Optimism has made wars likelier and bloodier

The Future of War: A History. By Lawrence Freedman. PublicAffairs; 400 pages; $30. Allen Lane; £25.

THIS is not really a book about the future of warfare, with all that might imply in terms of exotic technologies that will transform not only the character of war, but, some believe, even its very nature. Lawrence Freedman does indeed discuss the impact of cyber-attacks, artificial intelligence and machine learning on the conflicts of the future. But that is not his main purpose. The clue is in the title. The author, arguably Britain’s leading academic strategist, examines how ideas about how future wars could be fought have shaped the reality, with usually baleful results.

In the middle of the 19th century, a generation after Waterloo, the classical ideal of warfare, seemingly epitomised by Napoleon but derived from the ancient Greeks and the Romans, still held sway. Wars would be short and victors would achieve their (usually) limited political aims. Maximum effect with the first blow was crucial, preferably achieved by forcing an adversary into a “battle of annihilation”.

Prussia’s defeat of France at the battle of Sedan in 1870 and the surrender of Napoleon III showed how it should be done. Prussian military organisation and tactical genius, embodied by Helmuth von Moltke, had demonstrated the classical ideal in a modern context. Prussia’s success spawned imaginative works, such as the fictional tale of “The Battle of Dorking”, published in England the following year, depicting a successful invasion. Almost equally imaginative war plans drawn up by general staffs across Europe warned how a nation lacking in preparedness could be quickly defeated by a competent aggressor (usually expected to be Prussia/Germany). Little attention was paid to the problem the Prussians had after Sedan of subduing a population that did not accept the verdict of the battlefield.

Even as people’s wars were replacing the “cabinet” wars of the past, the belief in swift, clean victories became ever more baked into concepts of future war. In particular, the German general staff before the first world war, led by the victor of Sedan’s nephew, Helmuth von Moltke the younger, was in the grip of short-war illusion. This was not for lack of evidence to the contrary: the history books available to them could have shown how rare it was for single battles or brilliant generals to be decisive. Most wars have been wars of attrition, settled by which side had more staying power through the ability to apply men and materiel. Nearly all the belligerents in 1914 believed they would be fighting a short war, until they found they weren’t.

Even after that experience, belief in the possibility that wars between great powers could be decisive and quick endured. By restoring mobility and manoeuvre to the battlefield, tanks and planes would revive the classical ideal. National resistance movements fighting on after defeat would be ruthlessly crushed. Once again, an idea about the future of war made a real war not just imaginable but attractive. And just as before, despite the early successes of the Germans in Russia and the Japanese at Pearl Harbour, the near-inevitable defeat of both by more powerful coalitions demonstrated the folly of those ideas.

Today, the same wishful thinking is as stubborn as ever. The so-called revolution in military affairs (RMA), begun in the 1980s, brought together a cluster of new technologies that, as the author puts it, “collected, processed, fused and communicated information with those that applied military force”. These included digital networks, fast data links, sensors and precision guidance using GPS or lasers.

Initially developed to give NATO commanders the ability to destroy numerically superior Warsaw Pact tank formations without having to resort to nuclear weapons, their devastating effectiveness was not fully understood until the first Gulf war in 1991. Cruise missiles snaked through Baghdad streets on their way to their targets, and videos showed laser-guided bombs exploding with pin-point accuracy. This seemed to announce the advent of a form of warfare that combined the best of the classical ideal with the promise of minimal casualties (even of the adversary, whose forces could be destroyed without the mass killing of civilians).

But once again, the future of war defied those who had come to believe that wars could be quick and relatively painless for those with superior technology and doctrine. The Iraq war and its aftermath came as another salutary shock. Although Iraq’s army quickly succumbed to “shock and awe”, the RMA was little help against a brutal insurgency in which the main battleground was cities and the enemy’s weapons were suicide-bombers and improvised explosive devices.

Today, advocates believe that another technological advance could fundamentally change the character of war. Unmanned systems equipped with artificial intelligence and varying degrees of autonomy suggest a future of war in which machines take the brunt of the fighting and make decisions at hyper-speed. Cyber-weapons that blind and disable the enemy’s own systems could become more important than physical violence in determining outcomes.

Will these technologies make war more likely by making it more acceptable? Sir Lawrence is sceptical. The bar for interstate wars between major powers will, mercifully, remain high thanks to the deterrent of nuclear weapons. On current trends, most wars will be civil wars in weak states, or “hybrid” wars in which cyber-disruption, false information and infiltration are the weapons of choice. Fighting is more likely to be in big cities than in open terrain, because that is where most people live. The battle of Mosul is a reminder of how lethal and destructive urban warfare remains for both fighters and civilians.

But even this is uncertain: the one thing that Sir Lawrence is sure of is that predictions of future war rarely get it right. His message to policymakers is to beware those who tout “the ease and speed with which victory can be achieved while underestimating the resourcefulness of adversaries”. Anybody who thinks otherwise should read this book.