As technology and nations continue to evolve, so does warfare. We have entered the sixth generation and must understand that no conflict can be fought without the backing of people.
- After World War 2, Clausewitz’ Trinity of People. Army and the Government evolved into a larger spectrum of operational, logistical, technological, and social dimensions bonded by a Single Dynamic Policy on top of the pyramid. According to Michel Howard, “The main lines along which military events progress and to which they are restricted, are political lines that continue throughout the war into subsequent peace.
- It is important to understand that Pakistan is in an environment whence entire West is backing India in the conflict. Therefore other than an odd ally, the people matter all the more.
Do political relations between peoples and their government stop, or, are diplomatic notes no longer exchanged? Is not war just another expression of their thought? Its grammar indeed may be its own, but not its logic. In conflicts leaders have to create those “fleeting opportunities of National Character and Morale”.
Unless the government does not come up with a comprehensive ends-means relationship to internal and external issues, military can only provide some respite. As in the past, such a dysfunctional cycle will continue to be repeated at a cost.
In modern warfare, military actions can only be a part of the larger political victory and not a compartmented solution. A broad spectrum political rather than a short-lived military victory should be the order of the day.
In warfare, the military is just one instrument of violence that can be utilised for the ends of policy. Hence the corner stones of any security policy will be the defence policy, technology, economics including logistics and the people. To the contrary (amongst many other instruments) military plans in isolation are likely to operate in a vacuum.
In prolonged conflicts, this emotive factor driven by mixed feelings of hate, love, patriotism, ideologies and beliefs even manages to overpower the best of armies and technology (Michel Howard in Forgotten Dimensions of Strategy). Wars are planned around a strategic logic and rationality. On the contrary, wars especially long ones cannot be premised around sexed up dossiers, hate and metaphysics.