A social theory of war: Clausewitz and war reconsidered

This article presents a new theory of war that is grounded in the insights of Clausewitz on the social nature of conflict. Clausewitz had argued that war is a political process; he therefore distinguished between 'war'-understood in political terms-and warfare-understood as fighting. He then created a typology covering a spectrum of war ranging from total to limited, the political stakes of a conflict determining where it would fall on the spectrum. I develop and modify this basic framework by arguing that the social organization of the actors has a determining role in predicting the stakes of war. I then show how this framework helps us understand some key problems in the political science literature on war and conflict. I attempt to show two main things: (1) that there are different types of wars (and that these differences are not necessarily related to the standing of the actors, i.e. the presence or absence of sovereignty); and (2) that how war and warfare are related is more complicated than previously understood and that this has implications for the political science literature on order, conflict and violence. Very few of the new manifestations in war can be ascribed to new inventions or new departures in ideas. They result mainly from the transformation of society and new social conditions. (Clausewitz 1989, 515) War cannot be divorced from political life (Verkehr), and whenever this occurs in our thinking about war the many links that connect the two elements are destroyed and we are left with something pointless and devoid of sense (Clausewitz 1989, 605).