Warfare and State Policy: How Wars Start and End

WARFARE AND STATE POLICY: HOW WARS START AND END
By (C) Amechi Okolo, PhD.

The following two questions are very critical to proper understanding of the process and dynamics of warfare. Besides, the questions will help to generate the necessary theories to help state policy while making war decisions. The overall objective of strategic studies is to aid state policy especially in war and security issues. Specifically, the two relevant questions that will be explored in the article are:

1. At what point should a state decide to go to war?; and
2 How do wars end?

The above questions are empirical as well as theoretical. It usually takes two opposing states, groups or alliances to go to war. Even when it is a civil war, it is still between two opposing groups. So there cannot be a war until two opposing groups have clearly emerged over an issue or series of issues which they can no longer resolve peacefully.
Besides the unresolved issues, one of the contenders must also resolve to press the points and/or demands. For purposes of this article, we will use the word "aggressor" to identify the first party to declare war against the other and/or make the first violent thrust against an opponent during a period of political crisis. Correspondingly, the word "aggressee" will mean the targets of such violent thrusts and/or aggression.
Thus, the words aggression, offensive, defensive, etc., will be used purely in the above limited connotations in this article. We are however, not unaware of the historical problems involved in reaching acceptable definitions of some of those words in international system.[1] So, for war to occur there must be both an aggressor and an aggressee.
Our first question above could then be recast in one of the following different ways:
(a) At what point does military aggression occur?
(b) At what point in a political crisis does a state decide that the only rational option left to it is to go to war by attacking its opponent?

And since it takes two to make a war, our corresponding second question could also be recast as follows:
(a) At what point does a state equally to decide to accept the military challenge? Or
(b) At what point does a state decide that it should go to war to defend its position?

In other words, the aggressee still has the "option" of declining to take up the military challenge by either conceding or not to whatever demands being made by the aggressor. Thus warfare is such an ultimate act that there are still alternative options available to the participants (both the aggressor and the aggressee) and especially to the aggressee even after the aggressor has made the ultimate violent thrust. For actual warfare to occur therefore both parties must have decided and made the rational decision that violence is their best option to resolve contending issue(s). This is what we mean by the statement that war results from state policy – that it is always the outcome of a conscious rational action.

Hypothesis:
Theoretically the position of the aggressor can be stated with the following hypothesis:
That a state should decide to go into an aggressive warfare only at that point when she is sure that the — final benefits which will accrue to it from the war outcome will certainly be greater than the maximum concessions she has received or can receive from the opponent through normal political-diplomatic negotiations and pressures.

The above hypothesis is empirically verifiable and assumes a supreme level of confidence in the aggressor's military prowess, in its superiority and in its capability to subdue the opponent and get what it is demanding at acceptable costs and damages to itself.
Also a hypothesis for the aggressee can be stated as follows:

An aggressed state should accept the military option only when the alternative consequences are unacceptable or appear certain to be worse for the state if she did not got to war.

Or put differently:

A state under attack will go to war to defend herself when she is sure that the final war outcome will be a preferred alternative to granting the demands of the aggressor.

The Concept of Critical Gap:
Thus, for the aggressee her own calculations will be a little different. It should be assumed that she is probably militarily weaker and perhaps knows it which is why she did not attack first but rather preferred stretching the political "peaceful" channels/instruments of conflict resolution as far as possible. Besides, she must have made a number of concessions during the political negotiations up to the point she felt she could no longer concede further. It is therefore, actually the difference between what is being demanded from her by the aggressor and what she is willing to concede that causes war. What that difference means to each party and/or how each party feels or values that difference becomes the "critical gap" that causes warfare.
For the aggressor the "critical gap" must not only be highly valued but she must feel fully confident of clinching that from the war, while the aggressee, apart from also highly valuing the "critical gap" must also be confident of, at least, saving and retaining it during the war. Thus war therefore becomes the ultimate test of will and physical capabilities for the "critical gap". Clausewitz[2], Lenin[3], Mao and others could therefore not have been more correct when they asserted that war is the continuation of politics by other (i.e. violent) means[4]. War starts at that point when all the instruments/mechanisms of normal politics -- diplomacy, arbitration, good offices, pressures, negotiations, etc. -- could not resolve the highly valued "critical gap" which each party feels highly confident to acquire or secure during warfare.



HOW DO WARS END?
Our next task is to find out how the hostilities eventually end after the contending parties have taken the ultimate decision to resolve the "critical gap" through violence by slugging it in warfare.
Historically cessation of hostilities have occurred in either of the following two major ways:
(A) Through defeat and unconditional surrender of one of the belligerents; or
(B) Through a stalemate.

(A) Wars that End Through Defeat and Unconditional Surrender:
Defeat in war does not mean total destruction or elimination of all enemy forces nor does unconditional surrender imply that one has lost all capabilities for any resistance and damage to the enemy. No. It means that warfare has advanced to a point where the consequences of surrender have become preferable to the losing party than continued resistance. If the aggressee surrenders it means that the previously highly valued nonnegotiable "critical gap" she went to war to preserve and protect has become deranked in value because some new worse alternatives have emerged. Some examples could be like when a country goes to war because she refused to cede a certain portion of her territory to another country that is determined to get it. Then she not only lost the territory during the war but could lose other territories if the war continued.
The case of unconditional surrender occurs when a country initiates or continues a war to protect her territorial integrity and sovereignty which she considers nonnegotiable but then got to a point during the war where she became faced with the option of accepting foreign domination and rule to total decimation of her people. Between the two impossible choices, obviously the previous nonnegotiable sovereignty recedes and gives way to physical existence of the remaining inhabitants as the new preferred alternative.
The war will end because the aggressee will lay down his arms and stop fighting or resisting and the aggressor will also "agree" to stop fighting. Hostilities will therefore cease at that point and the war will end.

(B) Wars that End in stalemate:
Wars that end in stalemate occur when both parties have found the wars unwinable. Especially for the aggressor, stalemate occurs when she sees that she cannot achieve her objective. Furthermore, the costs of continued persistence would have outstripped whatever benefits she expected from further trying. At that point she will stop being the aggressor and agree to cease hostilities. The aggressee will equally agree to cease hostilities if the conditions are still preferable to her. Not only that, it must also be equally clear to the aggressee that the costs of striving to a new "higher" status or position will be unacceptable to her otherwise there is nothing in the laws of warfare that stops an aggressee from transforming herself to a new "enviable" status of becoming the aggressor.
There is therefore nothing immutable in the laws of warfare. Fortunes change in the process occasioning corresponding changes in stance and positions; and it is an enduring mark and task of good statesmanship that the dynamics of fortunes in warfare must be constantly analyzed so that policies must approximate the shifting fortunes of the war. Warfare is therefore a dynamic process just as politics -- its forebearer and root -- is dynamic and ever changing. Thus, a state that started a war as an aggressor might end up the aggressee and vise versa depending on the fortunes of warfare. A stalemated war occurs therefore when the fortunes of war have changed but not so dramatically in favor of the aggressee to turn her into the new aggressor.
Historically, however, a stalemated war is counted in favor of the aggressee, ceteris paribus. The enduring problem with stalemated war is that it often erupts again. Especially as the aggressor regroups and reorganizes itself, it might sooner or later lounge for its original objective unless there is a fundamental uttering of their basic equations.

Some Examples of Wars that Ended in Unconditional Surrender:
(1) The defeat and unconditional surrender of the Axis forces during the second world war were typical examples of where some major miscalculations by the aggressors turned the tides fundamentally in favor of the aggressees who then took maximum opportunity of their new status as the "new aggressors" to demand and receive unconditional surrender from their original aggressors.
(2) During a major political crisis in Nigeria in 1967, the eastern part of the country seceded and called herself Biafra. Nigeria then attacked Biafra to force a renunciation when Biafra refused to renounce her secession. And after three bloody years of resistance, Biafra was forced to renounce the secession. The Nigeria-Biafra war (Nigeria civil war) of 1967-70 was therefore a typical example of where the aggressor successfully defeated the enemy to achieve what she had demanded from the beginning.[5]

Some Examples of Stalemated Wars
(1) The Iraq-Iran War, (Gulf War) was a typical case of a war that ended in a stalemate or deadlock. The war started with Iraq as the aggressor by launching the first attack to claim the disputed territory of the Strait of Hormuz. At the time Iraq had all the trappings and manifestations of an aggressor -- confidence, stability, powerful military forces, excellent international environment and assured allies while Iran appeared chaotic and disintegrating under the spell of a supposedly demented and uncoordinated Muslim fundamentalism of Ayatollah Khomeni. Thus Iraq felt that the equation was right to take back the Strait of Hormuz which is an oil-rich territory that has been in dispute between them.
Unfortunately for Iraq, their calculations were wrong. Iran was neither chaotic nor militarily weak and Khomeni was neither demented nor uncoordinated. Besides, there was a large number of Shiite Muslims in Iraq who were followers of Khomeni. So just after the initial Iraqi successes, the tides began to turn against them and remained that way for most of the time.
Much more importantly, Khomeni began to manipulate the international environment better to Iranian advantage by depicting Iraq as an agent of the United States which he called "The Great Satan" and imperialism in the middle east. And in the process some major supporters of Iraq -- United States, Saudi Arabia and even Israel -- scrambled to conclude various types of secrete deals with Iran. In fact such moves later became major embarrassments for some Western governments involved in the covert deals with Iran even as they were showing vigorous overt supports for Iraq. The Iran Contra (Irangate) crisis has remained an unexplained embarrassment for the Reagan administration. The continuing saga of Oliver North is evidence of national confusion and distress with that policy.[6]
Meanwhile, Iran had literally become the aggressor; she had become stronger in the war front and continued to score more diplomatic coups against Iraq who stood disgraced for starting a war she could not win.
However Khomeni got too confident and emboldened by the turning Iranian favorable fortunes and turned into the "new aggressor". He not only refused to accept United Nations brokered cease-fire agreements but began to make unreasonable demands and to press for unrealistic goals. For example, Ayatollah Khomeni began to demand the abdication of President Sadam Hussein of Iraq and an official apology from Iraq for starting the aggression.
Then, the tides began to turn against Iran herself. In the Fall of 1988, America shot down an Iranian civilian aircraft with over 200 civilian passengers on board. That tragedy plus other cumulative pressures made Ayatollah and the Iranians to accept the cease-fire by the end of 1988.
Thus the Iraq-Iran war ended in a stalemate or deadlock and like most stalemated wars it is bound to erupt again ceteris paribus.

(2) The Gulf War of 1991:
The war which was initiated by the United States to eject Iraq from Kuwait was again a typical example of where "the aggressor" was able to achieve her declared objective. The United States succeeded in sacking Iraq from Kuwait and ended the hostilities but left Iraq with enough forces to continue to threaten Kuwait periodically since 1994. Unfortunately for Iraq, the United States still has enough forces to threaten and force Iraqi compliance each time without actual war. Meanwhile, the U.S. has stationed enough forces in the area to continue to deter the Iraqis. At this point, we can only predict that the stalemate will continue for sometime to come.

[1] For more on the problems of defining and determining aggression in thew international system read, P.E. Jacob, et al, The Dynamics of International Organization, (Homewood: The Dorsey Press, 1972), pp. 67-68.

[2] Read, Carl Von Clausewitz, On War (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976), passim.

[3] V.I. Lenin, Lenin on War and Peace: Three Articles (Peking: Foreign Language Press, 1970), p.10.

[4] Read, Amechi Okolo, Theory and Practice of War (Enugu: Cooperative Publishers, 1992)

[5] N.U. Akpan, The Struggle for Secession, 1966-1970 (London: Frank Cass, 1976), passim.

[6] For more on the continuing ripples of Irangate Crisis and the saga of Colonel Oliver North, read New York Times and Newsweek Magazine of November 1994.