The Nature of War: Questioning Our Assumptions

by Lieutenant Colonel Sasha J. Kudlow, U.S. Marine Corps

Editor's Note:  Lieutenant Colonel Kudlow's thesis won the FAO Association writing award at the National War College, U.S. Defense University.  The Journal is pleased to bring you this outstanding scholarship.

Disclaimer:  The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the National Defense University, the U.S. Marine Corps, the Department of Defense, or the U. S. Government.

Clausewitz’s first chapter of his treatise “On War” describes the nature of war through a variety of lenses: a duel, two wrestlers, the requisite use of force against an adversary, a struggle that is never final, a human endeavor, a “continuation of politics by other means,” a trinity of violence, chance, and policy. He begins the second chapter by stating, “The preceding chapter showed that the nature of war is complex and changeable.” Clausewitz defined the multifaceted nature of war while acknowledging that the nature of war could change. Yet today’s western military doctrine emphasizes Clausewitz’s observations that war’s nature is fixed and that violence and physical force are essential components of this nature. Many discussions treat the fixed nature of war as fact, bypassing debate in favor of a robust discussion about the character of war and its tools and tactics. Military doctrine, professional military education, and the leaders who have built careers from mastering doctrine reinforce the concept of an unchanging nature of war. 

This essay argues that the concept of an unchanging nature of war is a critical assumption that should be questioned and challenged by military decision-makers. The absence of substantive challenges to the assumption that the nature of war is unchanging risks misaligning the military instrument of power with political aims and strategic objectives. When decision-makers assume the nature of war is unchanging, they risk incorrectly assessing adversaries’ strategic cultures and understanding of war, triggering biases embedded in American strategic culture and institutions and ineffectively employing the military instrument of power to support whole-of-government strategies.

Questioning a Critical Assumption: The Immutable Nature of War

The idea that the nature of war could change is discussed in military education as an academic exercise; however, the institutional position is clearly stated in Joint doctrine, “The basic nature of war is immutable.” Removing the assumption that the nature of war is immutable could inspire new approaches to war’s challenges and planning considerations. Questioning this assumption would change how strategists understand U.S. national interests, threats to U.S. interests, and address uncertainties. Studying how the nature of war could change may lead planners to new insights into creatively applying instruments of power in a global future that is increasingly “volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous.” Deep exploration of this topic may provide an opportunity to reassess and realign civil-military relations. In questioning assumptions about the nature of war, decision-makers may discover new opportunities to enhance their strategies.

Today, assumptions about the nature of war can lack description and context. No timeframe bounds the premise of the unchanging nature of war. The entire planet has evolved over millennia, at a pace barely detectable by its inhabitants, yet somehow military doctrine assumes the nature of war is static. There is no universal baseline to describe the nature of war. There are nearly 7,000 languages in today’s world, each with its own word for war. How can military decision-makers be sure that “war” in one language bears the same context as “war” in the other 6,000-plus languages and myriad cultures? Centuries of vibrant military history provide ample description of war and conflict. Still, the accounts military students read today have been through multiple translations, modified across editions and publications, and reflect a select range of views: even “On War” had multiple contributors. The intrepid academics who explore the idea that war’s nature could change meet harsh rebuke. Why are assumptions surrounding the nature of war so sacrosanct? Does questioning the nature of war somehow erode U.S. military leaders’ primacy in offering military advice? As Clausewitz notes, if war’s nature is changeable, does that undercut the foundations upon which the military derives its power? The assumptions that frame the concept of a fixed nature of war in American military doctrine are broad, diverse, and not fully aligned. Without robust discussion and debate, the variability in the descriptions of the nature of war embeds weaknesses and risks in applying the military instrument of power.

How Do We Know We’re At War?

Clausewitz’s description of wrestlers in a struggle paints a visceral image of the force used in war; however, it also implies that each wrestler plays by the same commonly understood rule set. Revisionist powers offer a competing world view to the U.S-led rules-based international order at the political level. Thus, countries like China and Russia wield their instruments of power in ways that align with their world views, including how they perceive competition, conflict, and war. U.S. military decision-makers risk misinterpreting adversary strategic culture and misaligning resources when they do not question assumptions about the nature of war. 

War is a human endeavor shaped by the cultures and societies engaged in war. Cultures and individuals define war through their own experiences and within their own strategic cultures that develop over time. Longstanding cultural and historical variations in the definitions and uses of war indicate that the nature of war is not universal. For strategists to properly assess the strategic context that leads to war, the criteria that determine the victor and the conquered, and the conditions for war termination, they must consider adversaries’ strategic cultures and their understanding of war.

The rich and complex histories that inform military theory and doctrine do not lend themselves to a singular definition of war. Not considering alternate descriptions of the nature of war risks ceding the advantage to adversaries by misunderstanding their strategic context, the instruments of national power they are willing to leverage, and how they are prepared to leverage them to achieve their political aims. At best, planners risk entering conflict at a disadvantage or expending more national resources to shape a pre-conflict environment. At worst, decision-makers inadvertently enable a fait accompli. 

While the United States and its adversaries may each decide to wage war, the leaders who call for war may adhere to the same view of war’s nature and utility. The U.S. military holds to the Clausewitzian maxim that violence or force is a necessary war component, while China and Russia take different approaches. China embraces Sun Xi’s tenets of efficiency and “winning without fighting.” Today, China leverages information and legal processes elements to shape conditions and conduct a “non-military war” that employs cultural, economic, technical, legal, psychological, and other non-kinetic means. China describes these actions as war; however, China’s description does not meet the descriptions of war in U.S. military doctrine. 

Russia’s “active measures” campaigns and “hybrid warfare” concepts leverage “political, economic, informational, humanitarian, and other non-military measures” to sow doubt in societies, erode social cohesion and undermine trust in the government. Russia also creates frozen conflicts: sinusoidal wars with varying periods of violence and elements of hybrid warfare to achieve its political aims. Cyberweapons have become part of Russia and China’s arsenals to impose their will. They achieve political objectives, and cyberattacks present multiple vectors for disruption, including physical disruptions that could have life-threatening consequences. The future may bring even more ways for adversaries to challenge U.S. national interests.

In the competition for global power and influence in the years to come, U.S. adversaries will act in ways that match some elements of the Clausewitzian definition of the nature of war. Antagonistic states have strong incentives to use unconventional or nonviolent mechanisms to shape the battlespace and gain leverage before open conflict while bypassing the U.S. strengths of global influence and military power. While the U.S. may not view adversary actions as war, the adversary may consider their activities part of an enduring war against the west characterized by violence only when it suits adversarial interests. The asymmetries in how the U.S. and its adversaries view war can embed vulnerabilities in a strategy that reveal themselves during execution. At this point, it may be too late to generate the appropriate means to support branch plans. How confident are U.S. military planners that their adversaries view the nature of war in the same way?

Falling in Love with Our Plan: Strategic Culture and Institutional Biases

The adherence to the concept of a fixed nature of war stymies the critical and creative thought necessary for planning and operating in an increasingly complex environment and triggers institutional preferences. When decision-makers do not question assumptions about the nature of war, they may not recognize the biases that inform strategic choices and shape U.S. institutions. Military leaders must consider how the nature of war could evolve, whether rapidly due to seismic shifts in the global context or at a glacial pace that is impossible to detect throughout a twenty- or a thirty-year military career. Adherence to the idea that the nature of war is fixed and that a critical part of that nature is the use of force or violence transforms war into a uniquely martial issue. As such, expertise and decisions about war arise from the same military community responsible for conducting war, risking confirmation bias, particularly in times of crisis where information is abundant and time for critical thought is constrained. 

Military planners provide their best military advice by drawing on decades of visceral experiences from deployments and exercises, doctrine, and lessons learned. These experiences form heuristics that offer mental shortcuts but may also restrict the critical and creative thought processes necessary to effectively identify ways to counter an adversary with a different strategic culture. With military doctrine plainly stating that the nature of war does not change and must be violent, military decision-makers have few incentives to challenge these notions or consider alternatives. In an era of constrained resources, structural incentives can reward military solutions with the promise of additional resourcing. Given the complexity of today’s world with the abundance of information and the scarcity of time, military biases, doctrine, and resourcing incentives may constrain critical thinking about the nature of war and limit innovative thought. 

The focus on war’s fixed nature and the associated use of violence also triggers biases in American strategic culture. The ideas and patterns of behavior in American strategic culture shape views on the reason for war, the nature of U.S. adversaries, the reasoning for using force, and the legitimacy of who gets to use force. By not questioning assumptions about the fixed nature of war, leaders accept violence and force as mandatory components of war and accept the narratives that justify who is authorized to use violence and force within the American military. The U.S. military’s history of exclusionary policies towards minorities in warfighting roles, from racial segregation to the prohibition of women in combat, reflects components of American strategic culture at the time. These biases become embedded in institutional power structures, underutilizing swaths of the military population, embedding inefficiencies, hampering individual career opportunities and advancement, and curbing the benefits of diversity in the force. The ramifications of these past choices have shaped institutional challenges that persist to this day. 

In today’s all-volunteer force, the conception of the nature of war and its nexus with American strategic culture risks further institutionalizing historical biases and limiting the effectiveness of the entire fighting force. The belief that violence is an essential component of a fixed nature of war risks military leaders viewing specific roles, skills, and occupational fields as support functions and therefore subordinate, rather than of equal importance to, combat arms functions in achieving strategic success. This bias draws an imaginary line between the communicators, logisticians, maintenance personnel, and information-focused service members who are as essential to operational success in a dynamic environment as infantry soldiers and aviators. These embedded biases shape discussions and priorities about resourcing, equipping, and training critical components of the military force. In not reconsidering assumptions about the nature of war, the role of violence and force, and the nexus with American strategic culture and military institutions, U.S. military decision-makers risk activating long-standing biases honed over decades of military study and practice and undervaluing the people and skills necessary to succeed as the character of war changes. 

Tuning Up the Military Instrument of Power

When decision-makers fail to evaluate their assumptions about the nature of war, they risk misaligning the military instrument of power with whole-of-government strategies to achieve national security objectives and political aims. Politicians have declared war over various issues, from adversary actions to ideas, with little consideration for how violence or force achieves victory. A declaration of war is more often used to signal focus and resourcing by politicians; the last time Congress officially declared war was in 1942. The U.S. military has engaged in conflicts since 1942, from Korea to Iraq and Afghanistan, with no official declaration of war. Absent a declaration of war, how firmly aligned were military operations with national strategy? 

Suppose part of the fixed nature of war is that war must serve a political aim, but war is not declared, and decision-makers do not firmly establish a political objective. How effectively can the U.S. military ensure successful operations in support of the political aim? The question of effectiveness does not suggest that military operations at the tactical and operational levels are not highly successful -- in fact, eye-watering stories of tactical battlefield victories and inconceivable acts of heroism abound. However, have these events consistently achieved the political aim and secured peace? 

These friction points appear as the military shapes its strategies surrounding competition, countering gray zone activities and codifying how the military supports “integrated deterrence.” Military leaders encounter different challenges when developing strategies for concepts that do not involve a clear definition of combat, violence, or the application of force. These challenges manifest themselves in an over- or under-utilization of the military instrument of power. U.S. foreign policy can become militarized, which enhances the status of the U.S. military while also incentivizing U.S. adversaries’ use of gray zone and other unconventional tactics to avoid violence. This misalignment feeds the asymmetry of power that shapes adversary assumptions, choices, and actions. Perhaps by questioning the premises on the nature of war and its connection with the political purpose, it is possible to identify a more efficient, whole-of-government path to pursuing national strategic objectives.

Additionally, the U.S. military has a tremendous capacity to support other instruments of power. Military support to more significant whole-of-government efforts focused on humanitarian assistance, disaster relief, and institution building can shape the environment, erode adversaries’ influence, and combat gray zone activities. This subordination of the military to other instruments of power can shape the environment and set favorable conditions for U.S. forces in a conflict. Many of these efforts are fiscally efficient; however, they are not viewed as essential to the conduct of warfare and are regularly under-resourced. In challenging assumptions that the nature of war is fixed and violent, leaders create opportunities for critical and innovative thinking necessary to leverage the military instrument of power in support of other instruments of power, thereby shaping the environment, creating a security buffer, and diluting adversary influence more effectively. U.S. policymakers can also think beyond the pure application of force and consider the additional coercive measures that U.S. adversaries may use to achieve political aims in a contest. These critical thought processes enable a more robust consideration of resources that can counter U.S. adversaries and generate a whole-of-government approach that may result in a more efficient and sustainable strategy in an increasingly uncertain world rather than a military-driven solution.

The Nature of War: Is it Fixed or Evolving?

Questioning our assumptions about the nature of war is essential to build the critical and creative thought required to understand U.S. adversaries and U.S. military institutions, apply a whole-of-government effort to the conduct of war, and provide the best military advice to ensure that war achieves the political aim. In combining both the domestic and international implications of an evolving nature of war, military leaders can develop a more efficient, nuanced, long-term strategy tailored to adversaries who hold to different philosophies of the nature of war. The importance of the debate about assumptions regarding the fixed and violent nature of war is not in evaluating whether Clausewitz was accurate in his assessment but rather in reevaluating the use of the military instrument of power in the context of strategic cultures and in support of U.S. national strategy. 

U.S. military leaders should explore why the opportunity to question assumptions, think deeply, and debate the nature of war inspires such vehement opposition. The military has leaders who demonstrate acts of unimaginable courage and heroism on the battlefield. Still, the same community shies away from the robust debate over a concept that forms the military’s raison d’etre. Meanwhile, U.S. adversaries operate below the threshold of conflict, ensuring that the U.S. military can never bring its full might to bear against an opponent. As the world becomes more uncertain and complicated, it is crucial to engage the critical and creative thought required to ensure the military effectively supports the national security agenda. A good start would be by questioning the assumptions about the nature of war. 

About the Author

Lieutenant Colonel Sasha J. Kuhlow is a Marine Corps Intelligence Officer and a Middle East/North Africa Foreign Area Officer. She has deployed with the 31^st Marine Expeditionary Unit and served in Iraq and Afghanistan. In her most recent fleet tour, she served as the Commanding Officer of 3d Radio Battalion. She is a member of the National War College class of 2022 and is currently assigned to the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security.