The Utility of Force

The book opens with the statement that "war no longer exists";[5][6] that is, war as "battle in a field between men and machinery" or "a massive deciding event in a dispute in international affairs" is unlikely to happen again.[4] The premise of the book is that the world is experiencing a new paradigm of war in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, which Smith dubs "war amongst the people", in which nebulous, open-ended conflicts have become the norm. Smith believes that Western, industrialised armies struggle to win in "wars amongst the people" because their opponents are not uniformed armies.[2][5] He uses the term "rhizomatic" to describe terrorist and guerrilla movements; he states his belief that such fighters can adapt much more easily than state institutions, and that they exhibit a greater understanding of the utility of force.[3] Rather than being part of a recognisable army, the fighters are part of the civilian population, and their objectives are more political than military—they seek to "win hearts and minds" rather than take or hold territory. As a consequence, wars are no longer confined to a battlefield, but the theatre of operations is fluid, and commanders now operate inside the theatre.[2][5]

To prove his theory, Smith provides a detailed history of modern warfare, using examples from history to illustrate his contentions. Throughout the book, Smith analyses the use of force in each of the examples, and how it was used to achieve particular aims. The discussion of history begins with Napoleon, who invented the paradigm of industrial warfare. Prior to Napoleon, wars were mostly fought for territory rather than ideology, and did not substantially alter the balance of power between nations. Napoleon's concept of war involved using the entire resources of the nation with the aim of comprehensively defeating his opponent and replacing the political order; in order to meet the new challenge, the Prussian Army undertook sweeping reforms. Napoleon's strategy and the Prussian response influenced Prussian general Carl von Clausewitz in writing his treatise On War (published posthumously in 1832). Throughout the narrative, Smith analyses how armies applied force in order to achieve their objectives. He also discusses the emergence of guerrilla forces during the Peninsular War, which Smith believes was the first "war amongst the people"—irregular forces with no clear leadership structure conducting hit-and-run attacks on Napoleon's forces, fighting to preserve the ideology of Spanish independence rather than for a battlefield victory. The concept of industrial war culminated in the early 20th century with the two world wars.[2]

In the second half of the book, Smith states that the advent of the atomic bomb rendered industrial warfare obsolete, but that governments clung to the concept throughout the Cold War era—the Cold War itself being the last act of the old-style industrial war. The belief in industrial war tactics and institutions continued into the post–Cold War era, and Smith believes that political and military leaders refused to acknowledge the new paradigm of "war amongst the people", which resulted in significant defeats, such as for France in Algeria, the United States in Vietnam, and the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, and caused problems for NATO operations in the Balkans, and later for the Western coalitions in Iraq and Afghanistan.[2][5] Smith also notes that, in the new paradigm, soldiers are frequently being asked to undertake new tasks—such as humanitarian operations—while still equipped and trained for old-paradigm conflicts between massed armies.[4]

In the final third of the book, Smith uses six themes to describe the new paradigm of war:

• The ends for which we fight are changing from the hard objectives that decide a political outcome to those of establishing conditions in which the outcome may be decided
• We fight amongst the people, not on the battlefield
• Our conflicts tend to be timeless, even unending
• We fight so as to preserve the force rather than risking all to gain the objective
• On each occasion new uses are found for old weapons and organizations which are the products of industrial war
• The sides are mostly non-state, comprising some form of multinational grouping against some non-state party or parties.

Smith then proceeds to discuss each of the six themes in detail.[7] Smith discusses modern guerrilla and insurgency campaigns, including various civil wars and ethnic conflicts in the Balkans, the Middle East, and Africa. The conflicts he discusses in the second half are almost all "wars amongst the people" and appear intractable to conventional forces. Smith analyses situations in which countries have adapted their tactics in order to respond to "war amongst the people", such as those used by Israeli forces in response to the Palestinian Intifada, in which the Israelis resorted to targeted searches when superior firepower proved ineffective.[2] He points out that modern wars are rarely fought between individual nations, but the parties often consist of supranational coalitions or sub-state entities, and that Western governments in particular fight in such a way as to keep casualties and material losses to a minimum.[6] Smith is critical of the conduct of the American-led coalition in the Iraq War during the insurgency which followed the initial invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003; he opines that the soldiers undertaking the counter-insurgency operations did not have the proper skills or equipment for the task. He believes that the commanders were working at a tactical rather than a strategic level, and that operations were not sufficiently guided by intelligence—relying too heavily on battlefield strength and assessments of the insurgents' technical capabilities, rather than their political objectives.[3]

Smith includes various anecdotes and personal reflections from his own career, and the final chapter of the book is dedicated to Smith's reflections on his command of UNPROFOR in Bosnia.[2] Ferguson describes Smith as "candid" in admitting that he did not foresee the events at Srebenica in the summer of 1995, but Smith suggests that, even had the genocide been foreseen, UNPROFOR was not in any position to prevent it. He described the force as "reinforced camps of international troops attempting to defend the delivery of humanitarian aid, and often themselves".[4] Smith's belief was that none of the governments that contributed soldiers to UNPROFOR had any intention of committing them to fight—that they had decided "to deploy forces with no intention to employ their force", having been scared into inaction by inaccurate reporting and a lack of understanding of the war.[3][4]

In his conclusion, Smith states his belief that modern politicians and military leaders use force where it has no utility and commit military forces without fully defined political and strategic objectives. He believes that politicians and generals remain in the mindset of industrial war, which leads them to prepare for a decisive confrontation that never happens,[2] and he condemns them for failing to recognise the shift in the way wars are fought.[3] Discussing humanitarian interventions, such as those in the Balkans, Smith does not argue against intervention, but believes that the intervention must be based on a full understanding of the conflict and a clear strategy with defined objectives.[5] According to Smith, "no act of force will ever be decisive" because the aim of modern conflicts is to win the will of the people, which will not be achieved by battlefield victory alone. He argues that whereas, in the industrial war paradigm, war led to victory and thus to peace, in the modern paradigm confrontation leads to conflict, which then reverts to confrontation. He asserts that force is only part of the solution to modern conflicts; they require complex political and military solutions, which will subdue but not necessarily permanently end the conflict.[2][6]