Thus, two new types of 

threats have been introduced into the global security 

arena. They are: 1) hegemonic nonstate actors (e.g., 

insurgents, transnational criminal organizations, terrorists, private armies, and gangs) that are taking on 

roles once reserved exclusively for traditional nationstates; and, 2) indirect and implicit threats to stability 

and human well-being (e.g., poverty; social exclusion; 

environmental degradation; and political, economic, 

and social expectations).1
2

Up to the end of World War II, and into and after 

the Cold War period, the prevailing assumption was 

that interstate warfare was and would continue to be 

the dominant threat to global peace. Today’s wars, by 

contrast, are intrastate conflicts that take place mainly 

within—not across—national borders. As a consequence, “The disease of [intrastate] conflict has been 

allowed to rage relatively unchecked across large areas 

of the world, and has devastated the lives of millions 

of human beings.”2 It is within this dialectical context 

that the security dilemma concept has broadened from 

the traditional notion of defense against nation-state 

military aggression to that of complex and ambiguous intrastate conflict and indirect internal security 

issues the world is experiencing in the 21st century. 

This monograph examines The Security Dilemma: 

Past and Present. Then, it discusses at some length 

The Development of the Contemporary Security Dilemma Concept as analyzed by international organizations, key scholars, and some practitioners. Third, it 

addresses some of the Questions and Recommendations that Arise out of that elaboration, followed by a 

brief Conclusion.

The primary intent of this think piece is to examine 

some important aspects of contemporary and future 

asymmetric irregular warfare and internal security 

implications. From this vantage point, anyone who 

has the responsibility of dealing with, analyzing, planning, implementing, and/or reporting on collective 

and personal citizen security threats might generate 

successes and might turn those successes into strategic victories.
3

THE SECURITY DILEMMA: PAST AND PRESENT

International Relations texts teach that the anarchy 

of a century of religious wars and the Thirty Years 

War generated a determination on the part of the 

controlling elites of 17th-century Europe to devise an 

interstate system of mutual respect and forbearance. 

The European nations hoped that such an agreement 

might prevent the senseless carnage of the past from 

happening again. The result of these efforts—which 

took place over a period of 4 years—was the Peace of 

Westphalia. In the various documents that were signed 

in 1648, the European monarchs of the day pledged to 

honor each other’s sovereignty over the territory and 

people affirmed to be theirs. That sovereignty was considered to be sacrosanct. Intervention by one state into 

the domestic affairs of another nation-state (including 

vital mercantilist interests abroad) was defined as aggression. From 1648 to the present, the Westphalian 

system addressed the sovereignty of nation-states 

only; the system was military-economic, and primarily defensive.3

More recently, classical realist scholar Hans Morgenthau wrote about imperial (hegemonic) state powers operating outside the international (Westphalian) 

structure, with the objective of overthrowing an existing system and replacing it with something else. Nazi 

Germany under Adolph Hitler was a case in point.4

Later, Robert Gilpin discussed how uneven growth 

in military, economic, and technological power over 

time might convince a relatively weaker power that 

the benefits of attempting to change something in the 

existing international order could outweigh the risks. 

In that context, Albert Camus reminds us that Hitler’s 

attempt to change the international system began as a 
4

gang (the Brown Shirts) effort in Munich, Germany. 

Over the period 1933-45, Hitler imposed the ethics of a 

criminal gang on an entire civilization.5 Nevertheless, 

grand-scale theories on violently and radically changing a given political-economic-social system, such as 

those of Morganthau, Gilpin, and others, still apply 

only to nation-states.6 The mainstream international 

relations literature does not take violent nonstate 

groups seriously, and generally teaches that hegemonic nonstate actors are basically local law enforcement problems that do not require sustained national 

security policy attention.7

A notable but not well-known exception to this 

position was expressed by Kimbra L. Fishel after the 

proverbial wake-up call on September 11, 2001 (9/11). 

Fishel pointed out several realities relevant to the contemporary global security system. First, she indicated 

that al Qaeda had succeeded in doing what no other 

terrorist organization had accomplished: elevating 

asymmetric, insurgent warfare onto the global arena. 

She also noted that al Qaeda and its leadership do not 

pretend to reform an unjust order or redress perceived 

grievances.8 Their aim is radical and total change—that 

is, the intent is to destroy perceived Western and regional enemies and replace them as the predominant 

global powers.9 Additionally, Fishel pointed out that:

• Some nonstate actors (insurgents, private 

armies, terrorists, transnational criminal organizations, and gangs) are, in fact, engaged in 

hegemonic war (conflict), as if they were nationstates attempting to overthrow or control one 

another; 

• Terrorism, rather than conventional weaponry, 

is a very practical, calculated, cynical, and in-
5

expensive tactic or strategy for the weak to use 

against the strong;

• Many violent nonstate actors have institutionalized political-psychological innovations and 

exploited poverty and other indirect issues as 

substitutes for expensive, highly technical conventional weapons systems;

• The ends of contemporary intrastate conflict 

are changing from the absolute objectives of 

conventional interstate war to provisional objectives designed to influence public opinion 

and leadership; and,

• Al Qaeda is not a unique or totally isolated 

case—hegemonic nonstate groups all over the 

world are threatening the stability and existence of individual nation-states and the entire 

world order. In this security environment, war, 

the power to make war, and the power to destroy or manipulate the personal security of human beings and radically change nation-states, 

and even the international system, is now 

within the reach of virtually any kind of violent 

nonstate actor.

 In the past, the traditional security dilemma was: 

What is defensive, and what is aggressive? This dilemma has never really been sorted out. It depends 

entirely on one’s interpretation on the basis of culture, 

values, external relationships, interests, and concepts 

of threat to national security. As one contemporary 

example, China considers the development of a large, 

modern navy as “defensive.” Given the interests and 

vulnerabilities of Japan, that country considers China’s efforts to be offensive—and potentially aggressive.10 Clearly, the security dilemma of the past retains 
6

a certain validity. Nevertheless, other contemporary 

realities have broadened, complicated, and made 

more ambiguous a new (if not completely accepted) 

security dilemma. Accordingly, as noted above, two 

sets of elements are being added to the old concept: 

(1) hegemonic nonstate actors using unconventional 

methods and weapons; and, (2) political actors of all 

types exploiting indirect and implicit efforts to help 

achieve their various illicit objectives.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CONTEMPORARY 

SECURITY DILEMMA CONCEPT

Nearly 400 years of diplomatic and military practice and international political-legal thought do not 

go away with a flash of realistic light. It takes years 

of diplomatic effort, military experience, and scholarly writing to generate significant change. There are 

those who find the new security dilemma concept so 

broad, ambiguous, and ambitious that they cannot 

understand how the necessary changes might be operationalized. Others are comfortable with what they 

have known for years and resist the required change 

as simply too difficult to deal with. In any event and 

at any point in the process of significant change, new 

diplomatic, military, and normative principles develop pertaining to hegemonic threats to political-economic-social stability and human well-being. These 

new principles, however, have been developed out of 

the long-existing international law of intervention for 

humanitarian purposes (e.g., Equity Law).11

Briefly examined are: (1) the relatively recent evolution of international conventions and declarations 

that contribute directly to the contemporary diplomatic definition of security; (2) scholarly thinking that 
7

relates directly to political-diplomatic-legal principles 

that have become integral parts of efforts by the United Nations and various members of the international 

community to confront threats to citizen and collective 

security and human well-being before they reach crisis 

proportions and have already caused massive human 

suffering; and, (3) selected post-Cold War military responses to hegemonic nonstate actors. 

The security dilemma, then, is more than determining: What is aggression, and what is not aggression? 

It is now: Why, when, and how to intervene to protect 

people and prevent egregious human suffering? This 

dilemma, in turn, encompasses more than a redefinition of security. It is nothing less than a redefinition of 

sovereignty. Sovereignty was in the past the control 

of territory and the people in it. Sovereignty today is 

the responsibility to protect the well-being of people 

in any given territory.12

International Conventions and Declarations.

In 2001, Secretary General of the UN Kofi Annan 

followed Boutros-Boutros Ghali’s 1992 analysis of 

the state of the world with his Millennium Report. In 

response to the Millennium Report, the International 

Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty issued a report on August 15, 2001, entitled The Responsibility to Protect. This report expressed the far-reaching 

principle that UN member states have a responsibility 

to protect the lives, liberty, and basic human rights of 

their citizens, and that if they fail to carry out that responsibility, the international community has an obligation to step in.13 Kofi Annan’s central strategic question was: “If humanitarian intervention is, indeed, an 
8

acceptable assault on sovereignty, how should we respond to a [new] Rwanda, or to a Srebrenica?”14

Such interventions demand a global response and 

fundamental legitimization by international law. As a 

result, a series of conventions and declarations have 

been promulgated to support, clarify, and strengthen 

the already existing 1988 UN Convention against Illegal Drug Trafficking, the 1996 Inter-American 

Convention against Corruption, the UN Convention 

against Organized Crime, and the 2001 Organization 

of American States (OAS) Declaration on the Responsibility to Protect. Since then, additional conventions 

and declarations have been passed. They are the 2002 

UN Convention against Terrorism, the 2003 InterAmerican Declaration on Democracy, and the 2003 

OAS Declaration on Security.15

The 2003 OAS Declaration on Security summarized everything the Declaration on the Responsibility 

to Protect required—and more. The “new” legitimatized external and internal threats to global security 

are outlined as follows: 

• Corrupted governance;

• Extreme poverty and social exclusion;

• Terrorism, transnational crime, the global drug 

problem, corruption, asset laundering, and illicit trafficking in weapons;

• Trafficking in persons;

• Use of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) 

and means of delivery;

• Attacks on cyber security; and,

• Natural and man-made disasters, other health 

risks, and environmental degradation.16
9

This combination of diverse threats takes us back 

to where we began: Two new types of threats, in addition to traditional military aggression, have been 

introduced into the global security arena. Security, 

then, becomes an all-inclusive circular process of interdependent relationships among personal and collective security of citizens, political-economic-social 

development, peace, democracy and effective sovereignty—and back to personal and collective security 

again. From this perspective, four issues must be emphasized:

1. Security is too broad and too important to pass 

off unilaterally to either the police or the military; 

2. Effective/meaningful security, well-being, and 

sovereignty are broad national and transnational 

problems that must be addressed in a unified and 

legitimizing manner by all the instruments of state 

power (e.g., political, psychological, moral, economic, 

informational, and military);

3. Security in its broader context becomes a transnational problem and requires transnational solutions. 

Thus, security must be addressed not only by all the 

instruments at the disposal of a given nation-state, but 

also by a country’s international partners and the various legitimizing international organizations; and,

4. It must be emphasized that the concept of security now includes—first and foremost—the imperative of addressing the “root causes” (e.g., poverty and 

inequality) of internal and external instability and violence. Otherwise, the nation-state becomes extremely 

vulnerable to the state-failure process.17
10

Scholarly Thinking: The Responsibility to Protect 

and to Prevent, and Sovereignty as Responsibility.

Humanitarian crises around the world in the postCold War period brought new attention to the issue of 

state sovereignty. Among the scholars who have examined this issue are Francis Deng and his associates 

at the Brookings Institution. They published a book in 

1996 challenging what had been the key principle of 

international relations since the Treaty of Westphalia; 

that is, sovereign states are not to interfere in one another’s internal affairs. Their book, Sovereignty as Responsibility: Conflict Management in Africa, argues that 

when nation-states do not conduct their internal affairs in ways that meet internationally accepted standards, other nations representing the international 

community have the right and duty to intervene to 

protect citizens from governments that do not fulfill 

their responsibilities to their peoples; that is, the “duty 

to protect.” In essence, governments that do not protect the safety and well-being of their peoples lack legitimacy and forfeit their sovereignty.18

In 2004, Lee Feinstein and Ann-Marie Slaughter 

published an article in Foreign Affairs that argued that 

nation-states have a “duty to prevent.” Thus, nations’ 

obligations to their peoples include the commitment 

to refrain from acquiring and developing WMD. Additionally, Feinstein and Slaughter link the poor humanitarian conditions in failing and failed states with 

the challenges such governments pose to global security. They recognize the need for stronger authority 

for the UN, and for the redefining of the traditional 

(Westphalian) notion of sovereignty to reflect the responsibility to prevent governments from systematically abusing their citizens.19
11

In 2006, the learned Professor Amitai Etzioni 

brought Deng, Feinstein, and Slaughter together, 

articulating a concept of sovereignty that explicitly 

makes sovereignty conditional. Sovereignty is more 

than simple control of territory and the people in it. 

Sovereignty is the “duty to protect and to prevent.” 

The implications are serious:

• First, logic and experience teach us that the 

maintenance of global peace and security in the 

21st century requires states and international 

organizations to be proactive (preemptive) 

rather than simply reactive.

• Second, we increasingly recognize that the 

rules and institutions of the past are inadequate 

for solving a new generation of threats to the 

world order, e.g., failed states; regional economic crises; the spread of infectious diseases; 

environmental degradation; the rise of transnational criminal networks; and trafficking in 

arms, money, drugs, people, and human body 

parts.

• Third, it is not states that are in danger, but their 

rulers—a relatively small group of identifiable 

individuals who seek absolute power at home 

and, possibly, sponsor terrorism abroad.

• Fourth, this means that state authorities are responsible for protecting the safety, well-being, 

and lives of their citizens.

• Fifth, national authorities are responsible not 

only to their citizens, but to the international 

community.

• Finally, where a population is suffering serious 

harm as a result of internal conflict, insurgency, 

repression, or state failure (as only a few examples), and the state is unwilling or unable to 
12

halt or avert a given harm, the old Westphalian 

principle of nonintervention must yield to the 

new concept of sovereignty as the responsibility to protect and prevent.20

Accordingly, a government that is unwilling or unable to meet its legitimizing responsibilities to protect 

its own people and avoid harming its neighbors cannot claim sovereignty to keep the outside world from 

stepping into the situation to offer protection and 

assistance. In justifying humanitarian intervention, 

Deng et al., Feinstein and Slaughter, and Etzioni have 

turned intervention in international relations into a 

moral imperative. As a consequence, the new security 

dilemma is the question: When, where, and how to intervene for security purposes? To be practical, there is 

a corollary: When, where, and how to intervene in security issues to produce beneficial results? A third corollary might also be added: What new authorities do 

the UN and/or regional International Organizations 

need to enforce the new responsibility of sovereignty 

effectively?

This concept is not a radical or completely altruistic 

principle of international order. It simply extrapolates 

from post-Cold War developments in international relations and international law, in which old rules have 

proved counterproductive at best, and murderous at 

worst.

Some Practitioners’ Views Concerning Hegemonic 

State and Nonstate Actors.

When a member of the UN has voluntarily signed 

its Charter, it is assumed that this nation-state accepts 

the responsibilities of membership. What do we do 
13

about nations that are not members of the UN, who 

would presumably be exempt from any obligations? 

What do we do about the 100 or more nontraditional 

actors involved in ongoing small, irregular, asymmetric, and revolutionary wars around the world today? In any event and in any phase of a revolutionary 

process, hegemonic nonstate actors have played and 

continue to play substantial roles in helping their own 

organizations and/or political patrons coerce radical political change and achieve putative power. Do 

these nontraditional actors require sustained national 

policy attention? In the opinion of some practitioners, 

these hegemonic players are in fact engaged in insurgency—if not war—and they shift the asymmetric 

global security issue from abstract to real.21

Ray S. Kline. In the 1970s, and as a result of the 

Vietnam experience, Ray Kline, a former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) official, was among the first 

practitioners to recognize that contemporary war 

requires more than a military-industrial (economic) 

capability.22 Accordingly, Kline developed a two-part 

formula as a systematic way to think about power, 

that is, Pp = (C + E + M) X (S + W). Pp = perceived 

power; C = critical mass (population and territory); 

E = economic/industrial capability; M = military capability; S = strategic purpose; and W = will to pursue national policy. Thus, Kline adds critical “mass” 

to “economic and military capability,” and brings in 

“strategic purpose” and “will” to complete the equation. Interestingly and importantly, he includes S + W 

as a multiplier. That means that a country can have all 

the (C + E + M) in the world, but if there is no strategic 

purpose and will, there will be no perceived power; 

that is, 100 + 100 + 100 X 0 = 0.23
14

 Kline’s formula seems a lot like the basis for the 

Caspar Weinberger and Colin Powell Doctrines. In 

1984, Secretary of Defense Weinberger outlined six 

conditions that a conflict should meet before the United States should consider becoming involved:

1. It should be of vital national interest to the United States and its allies;

2. Intervention must occur wholeheartedly, with a 

clear intention of winning;

3. There must be clearly defined political and military objectives;

4. The relationship between the objectives and the 

forces must be continually reassessed and adjusted if 

necessary;

5. There must be a reasonable assurance that the 

American people and Congress will support the intervention; and,

6. Commitment of U.S. military forces should be 

the last resort.24

Subsequently, General Powell, while Chairman of 

the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, 1990-91, added another 

principle: Should the United States intervene in a 

given conflict, the operation should be short and relatively light on casualties, and clearly lead to achieving the political purpose.25 Yet, for situations involving hegemonic nonstate actors, or even rogue states, 

these assumptions do not apply. They apply generally 

to traditional interstate military-industrial war. Later 

practitioners have more adequately determined the 

kinds and combinations of power necessary to deal 

with contemporary intrastate conflict.

Colonel T.X. Hammes, USMC, (Ret.). In The Sling and 

the Stone, Hammes explains that we are now involved 

in Fourth Generation War (4GW). He argues that, 
15

“Just as the world has evolved from an industrial society to an information-based society, so has warfare.”26

Thus, 4GW has arrived. It does not attempt to win by 

defeating an enemy’s military forces. Both the epic, 

decisive Napoleonic battle (Second Generation War), 

and the wide-ranging, high-tech, high-speed maneuver campaign (Third Generation War) are irrelevant. 

4GW is an evolved form of insurgency rooted in the 

fundamental precept that superior political will, when 

properly employed, can defeat greater military and 

economic power. It uses all available networks—political, economic, social, informational, and military—to 

convince the enemy decisionmakers that their strategic goals are either unachievable or too costly for the 

perceived benefits. Using its networks, 4GW directly 

attacks the minds of enemy decision- and policymakers to destroy their political will.27 Thus, the importance of the media in manipulating public opinion 

and of leadership in changing an opponent’s position 

on a matter of national interest is significant.28

This reality releases the 4GW practitioner from the 

strategic necessity of defending core production assets, leaving him or her free to focus on offense rather 

than defense. It also relieves him or her of the logistical 

burden of moving vast amounts of supplies long distances. Instead, he or she has to move only ideas and 

money—both of which can be moved instantly.29 This 

does not mean, however, that 4GW is accomplished 

quickly; 4GWs are lengthy. They are measured in decades rather than months or years. At the same time, 

the use of 4GW networks does not necessarily imply 

a bloodless type of war. Experience reminds us that 

most casualties will not be military, or caused by military weapons. Rather, most casualties will be civilian 

and caused by weapons for which materials are read-
16

ily available in modern society (e.g., roadside mines, 

or Improvised Explosive Devices [IEDs]). Clearly, this 

fact is not helpful in generating positive public opinion, or political will. But, of course, this is exactly what 

the 4GW practitioner is counting on. He understands 

that the last man standing is the “winner.” 

Hammes, lastly, reminds us that 4GW is the only 

kind of war the United States has ever lost (e.g., Vietnam, Lebanon, and Somalia). This type of war also 

defeated the Soviet Union in Afghanistan and Chechnya, and France in Vietnam and Algeria. “The fact that 

only unconventional or 4GW has succeeded against 

great powers should be a key element in discussing 

the evolution of warfare. Unfortunately, it has been 

largely absent from the debate within the U.S. Department of Defense.”30

General Rupert Smith (U.K., Ret.). General Smith 

is straightforward. In both the opening and closing 

paragraphs of The Utility of Force: The Art of War in the 

Modern World, he states:

War no longer exists. Confrontation, conflict and 

combat undoubtedly exist all around the world. . . . 

Nonetheless, war as cognitively known to most noncombatants, war as a battle in a field between men 

and machinery, war as a massive deciding event in a 

dispute in international affairs: such war no longer exists.31

This is not to say, however, that armed force cannot be used effectively to achieve political-psychological purposes. One has only to see how effective a few 

well-disciplined soldiers, armed with simple weapons, 

can be, and how hard it is to defeat them and prevent 

them from advancing their political agenda, to realize this. Force does have utility in traditional defense, 
17

in maintaining the nontraditional security of the state 

and its people, and in keeping the peace on an international basis (the responsibility to protect and prevent). 

But, to achieve this, political and military leaders must 

understand exactly what they are dealing with.32

We must adapt our approach and organize our 

institutions to address the concept of unconventional 

intrastate war and the overwhelming reality of “War 

Amongst the People.”33 That is, we need a revolution 

in our thinking (a new paradigm, a new theory of engagement, or a new game plan). We need national and 

international organizations and intelligence capabilities designed to deal effectively with an enemy that 

has no formal army; an enemy that has no maneuver 

forces; an enemy that has no design for conventional 

battle; and an enemy that keeps each engagement particular unto itself and its setting but maintains connections through a nervous system unified by an overarching political idea.34

Toward a New Paradigm. General Smith postulates 

that “War Amongst the People” requires a paradigm 

of confrontation defined by the following six trends:

1. The ends for which we fight are changing from 

the hard objectives that decide a political outcome to 

those that establish conditions through which an outcome may be decided;

2. We fight among the people, not on a conventional (virtually uninhabited) battlefield;

3. Our conflicts tend to be timeless, even unending; thus, time has become an important instrument 

of power;

4. We fight so as to preserve the force rather than 

risk all to gain the military objective;

5. On each occasion, new uses are found for old 

weapons and organizations that are the products of 

past industrial wars; and,
18

6. The sides are mostly nonstate, comprising some 

form of multinational grouping against some nonstate 

party or parties.35

Lastly, it must be emphasized that this kind of war 

is fought against enemies who are firmly embedded 

in the population and cannot present a traditional 

strategic or operational target. No conventional act 

of force can ever be decisive. Winning a trial of military strength will not deliver the will of the people. 

Fundamentally, gaining the will of the people is the 

only effective objective of any use of force in modern 

conflict. The reality of contemporary conflict and a 

new paradigm is that information—not firepower—is 

the currency upon which war is conducted. The new 

instruments of power are intelligence, public diplomacy, the media, time, and flexibility. These are the 

basic tools of power than can ultimately capture the 

will of the people.36

Organization to Deal with a “Rhizomatic” Command 

System and to Generate a Total Unity of Effort. A rhizomatic command system operates with an apparently 

hierarchical system above ground—visible in the operational and political arenas and with another system 

centered in the roots underground. It is a horizontal 

system with many discrete groups. The system develops to suit its surroundings and purpose in a process 

of natural selection, and with no predetermined operational structure. Its foundation is that of the social 

structure of its locale. The groups vary in size, but 

those that survive and prosper are usually small and 

organized in cells whose members will not necessarily 

know their relationship with, or the membership of, 

other cells. A cell will perform a minimum of three 

tasks: 1) direct and sometimes lead military action; 
19

2) collect and hold resources such as money and weapons; and, 3) direct and sometimes conduct political actions, which can range from bombing train stations, to 

funding schools, to electioneering. Cells will normally 

be allowed considerable latitude in the methods they 

adopt to suit the local circumstances—provided the 

cell is both successful and no more corrupt than what 

is condoned by the general movement. In all cases, the 

need for security is paramount.37

The rhizomatic command system is difficult to attack, just as rhizomatic weeds are difficult to eradicate. 

Rhizomes are eradicated by one of three methods: 1) 

digging them up; 2) poisoning or removing the nutrients from the soil; or, 3) penetrating the roots with a 

systemic poison. Cutting off the visible heads of rhizomes causes them to lie dormant for a time—at best. 

The attack on a rhizomatic command system is done 

best from all three directions—operations in each direction being conducted to complement the others. 38

This takes us to the need to conduct a “holistic” war 

with a total unity of effort. 

The challenge is to come to terms with the fact 

that contemporary security, at whatever level, is at its 

base a holistic political-diplomatic, social-economic, 

psychological-moral, and military-police effort. The 

fundamental mindset must be changed from a singular military approach to a multidimensional, multiorganizational, and multinational paradigm. The main 

task in the search for security now and in the future is 

to construct national stability and citizen well-being 

on the same strategic pillars that supported success 

and effectiveness in the past. 

The first pillar of success is a conceptual requirement: Develop a realistic game plan or theory of engagement to deal with hegemonic political actors, 

and the human and physical disasters they create. 
20

The second pillar is an organizational requirement: 

The creation of planning and management structures 

to establish a unity of effort to plan and implement 

the paradigm. The third is an organizational and operational requirement. Organizationally, this pillar 

involves developing and implementing the appropriate combination of political, economic, informational, 

moral, and coercive instruments of national and international power to pursue the multidimensional 

requirements of the contemporary global security 

environment. Operationally, the pillar involves learning to understand friends as well as adversaries and 

assessing potential adversaries culturally, to influence 

their thought and behavior better. The entire effort involves training and educating leaders at all levels to 

carry out a 21st-century game plan against a rhizomatic enemy.39

The next and probably most important effort in 

this process is educational (cognitive). The effort is 

directed at civilian and military leaders to help them 

understand and use appropriate combinations of national and international power in institutionalizing 

a shift in the contemporary strategic leader development paradigm.

Combinations in Unrestricted War: A Chinese Approach to a New Paradigm. The two Chinese colonels 

who authored Unrestricted Warfare, Qiao Liang and 

Wang Xiangsui, are adamant. They unequivocally argue that regardless of whether a war took place 2,500 

years ago or last year, the data indicate that all victories or failures display one common denominator—

the winner is the national power, international power 

bloc, or nonstate political actor that is best organized 

and has implemented a combination of multidimensional efforts. 40 The French experience in Vietnam and 
21

Algeria attests to the fact that the loser is the political 

actor that “ad-hoc-ed” a generally singular military effort.41 Accordingly, the global community must come 

to grips with the fundamentally transformed nature of 

defense and security challenges in the 21st century. To 

do so requires a significant change in how actors are 

educated and organized to plan and implement contemporary war (conflict). 

The purpose of combinations is to organize a system of offensive and defensive power that is a great 

force multiplier and facilitator within the global security arena—and would deprive the enemy of the 

same advantages. This system gives new and greater 

meaning to the idea of a nation-state or other political 

actor using all available instruments of power to protect, maintain, and achieve its perceived political and 

security interests. That is one reason Qaio and Wang 

call this approach “Unrestricted Warfare.”42

The dominating characteristic of a war of this 

kind is political-military, economic-commercial, or 

cultural-moral. Within the context of combinations, 

there is a difference between the dominant sphere 

and the whole, although a dynamic relationship exists between a dominant type of general war and the 

supporting elements that make up the whole. As an 

example, military war must be strongly supported by 

media (propaganda/information/moral) warfare and 

a combination of other types that might include but 

are not limited to psychological war, financial war, 

trade war, cyber war, diplomatic war, proxy war, 

narco-criminal war, and guerrilla war.43 The combination of all available ways and means of conducting conflict includes military and nonmilitary, lethal 

and nonlethal, and direct and indirect methods. These 

combinations might include but are not limited to the 

following:
22

• Conventional war/cyber war/media war (e.g., 

Georgia, 2008);

• Surrogate or proxy war/intelligence war/media war (e.g., Lebanon, 2006);

• Narco-criminal war/financial war/psychological war (e.g., Mexico, to date);

• Diplomatic war/media war/conventional war 

(e.g., Algeria, 1954-62); and,

• Guerrilla war/psychological war/narco-criminal war (e.g., Peru, to date).

Any one of the above types of or combinations 

can be combined with others to form completely new 

methods and combinations of conflict. There are no 

means that cannot be combined with others. The only 

limitation is one’s imagination. As a consequence, politically effective contemporary warfare requires the 

services of civilian warriors—as well as professional 

soldiers and policemen—who can conduct persuasion-coercion-propaganda war, media war, financial 

war, trade war, psychological war, network (virus) 

war, insurgency war, chemical-biological-radiological 

war, etc.44 Soldiers no longer have a monopoly on 

power. New civilian warriors must be included in the 

strategic architecture for contemporary warfare.45

These realities require a new cognitive paradigm 

that would lead strategic leaders to an understanding 

that, inter alia:

• The United States is not the only important 

player in the global or hemispheric security arena. For any degree of success in providing the 

foundations for a sustainable peace, involvement must be understood as a holistic process 

that relies on various national and international 

agencies and institutions working together in a 

collegial and synergistic manner.
23

• At the highest level, the United States and its 

partners in a conflict must be in general agreement with regard to the threats, end-state, and 

associated set of multidimensional operations 

to achieve their common political vision. Although such an agreement regarding a strategic or operational end-state is a necessary 

condition for effective partnerships, it is not 

sufficient.

• That agreement must be supported by an executive-level organizational structure that can 

identify, plan, and implement a holistic plan of 

action. That same structure must also ensure 

that all political-economic-informational-military-etc. actions at the operational and tactical 

levels directly contribute to the achievement of 

the strategic political end-state. This requirement reflects a further need to develop an endstate planning mechanism within the executive-level management structure.

• Even though the United States is not the only 

player in the global security arena, it can often 

be the most powerful and influential one. Thus, 

every effort must be taken to ensure partnership clarity, unity, and effectiveness by collaboratively integrating U.S. political-military 

planning and implementing processes with allies and partners.

• Continued and enhanced multilateral dialogues 

(e.g., mandatory higher education, personnel 

exchanges, conferences, roundtables, workshops, exercises, games, etc.) will build on mutually rewarding relationships and contribute 

to the strategic thought underlying multilateral 

security policy and strategy. Such collabora-
24

tion, together with a healthy exchange of ideas, 

is an example of the strength and potential of 

national and international civil-military relations.

• Information and intelligence are force multipliers, and commanders and leaders at all levels 

must take the responsibility for collecting and 

managing relevant information for their own 

use.

• Indirect engagement versus direct involvement 

is an extremely important and effective tool of 

statecraft in contemporary conflict situations.

• The importance of learning how to defend 

one’s own centers of gravity as well as attacking those of an opponent—and the ultimate 

penalty for not doing so—cannot be overstated.

• There is value in replacing U.S. operationally 

oriented officers with Foreign Area Officer 

(FAO) diagnosticians in designing and managing indirect and direct security assistance programs.

• Contemporary conflict situations, whether they 

are political, commercial, or ideological/religious, are not limited; they are total. Conflict 

is not a kind of appendage—a lesser or limited 

thing—to the development or disruption of 

well-being. As long as destabilizers (e.g., poverty, disease, environmental degradation, etc.) 

exist that can lead to the destruction of a people, a society, and/or government, there will be 

conflict. These destabilizers are as detrimental 

as human determination to risk everything to 

take down a government violently, destroy a 

society, or cause great harm to a society.
25

Conclusions and Implications. These recommendations for beginning the processes of paradigm 

change—although not complete—take us beyond 

doing “something” for something’s sake. They take 

us beyond developing budgets, force structure, and 

equipment packages for a given crisis situation. They 

take us beyond asking: What are we going to do? and, 

Who is going to command and control the effort? These 

imperatives take us to cooperative, collegial, holistic, 

and long-term planning and the accomplishment of 

strategic ends, ways and means that directly support 

the accomplishment of a 21st-century end-game. 

Even though prudent governments must prepare 

for high-risk, low-probability conventional interstate 

war, there is a high probability that the President of 

the United States and the Congress and leaders of other powers around the world will continue to require 

civil-military participation in unconventional conflicts 

well into the future. Additionally, the spillover effects 

of intranational and transnational nonstate actor destabilization efforts and the resultant internal conflicts 

place demands on the global community—if not to 

solve the underlying problems or control the violence, 

then at least to harbor the living victims. 

This does not mean that the United States must be 

involved all over the world all the time. It does mean, 

however, that the United States must rethink and renew its concept of security. In much the same way that 

George F. Kennan’s Containment Theory of Engagement was conceived in 1947, philosophical underpinnings must be devised for a new policy to deal with 

more diverse threats—from unpredictable directions 

and by more diverse state and nonstate actors.
26

QUESTIONS THAT ARISE OUT OF THE 

CONTEMORARY SECURITY DILEMMA

General Rupert Smith postulates two sets of questions regarding the governing rules of contemporary 

conflict to be asked and answered in developing a 

new strategic-level paradigm, and in making plans to 

implement it. These questions are based on the notion 

that a strategy is composed of two fundamental elements. The first is a set of questions that deals with the 

context of the strategy as a whole, relating directly to 

the who, where, and how questions of implementing 

a more mature and effective security design for now 

and the future. The second set deals with the context 

of the conflict, and is, in fact, a set of recommendations 

for educating strategic leaders.46 In Clausewitzian 

terms, all these questions are designed to help decisionmakers, policymakers, and planners understand 

precisely what kind of conflict they may be thinking 

about, what it is not, and what they must do to carry 

it out successfully.47

The First Set: The Context of a Holistic Strategy.

When we think about the possibilities of conflict, 

we tend to invent for ourselves a comfortable U.S.-

centric vision—a situation with battlefields that are 

well-understood, with an enemy who looks and acts 

more or less as we do, and a situation in which the 

fighting is done by the military. We must recognize, 

however, that in protecting our interests and confronting and influencing a hegemonic adversary today, the 

situation has changed. We can see that change in several ways:
27

• Q1: Who is the Enemy, and what is the New 

Center of Gravity?

• A1a: The legal-traditional concept of threats to 

national security and sovereignty is based on 

the assumption that war is fought between geographically distinct nation-state adversaries, by 

means of well-equipped and easily identified 

military forces. Traditionally, then, the enemy 

was a nation-state that violated national borders and threatened the major institutions, natural resources, and external interests of another 

state. The primary center of gravity (the hub of 

all power on which all depends) was recognizable enemy military forces, coupled with the 

nation-state’s industrial-technical capability to 

support military operations.

• A1b: Experience gained from hundreds of 

small, uncomfortable insurgency (revolutionary) wars that have taken place over the past 

half-century teaches us differently. At base, the 

enemy has now become the political actor that 

plans and implements the multidimensional 

kinds of indirect and direct, nonmilitary and 

military, and nonlethal and lethal, internal and 

external activities that threaten a given society’s 

general well-being and exploit the root causes 

of internal instability. The primary and specific 

effort that ultimately breaks up and defeats an 

adversary’s political-economic-social system 

and forces radical change is the multidimensional erosion of people’s morale and political 

will. The better a protagonist is at conducting 

the persuasive-coercive effort, the more effective that protagonist will be relative to the opposition. Accordingly, as Clausewitz taught, 
28

the contemporary primary center of gravity 

changes from a familiar military concept to an 

ambiguous and uncomfortable leadership and 

public opinion paradigm.48

• Q2: What is the Enemy’s Purpose/Motive/Objective?

• A2a: One can no longer realistically expect to 

destroy or capture an enemy’s military formation. Enemies now conceal themselves among 

the population in small groups and maintain 

no fixed address. The nontraditional, contemporary goal of becoming involved in a conflict 

is to establish conditions for achieving political-psychological rather than military objectives. Irregular enemies now seek to establish 

conditions that drain and exhaust their stronger opponents. In striving to establish these 

destabilizing conditions, opponents’ tacticallevel objectives center on attaining the widest 

freedom of movement and action. Operational-level objectives would include the achievement of short- and mid-term policy goals and 

establishing acceptance, credibility, and de 

facto legitimacy within the local, national, and 

international communities. In turn, freedom of 

movement and action takes us back to where 

we began—that is, the strategic political motive 

is to impose one’s will on one’s adversary.

• A2b: The strategic priority for some violent 

political actors is simply to operate a successful business enterprise. They are not intent on 

completely destroying the state or its institutions and replacing them with their own. Instead, they seek to “capture” the state. That is, 
29

they want a weak entity moderately capable of 

functioning in the global community (banking, 

transportation, and providing the protection of 

“sovereign” status against other nation-states), 

but one that will allow the nonstate actor the 

freedom to operate with impunity and increase 

profits. Nevertheless, these kinds of confrontations are the organized application of coercion 

or threatened coercion, intended to control an 

opposing government and compel radical political change. To make this issue more salient, 

revolutionary theorist Abraham Guillen warns 

us that “[This is] a struggle without clemency 

that exacts the highest political tension.”49

• Q3: What Interests or Security/Sovereignty Issues Does this Threaten?

• A3a: The objectives noted above represent a 

quintuple threat to the authority, legitimacy, 

and stability of targeted governments. Generally, these threats are intended to:

— Undermine the ability of a government to 

perform its legitimizing functions;

— Significantly change a government’s foreign, 

defense, and other policies;

— Isolate religious or racial communities from 

the rest of a host nation’s society, and begin 

to replace traditional state authority with 

alternative (e.g., criminal or religious) governance;

— Transform socially isolated human terrain 

into “virtual states” within the host state, 

without a centralized bureaucracy and with 

no official easily targeted armed forces; and,

— Conduct low-cost actions calculated to maximize damage, minimize response, and dis-
30

play carefully staged media events that lead 

to the erosion of the legitimacy and stability 

of a targeted state’s political-economic-social system—that is, move the state into the 

state-failure process.

• Q4: What is Power?

• A4a: Power is no longer simply combat firepower directed at an enemy soldier or industrial complex. Power is multilevel—a combined 

political, psychological, moral, informational, 

economic, social, military, police, and civil bureaucratic activity that can be brought to bear 

appropriately in the causes as well as the perpetrators of violence. It must be remembered 

that Germany’s former Chancellor Helmut 

Kohl breached the Berlin Wall with the powerful Deutschmark—not aircraft, artillery, armor, 

or infantry. This kind of result may be achieved 

by those individuals familiar with Sun Tzu’s 

“indirect approach”— brain power, an understanding of diverse cultures, an appreciation of 

the power of dreams, and a mental flexibility 

that goes well beyond traditional forms. The 

principal tools in this situation include: intelligence operations; public diplomacy at home 

and abroad; information and propaganda operations; cultural manipulation measures to 

influence and/or control public opinion and 

decisionmaking leadership; and, foreign alliances, partnerships, and traditional diplomacy.

• A4b: As a consequence, Qaio and Wang stress 

that warfare is no longer an exclusive “imperial garden” where professional soldiers alone 

can mingle. Nonprofessional warriors (hackers, 
31

financiers, media experts, software engineers, 

etc.) and hegemonic nonstate organizations are 

posing a greater and greater threat to sovereign 

nations.50

• Q5: What is Strategic Clarity?

• A5a: Conflict now involves entire populations—large numbers of national civilian and 

military agencies, other national civilian organizations, international organizations, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and subnational indigenous actors—involved in one way 

or another with complex threats to security, 

peace, and well-being. As a result, an almost 

unheard of unity of effort is required to coordinate the multilateral, multidimensional, and 

multiorganizational paradigm necessary for 

successful engagement in the contemporary interdependent world.

• A5b: Former Supreme Allied Commander in 

Europe General John R. Galvin (U.S. Army, 

Retired) argues that continuous and cooperative planning among national and international 

civilian and military organizations, beginning 

with a strategic assessment of a given situation, can establish a mechanism for developing 

a common vision for ultimate political success 

(i.e., strategic clarity). After that vision is in 

place, shared goals and objectives, a broad understanding of what must be done or not done 

or changed, and a common understanding of 

possibilities and constraints will generate an 

overarching campaign plan. That plan in turn 

becomes the basis for developing subordinate 

and supporting plans that will make direct 
32

contributions to the achievement of the desired 

end-state. Thus, the roles and missions of the 

various national and international civilian and 

military elements evolve deliberately—rather 

than in response to ad hoc “mission creep”—as 

the situation changes, and progress toward the 

achievement of a mutually agreed-upon political vision is accommodated.51

• Q6: What Makes Contemporary Conflict Ambiguous?

• A6a: The traditional distinction between crime; 

terrorism; subversion; insurgency; popular militia, mercenary, and gang activity; and warfare 

are blurred. Underlying the ambiguities is the 

fact that most of these activities tend to be intrastate affairs (i.e., not issues between sovereign 

states) that international law and convention is 

only beginning to address. Contemporary conflict is one part of several parts of one society 

against another. There are virtually no rules. In 

these wars there is normally no formal declaration of nor termination of conflict; no easily 

identifiable enemy military formations to attack and destroy; no specific territory to take 

and hold; and no single credible government or 

political actors with which to deal or to hold 

responsible. There are no legal niceties such as 

mutually recognized borders and Geneva Conventions to help control a situation; no guarantee that any agreement between contending 

parties will be honored; and no commonly accepted rules of engagement to guide the leadership of any given state or nonstate actor.
33

• A6b: Additionally, in this context, there is no 

territory that cannot be bypassed or used; no 

national boundaries or laws that cannot be ignored or used; no method or means that cannot 

be disregarded or used; no battlefield (dimension of conflict) that cannot be ignored or used; 

and no nation, transnational or nonstate actor 

or international organization that cannot be 

ignored or used in some combination. This is 

why Qiao and Wang call this kind of war/conflict ‘unrestricted war.’52

• Q7: What Makes Contemporary Conflict Total?

• A7a: Present and future irregular asymmetric 

wars can be total on at least three different levels—scope, social geography, and time. In terms 

of scope and social geography, conflict can now 

involve entire populations, their neighbors, 

and friends. At the same time, conflict involves 

a large number of national and international 

organizations, alliances, partnerships, private 

voluntary organizations, NGOs, and other associated multilateral entities. As long as opposition exists capable of living among the people 

and risking everything to take down a government violently, destroy a society, or cause great 

harm to a society, there is war. This is a zerosum game in which there is only one winner. It 

is therefore total.

• A7b: As a consequence, time (the long term) 

becomes one of the many instruments of contemporary power and statecraft. In the terms 

of Guillen (and other “New” and “Old” Socialist thinkers and practitioners, such as Mao 

Zedong) Total War (the long war) includes no 
34

place for compromise or other options short of 

the ultimate political objective (radical political 

change). Negotiations cannot be considered a 

viable means to end a conflict. Rather, negotiations are tactical and operational-level means 

for gaining time. Vladimir Lenin was straightforward: ‘Concessions are a new kind of war.’53

Historian J. Boyer Bell reminds us that at the beginning of the 21st century, much of the world is ripe 

for those who wish to change history, avenge grievances, find security in new political structures, and/

or protect or reestablish old ways. Most of all, those 

who want to destabilize and destroy present systems 

to build new and supposedly better structures are not 

easily discouraged. They are not looking for anything 

tangible. They seek the realization of a dream—the 

Marxian rewards of history. Thus, this century, like 

the last, offers the prospect of war—new wars that are 

total and unrestricted—outside traditional rules, limitations, and conventional methods.54

The Second Set of Questions: The Conduct of 

Contemporary Conflict.

The second set of questions is designed to assist 

those responsible for dealing with threats imposed on 

the global community by hegemonic political actors. 

Given today’s realities, the failure to prepare adequately for present and future contingencies is unconscionable. At a minimum, there are five educational 

and organizational imperatives needed to implement 

the explicit and implied tasks in the first set of questions. They are:
35

• Q1: What must civilian and military leaders 

know regarding contemporary conflict? 

• A1: Civilian and military leaders at all levels 

must learn the fundamental nature of subversion and insurgency, with particular reference 

to the way in which military and nonmilitary, 

lethal and nonlethal, and direct and indirect 

force can be employed to achieve political ends, 

and the ways in which political-psychological 

considerations affect the use of force. Additionally, leaders need to understand the strategic 

and political-psychological implications of operational and tactical actions.

• Q2: How must civilian and military leaders 

conduct themselves with other professionals 

and civilians? 

• A2: Civilian and military personnel are expected 

to be able to operate effectively and collegially 

in coalitions or multinational contingents. They 

must also acquire the ability to deal collegially 

with civilian populations and with local and 

global media. As a consequence, efforts that 

enhance interagency, as well as international, 

cultural awareness—such as higher education, 

civilian and military exchange programs, language-training programs, and combined (multinational) exercises—must be revitalized and 

expanded. 

• Q3: What should civilian and military leaders 

understand about intelligence capability? 

• A3: Leaders must learn that intelligence capability several steps beyond the usual is required 

for irregular asymmetric conflicts. This capabil-
36

ity involves active utilization of intelligence operations as a dominant element of both strategy 

and tactics. Thus, civilian leaders and military 

commanders at all levels must be responsible 

to collect and exploit timely intelligence. The 

lowest echelon where adequate intelligence assets have been generally concentrated is the division or brigade. Yet, such operations in most 

contemporary conflicts are conducted independently by battalions and smaller units.

• Q4: Should “peacekeepers” be able to do more 

than observe and keep belligerents apart? 

• A4: Yes, certainly. Hegemonic nonstate actors 

in any kind of intrastate or interstate conflict 

are likely to have at their disposal an awesome 

array of conventional and unconventional 

weaponry. The “savage wars of peace” have 

and will continue to place military forces and 

civilian support contingents to harm’s way. 

Thus, leadership development must prepare 

peace enforcers working in compliance with 

Chapter 6 and 7 of the UN Charter to be effective warfighters.

• Q5: What are the primary organizational requirements for dealing with contemporary 

conflict? 

• A5: Governments must restructure themselves 

to the extent necessary to establish the appropriate political mechanisms for an effective 

unity of effort. The intent is to ensure that the 

application of the various civilian and military 

instruments of power directly contribute to a 

mutually agreed-upon end-state. Generating a 
37

more complete unity of effort (strategic clarity) 

will require contributions at the international 

and multilateral levels (horizontal unity), as 

well as the national level (vertical unity). 

As we rethink contemporary security, we must not 

think of ourselves as much as “war fighters” as “war 

preventers.” Thus, it is incumbent on the United States 

and the rest of the global community to understand 

and cope with the threats imposed by contemporary 

nontraditional actors and think outside the box. We 

must replace the old Westphalian thinking with a 

holistic national-international and civil-military approach as it applies to the chaos (disequilibrium) 

provoked by the diverse state, nonstate, and transnational threats and menaces that heretofore have been 

ignored or wished away.

CONCLUSIONS

The above challenges and tasks are not radical. 

They are only the logical extensions of basic security 

strategy and national and international asset management. By accepting these challenges and tasks, the 

United States and the West (and perhaps others) can 

help replace conflict with cooperation, harvest hope, 

and fulfill the promise that a new multidimensional 

security paradigm offers. These cooperative efforts 

may not be easy to establish; however, they should 

prove in the mid to long term to be far less demanding 

and costly in political, economic, military, and ethical 

terms than continuing a business as usual/crisis management approach to contemporary global security.

In discussing the utopian dreams and destructive 

activities of hegemonic state and nonstate actors, Albert Camus admonishes us to understand that:
38

He who dedicates himself to the destruction of the old 

in order to build something new [and possibly better] dedicates himself to nothing and, in his turn, is 

nothing. But, he who dedicates himself to the dignity 

of mankind, dedicates himself to the earth and reaps 

from it the harvest that sows its seed and sustains the 

world again and again.55

ENDNOTES

1. Boutros-Boutros Ghali, “Global Leadership after the Cold 

War,” Foreign Affairs, March/April 1996, pp. 86-98.

2. Ibid., pp. 90-93.

3. See, for example, Seyom Brown, New Forces, Old Forces, 

and the Future of World Politics, New York: Harper Collins College 

Publishers, 1995, p. 46.

4. See: Hans J. Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace, New York: McGraw Hill-Publishing Company, 1985.

5. Albert Camus, The Rebel, New York: Vintage Books, 1956, 

p. 179.

6. Ibid. Also see Robert Gilpin, War and Change in World Politics, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1993.

7. See, for examples, Frank N. Trager and Philip S. Kronenberg, eds., National Security and American Society, Lawrence, KS: 

University Press of Kansas, 1973; Amos A. Jordan, William J. Taylor, Jr., and Michael J. Mazarr, American National Security, 5th Ed., 

Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University Press, 1999.

8. Kimbra L. Fishel, “Challenging the Hegemon: Al Qaeda’s 

Elevation of Asymmetric Insurgent Warfare onto the Global Arena,” in Robert J. Bunker, Networks, Terrorism, and Global Insurgency, London, UK: Routledge, 2005, pp. 115-128.
39

9. Primary source material on statements made by al Qaeda is available from usinfo.state.gov/topical/pol/terror/99129502.

html. Also see Raymond Ibrahim, The al Qaeda Reader, New York: 

Broadway Books, 2007.

10. Edward Wong, “China’s Navy Reaches Far, Unsettling the 

Region,” The New York Times, June 15, 2011, p. A11.

11. Lee Feinstein and Ann-Marie Slaughter, “A Duty to Prevent,” Foreign Affairs, January/February 2004, pp. 147-148.

12. Amitai Etzioni, “Responsibility as Sovereignty,” Orbis,

Winter 2006, pp. 1-15.

13. Responsibility to Protect, New York: International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS), p. 13.

14. Ibid., p. 2.

15. Available from www.oas.org/document/eng/DeclarationSecurity__102803.asp.

16. Ibid.

17. Max G. Manwaring, Security in the Americas: Neither Evolution nor Devolution—Impasse, Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, 2004.

18. Francis M. Deng et al., Sovereignty as Responsibility, Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, 1996, p. 33.

19. Feinstein and Slaughter, “A Duty to Prevent,” pp. 136-150.

20. Etzioni, “Responsibility,” pp. 1-15; also see OAS Declaration on the Responsibility to Protect, available from www.oas.org/

documents.

21. Barry Buzan, People, States and Fear, 2nd Ed., Boulder, CO: 

Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1991; Keith Krause and Michael C. 

Williams, eds., Critical Security Studies, Minneapolis, MS: University of Minnesota Press, 1997; Mohammed Ayoob, “Defining Security: A Subaltern Realist Perspective,” in Krause and Williams, 
40

pp. 121-146; Daniel C. Esty et al., “The State Failure Project: Early 

Warning Research for U.S. Foreign Policy Planning,” in John L. 

Davies and Ted Robert Gurr, eds., Preventive Measures: Building 

Risk Assessment and Crisis Early Warning System, New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 1998; Anthony T. Bryan, Transnational Organized Crime: The Caribbean Context, Miami, FL: The Dante B. Fascell 

North-South Center Press, University of Miami, 2002; “El delito 

como una amenaza geopolitica” (“The Offence as a Geopolitical 

Threat”), available from Clarin.com, July 3, 2003. 

22. Ray S. Kline, World Power Assessment: A Calculus of Strategic Drift, Washington, DC: Georgetown University Center for 

Strategic and International Studies, 1975. Others would include 

Wayne Ferris, The Power Capabilities of Nation-States, New York: D. 

C. Heath and Company, 1973; J. F. K. Organski and Jacek Kugler, 

“Davids and Goliaths: Predicting the Outcomes of International 

Wars,” Comparative Political Studies, July 1978, pp. 141-181; and 

Colonel Harry Summers, U.S. Army (Ret.), On Strategy: The Vietnam War in Perspective, Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, 

U.S. Army War College, 1981.

23. Kline, pp. 29-112.

24. Available from www.mbc.edu/faculty/gbowen/weinberger.

htm.

25. Available from en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powell_Doctrine.

26. T. X. Hammes, The Sling and the Stone, Grand Rapids, MI: 

Zenith Press, 2006, p. i.

27. Ibid., pp. I, 210, 246-257. 

28. Clausewitz and Sun Tzu warned us of all this centuries 

and years ago. See Carl von Clausewitz, On War, Michael Howard 

and Peter Paret, eds. and trans., Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1976; and Sun Tzu, The Art of War, Samuel B. Griffith, 

trans., Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1963.

29. Hammes, p. 209.

30. Ibid. p. i.
41

31. General Rupert Smith, The Utility of Force: The Art of War 

in the Modern World, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2007, pp. 3, 415.

32. Clausewitz, p. 88.

33. Smith, 2007, pp. 374-385.

34. Ibid., p. 331.

35. Ibid., p. 271.

36. Ibid., p. 334.

37. Ibid., p. 332.

38. Ibid., pp. 332-334.

39. John T. Fishel and Max G. Manwaring, Uncomfortable Wars 

Revisited, Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 2010, pp. 

53-54.

40. Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui, Unrestricted Warfare, Beijing, China: PLA Arts and Literature Publishing House, 1999, pp. 

143, 157.

41. Roger Trinquier, Modern Warfare: A French View of Counterinsurgency, Ft. Leavenworth, KS: Combined Arms Research Library, 1964, p. 35.

42. Ibid.

43. Qiap and Wang, p. 154 .

44. Ibid., p. 123.

45. Ibid., p. 41.

46. Smith, pp. 392, 405.

47. Clausewitz, p. 88.

48. Ibid., p. 596.
42

49. Abraham Guillen, Philosophy of the Urban Guerrilla: The 

Revolutionary Writings of Abraham Guillen, Donald C. Hodges, ed. 

and trans., New York: William Morrow, 1973, pp. 278-279.

50. Qiao and Wang, p. 41.

51. Author interview with General John R. Galvin, August 

6, 1997, Boston, MA. The complete interview is included in the 

Spring 1998 Special Issue of Small Wars & Insurgencies, No.1, p. 9.

52. Qiao and Wang, 1999.

53. V. I. Lenin, “Capitalist Discords and Concessions Policy,” 

Robert C. Tucker, ed., The Lenin Anthology, New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1975, pp. 628-634. Also see Guillen, 1973, p. 

279.

54. J. Boyer Bell, Dragonwars, New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction 

Publishers, 1999, pp. 21-33.

55. Camus, 1956, p. 302.
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