Conventional Warfare in the 21st Century

Conventional warfare is increasingly ill-suited to fighting and winning wars in the 21st Century. Critically evaluate that claim. You should refer in your answer to examples of contemporary conflicts.

Conventional warfare is any conflict between two or more states that uses conventional weapons, rather than weapons of mass destruction such as nuclear, biological or chemical weapons. As I will argue in the following essay however, conventional warfare is becoming increasingly outdated in dealing with violent conflict in the 21st Century. While the motives, methods and battlefields of war are all rapidly changing, the strategy of many nations has failed to change with it, resulting in only ineffectual campaigns. In the 21st Century the goals of many conflicts are vastly different to those of the 20th Century. Now profit and resources are the motivating factor, rather than the acquisition of land. In these New Wars, it is often in the best interest of one party to prolong the fighting, such as was the case in Sierra Leone with the Revolutionary United Front (RUF.) The tactics of war too have changed. In the fight against ISIS, for example, we have seen the tactics employed go far beyond conventional warfare. Both within enemy nations and ISIS controlled territory, they have used a mixture of Guerrilla and terror tactics, along with more traditional tactics. This, in culmination with their heavy presence on social media has made any conventional tactics unlikely to succeed. In addition to this, the very places these wars take place have changed, with very high civilian casualty rates often being the result.

MOTIVES

Conventional Wars are normally started based on a claim to territory,^[1] however the 21st Century (and to a lesser extent the 1990s) has seen an explosion in the proliferation of conflict to create profit. This creates a situation where a military group is self-funding and rewards the continuation of fighting to exploit further profit.^[2] This idea is central to the theory coined by Mary Kaldor of “New Wars.”^[3] We saw this in the Sierra Leone civil war, where Sierra Leone ambassador Ibrahim Kamara said in 2000, “The root of the conflict is and remains Diamonds, Diamonds and Diamonds.”^[4] The Revolutionary United Front (RUF) controlled diamonds in the country, which were sold to fund the war, which in turn further allowed them to control the production of diamonds.^[5] Immediately, this rules out one of the most effective methods of Conventional Warfare for any nation with superior resources; war of attrition. While throughout history it was possible to wear down and demoralise an enemy over time, or stay in the war for so long your opponent could no longer finance the conflict, in many cases during the 21st Century conflict equals money. This has been most commonly seen with incursion from African Warlords, where they actively seek ways to continue these conflicts.^[6] In addition during the 21st Century the spread of ideology seems to be a major focus. Prolonged military activity can also be of benefit to this goal. These conflicts help to exert political and religious influence over a populace, and further entrench cleavages, particularly in divided societies.^[7] Conventional warfare fails to account for this fact, not distinguishing that putting troops in to fight in such a war exacerbates this situation. With this in mind, it is highly unlikely any military involvement would end with victory, as even if a temporary solution is found, it will cause more tension and potentially conflict in the future, be it in the form of political struggle or fully fledged civil war.