Jan Willem Honig

Regaining Strategy: Small Powers, Strategic Culture, and Escalation in Afghanistan

Abstract In Western operations in Afghanistan, small European powers escalate in different ways. While Denmark and the Netherlands have contributed to Western escalation through integration with British and US forces, Norway and Sweden have done so by creating a division of labour allowing US and British combat forces to concentrate their efforts in the south. These variations in strategic behaviour suggest that the strategic choice of small powers is more diversified than usually assumed. We argue that strategic culture can explain the variation in strategic behaviour of the small allies in Afghanistan. In particular, Dutch and Danish internationalism have reconciled the use of force in the national and international domains, while in Sweden and Norway there is still a sharp distinction between national interest and humanitarianism.

War without End(s): The End of Clausewitz?

This article argues that both anti- and pro-Clausewitzians have tended to base their views on an incomplete understanding of Clausewitz. We claim that the so-called ‘new wars’ do not require a new analytical paradigm, as is suggested by anti-Clausewitzians like Martin van Creveld and John Keegan. But this does not mean that the prevailing pro-Clausewitzian discourse cannot be challenged. Clausewitz, as is well-known, employed a dialectical method of arguing in extremes. But whereas we suggest that Clausewitz sought to situate actual war between extremes, the modern discourses share the mistake of seeing the extremes as incompatible alternatives. We argue that a deeper understanding of Clausewitzs theory, and in particular his views on the state, on policy and politics, as well as on his so-called ‘trinity’ of competing forces of war, provides a framework for analysis that is still valid. This also implies that the attempt to replace Clausewitz with another classical thinker, Sun Tzu, may not be necessary; it may in fact be unproductive. Our approach furthermore suggests that a strong strand in anti-Clausewitzian discourse, which sees the new wars as endemic and marked by irrational, barbaric, and purposeless violence, is at least partly mistaken. The wars of the future may be endless, but they are unlikely to be without ends.

Strategy and Genocide: Srebrenica as an Analytical Challenge

Genocide is often seen as an extreme exhibition of senseless and purposeless violence and, as such, as particularly characteristic of modern war. The single most comprehensive examination of the 1995 Srebrenica massacre in Bosnia, which was completed by the Netherlands Institute for War Documentation (NIOD) in 2002, is drawn to such an explanation. It judges the massacre to be an improvisation associated with the irrationality of war. By evaluating the evidence also used by the NIOD report, this article contends that, on the contrary, the genocide should be understood strategically. Force was used with specific intent and deliberation. The massacre of some 7,000 people was a means to achieve a political end.

The Tyranny of Doctrine and Modern Strategy: Small (and Large) States in a Double Bind

ABSTRACTThe formation of doctrine and strategy is usually regarded as the exclusive province of the major powers. Small states and their militaries have little choice but to conform. This article, however, argues that small, developed states possess an unprecedented opportunity independently to form doctrine and pursue strategy. The reasons are a worldwide trend of devolution in political power and a concomitant democratisation of violence and reduction in the scale of military means and conflict. However, seizing this opportunity is powerfully constrained by the tyranny of outmoded ideas of how war and strategy work.ABSTRACT The formation of doctrine and strategy is usually regarded as the exclusive province of the major powers. Small states and their militaries have little choice but to conform. This article, however, argues that small, developed states possess an unprecedented opportunity independently to form doctrine and pursue strategy. The reasons are a worldwide trend of devolution in political power and a concomitant democratisation of violence and reduction in the scale of military means and conflict. However, seizing this opportunity is powerfully constrained by the tyranny of outmoded ideas of how war and strategy work.

The ‘Renationalization’ of Western European Defense

Earlier versions of this article were presented at a conference sponsored by the Dutch Ministry of Defense and the Institute for East-West Security Studies in The Hague on 1 October 1991 and at the 33rd Annual Conference of the International Studies Association in Atlanta on 3 April 1992.

Reappraising Late Medieval Strategy : The Example of the 1415 Agincourt Campaign

Modern military historians struggle to explain medieval strategic behaviour. One key reason, the article argues, is their strong belief in the existence of timeless strategic standards. By analysing the example of the 1415 Agincourt campaign, the article proposes a new approach to understanding late medieval strategy. By reconstructing the normative framework that underpinned strategic practice, the critical importance emerges of an unusual set of conventions which regulated strategy and which allowed for a degree of risk-taking that the traditional and current historiography cannot otherwise explain.

A brief encounter with major-general Carl von Clausewitz (1780–1831)

We speak in German. ‘General, I am not the first person’, I venture, ‘who can claim to have communed with you beyond the grave. There is something of a tradition of officers who have enjoyed this very special privilege – from Captain von Ponitz of the Saxon Army who, in the 1840s, published five volumes of letters you wrote to him from here on Mount Olympus, to a Lt. Col. Freudenberg who interviewed you in the 1970s for the US Army’s Military Review on the Vietnam War.1 I notice, however, that these men generally professed to be on familiar terms with you – a right to which I could not wish to make an honest claim. I beg forgiveness for my ignorance, but would you allow me first to clarify what form of address der Herr General prefers?’

Military, War, and Politics

Abstract Ensuring that the military fight in the interests of government and society has been a major issue throughout history. The political structure that is generally seen as the model of success is the state, and in particular the modern democratic state. The theories underpinning this claim tend to be highly normative and context dependent. Based overwhelmingly on a strongly entrenched Western-centric narrative of historical development, much social science has struggled to reorient itself to understand and address the current conflicts and political disorders that rack the globe.

The New Military Security Risks. How Do We Recognise and Approach Them

Predicting the future is notoriously difficult. Producing lists of security risks that may call for military responses is perhaps less difficult, even in the uncertain international climate of today. However, predicting the timing and significance of such risks in terms of severity and political consequences is another matter altogether. The current state of academic theorising offers little solace. This contribution identifies three processes – emancipation, articulation and mirroring – that offer a framework for recognising and constructively approaching the more serious security risks where the threat of organised force invites counteraction.1

Peacekeeping and the Utility of Force: General Sir Michael Rose

When Lieutenant-General Sir Michael Rose stepped off the plane at Sarajevo airport on January 23, 1994, to take up his new position as the commander of the UN Protection Force (UNPROFOR) in Bosnia, the situation he found was not propitious. Peace appeared elusive and remote. The half-heartedness of the intervention by the international community and the belligerent intransigence of the warring parties had thrown the purpose and method of the UNPROFOR mission into turmoil. The role and responsibilities of the commander on the ground were ill-defined. As the most senior UN official in Bosnia, Rose found himself faced with high expectations. These went beyond achieving purely “peacekeeping” successes. As there was not yet a peace to keep in Bosnia, a natural expectation that had emerged was that UN soldiers should play a role in “making” peace. But what role should this be? Soldiers understood—or at least they thought they understood—their role in making peace in a “traditional” international war. But in a conflict within a state, in which they represented an “impartial” and “neutral” “international community,” which did not wish to impose “its” peace by force, how should the military operate? In what ways and to what extent could they use their key professional attribute, force, in such a situation? For senior commanders, like Rose, this situation presented a strategic challenge of the first order and one for which the modern military at the time received little training or made little preparation.