1. Swati Jaywant Rao Bute
AMITY University, India
Intercultural Relations
and Ethnic Conflict in Asia
A volume in the Advances
in Religious and Cultural
Studies (ARCS) Book Series
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INTRODUCTION
The discussion on the future of warfare in the 21st
century is a continuing debate
as strategists continuously try to fathom the current trends and accurately predict
the way humans are going to fight in the future. As such this is an attempt to give
a brief summary of irregular/asymmetric warfare and factoring in the current trend
of conflicts and try to establish where and how majority of future conflicts will be
fought as well as the major influencers which will shape the conflicts of 21st
century.
According to Carl Von Clausewitz, the author of ‘Art of War’, war is like a
chameleon and it changes over time. The cause of the changes can be various,
including technological, societal and political changes or innovations occurring at
a given period.
Ourconceptoffutureconflict/wariscolouredandheldhostagebytheunderstand-
ing and experience of conflicts in the past era, when armed conflict was between
nation states. We imagine conflict in the shadows of armed confrontation between
two nation states .The generally character of armed conflict was that it was a sym-
metric confrontation between two opposing armies with each one trying to compel
ones opponent to fulfil our will(Lindell, 2009), by means of arms and violence.
However, post-cold war era, the nature of conflict has changed. Today conflicts
areasymmetricinnature,withconflictsincreasinglybecominganon-stateactor-State
affair. One of the primary factor for the rise of these conflicts is that the political
ideologies has been replaced by ethnic, religious and regional identities, paving way
for more of a ‘micro’ nature of conflicts. If the nation state wars were intended to be
short wars, with mobility and speed being the backbone of third generation warfare
and victory clearly defined in terms of area occupied or surrender of enemy, With
non-state entities becoming important players in a conflict present day conflicts
are open ended, longer and is a reminder of old style campaigns, reminiscent of
preindustrial age wars. There is no longer a face to face confrontation of uniformed
bodies of men like that of a conventional war.
One of the primary catalyst for the rise of asymmetric conflicts in post-cold war
scenario was the emergence of the United States of America as the sole military
power with a vastly technologically superior military force. During the Gulf war of
1991, it was proven that no force could beat the Americans in a conventional head on
battle. During Operation Desert Storm, US led coalition forces managed to reduce
the Iraqi forces from a force of about 55 divisions and almost 500 aircrafts into a
force of nearly 23 divisions and nearly 300 aircrafts in a span of four days. This
emergence of US as the undisputed victor resulted in change of tactics of pursuing
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armed conflicts world over. The result was the emergence of a kind of warfare in
which the enemy chose not to for a short a head on confrontation, but to go for long
protracted warfare. If during the conventional wars, centre of gravity was physically
tangible assets such as national capital, command and control centres of the op-
posing forces, the main aim in an asymmetric war is to zap the political will of the
opponents to carry on a war, by making the civilian population believe that the war
cannot be won or that the cost of executing the war is un sustainable or not worth the
cause. In the chapter, my attempt is to grasp the rapidly morphing nature, tools and
environment of conflicts and attempt at ascertaining the future way of conflict/war.
WHAT IS ASYMMETRIC WARFARE?
Definition of asymmetry: Asymmetric warfare is a conflict in which resource of
opponents vary and in essence and in the struggle, interact and attempt to exploit
each other’s characteristic weaknesses. Asymmetric warfare is always used by the
weaker opponent, most often Non State actors such as militant groups, insurgents
and extremists. According to Department of Defence, asymmetry is defined “In
military operations the application of dissimilar strategies, tactics, capabilities,
and methods to circumvent or negate an opponent’s strengths while exploiting his
weaknesses (Jorgensen, 2014).
The idea of asymmetric war is not a new novice. It has been in use for a long
period of time. During World War I, Germany and Britain tried to incite each other’s
colonial populations to revolt against their empires. The Arab Revolt in 1916 the
Turkish empire and the attempts by Germany to incite the Muslim population of
colonies, such as in India to rise up against the British Empire, with the declaration
of Holy war by Ottomans can be seen as an attempt of asymmetry by great powers.
AccordingtoRogerW.Barnett,inhisbookAsymmetricalWarfare:Today’sChal-
lengetoU.S.MilitaryPower,“asymmetriesariseifopponentsenjoygreaterfreedom
of action, or if they have weapons or techniques available to them that one does not.
Perpetrators seek to void the strengths of their adversaries and to be unpredictable.
They endeavour to take advantage of an ability to follow certain courses of action
or to employ methods that can be neither anticipated nor countered effectively”.
Althoughasymmetricwarfareisnotsomethingnew,thetacticsinasymmetryhas
remained unchanged, what has changed is that this type of war has reached global
level and with increased participation of non-state actors in conflict, this mode of
warfare will continue for a foreseeable future. In 1962, while addressing West Point
class, John F Kennedy stated
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This is another type of war, new in its intensity, ancient in its origin—war by
guerrillas, subversives, insurgents, assassins, war by ambush instead of by combat;
by infiltration, instead of aggression, seeking victory by eroding and exhausting
the enemy instead of engaging him. . . . It preys on economic unrest and ethnic
conflicts. It requires in those situations where we must counter it, and these are
the kinds of challenges (Buffaloe, 2006) that will be before us in the next decade
if freedom is to be saved, a whole new kind of strategy, a wholly different kind
of force, and therefore a new and wholly different kind of military training. This
may well be one of the most insightful statements by any head of states about the
upcoming nature of conflicts.
Example of Asymmetric Warfare: Hezbollah-Israel War 2006
One of the recent examples of a war fought entirely by non-state/irregular force
involved in asymmetric warfare is Hezbollah of Lebanon during the 2006 war with
Israel clearly demonstrated ability and potential of non-state actors to study and
deconstruct vulnerabilities of western style military formations. Hezbollah is a
representative of the rising, hybrid threats. During the summer of 2006, Hezbollah
revealed that with a disciplined well trained and distributed cells in densely packed
urban centres, could effectively compete against a modern conventional force using
an admixture of guerrilla tactics and technology. Hezbollah like the Chechens in
1996 were able to exploit the urban terrain to create ambushes and evade detection
and to build defensive fortification in close proximity to civilians. Also the effective
use of technology against modern weaponry by Hezbollah was a tactical surprise
for Israeli Forces. During the battle of Wadi Salouqi, a column of Israeli Merkeva
tanks were stopped, by the effective use of RPG-29 and other anti-armour weapons
against the Mark IV tanks, which came into production in 2004(Katz, 2006). The
Shia militia was even able to launch some UAVs which required IDF to adapt in
order to detect them.
However the real advantage of Hezbollah did not come from technology or
weaponry. It came from the ability to prepare the terrain and tactics for a recognised
enemywhichtheyhadstudiedandconfrontedearlier.Theyoperatedasdecentralised
cells and were willing to absorb a greater punishment to inflict a cost. The Hezbol-
lah’s katyuska rockets and cornet missiles were able to extract a price for Israel’s
intervention. The Shiite militia fired over 250 rockets on the final day of the war
(4100 rockets were fired between July 12 and August 13 2006), achieving strategic
effects in the battle ground as well as in the media, showing they were still capable
of launching missile attacks on Israel, despite its technical superiority.
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AlthoughtheIranbackedforcedidnotwinthebattleinstrictlytraditionalmilitary
prespective or terms (they suffered more casualties and damages that the opponent),
Hezbollah was able to weaken IDFs credibility and came out with a stronger ideo-
logical appeal, since IDF had failed to route them and in turn had won the battle of
perceptions. This was exploited by Hezbollah for political effect.
Retired Army officer Ralph Peters observed that
.. Displayed impressive flexibility, relying on ability of cellular units to combine
rapidly for specific operations, or when cut off operate independently after falling
back on prepositioned stock piles of weapons. Hezbollah’s combat cells were hy-
brid of guerrillas and regular troops- a form of opponent that US forces are apt to
encounter with increasing frequency (Hoffman, 2010).
The 2006 war was not a guerrilla war, involving traditional tactics, but a mix
from several models of warfare.
Armies throughout its existence have been training and orienting for state on
state confrontations or a conventional war, to take on another opposing body of
men and materials which are formed and arrayed on similar lines. Both formations
are legal and hence are expected to operate within the legal clauses of the State as
well as international norms Our military history is full of such ‘set piece battles’
Battle of Hydaspes, Battle of Gaugamela, Battle of Kursk etc being some of them.
Today’s Nation State Armed Forces however are confronted by non-state actors or
an irregular force operates outside the State and hence out of law and State. Another
point to be kept in mind is that the on state actors need not necessarily look for a
military victory, like the conventional forces, The irregular forces are looking for
victory in political terms, as they well know that the conventional forces can bring
down higher fire power and resources and that conventional armies are tactically
superior to irregular forces.
This 2006 war in Lebanon effectively gives a future of conflict: the environment
in which it will waged, the tactics which the irregular forces will employ as well as
political impact. Conflicts will be seen in the contest of physical, political cultural
and informational environments where conflicts will be fought.
Practicalities of Asymmetry
War is a contest of wills. Whoever can harness the will of the people to execute a
conflict, wins the war. Conventional capability and superiority of western Armies
such as US or UK cannot be challenged by non-state actors, and hence they will not
wantaconventionalconfrontation.AccordingtoTheAustralianArmyReport“Com-
plex War Fighting” US conventional dominance has led to asymmetric ‘avoidance
behaviour’ by its opponents. These opponents cannot defeat the US in conventional
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war. Thus non-state entities such as Al Qa’eda have adopted an asymmetric grand
strategy in which they seek arenas other than conventional military operations in
which to confront the US (Australian Army, 2009). They have also adopted an asym-
metric theatre strategy, which seeks to draw the West into increasing, protracted
and exhausting confrontation with the rest of the world.
Earlier if conventional war was the only narrative of a war, today it has become
just a phase of a conflict. Today, as we can see in the examples of the ongoing wars
in Afghanistan and Iraq, the conventional phase was short one sided and resulted
in a rapid ‘victory’ for the NATO and US troops, where they could employ all their
fire power and was given a visible enemy i.e. Taliban and Saddam regime. In to-
day’s conflict environment the victory in conventional phase is not the end result or
decisive. The asymmetric/ irregular phase starts when the opposing forces occupy
the area, after the conventional victory, and the enemy is not visible and has a much
decentralised command structure and lives amongst the population and engages in
hit and run tactics, ambushes and IED attacks.
Victory in this new phase of war cannot be defined by the conventional yard
sticks of enemy territory under control, number of enemy killed etc. The centre of
gravity in an asymmetric conflict is not purely in the physical domain, but more in a
metaphysical domain. The outcome of the conflict will not be decided by battlefield
engagements alone, but perception of the population amongst whom the battle is
fought and the population back home. Battle of perception and narrative is the key
to victory in today’s conflict. The dictum of T.E Lawrence is still valid today, when
he stated about a 100 years ago that
“We had to arrange their minds in order of battle not only of our men’s mind,
though them first: the minds of the enemy so far as we could reach them, and thirdly
mind of the nation supporting us behind the firing line and the mind of the hostile
nation waiting the verdict and the neutrals looking on.” In a battle of perceptions,
the centre of gravity, or the most coveted precession is the popular support. One of
the telling examples is the Second World War, Vietnam War and the recent conflicts
in Iraq and Afghanistan. In Second World War, US casualties numbered to about
400000, however the public will was never lost due to high casualties. However in
Vietnam War, the US endured around 58000 casualties, and in Iraq and Afghanistan
thecombinedcasualtyisaround6000.Howevertheyeffectivelylostthewarbecause
the population support to execute the war. One of the main reason for this war the
increased role of media and news which showed their countrymen getting killed in a
foreign country, for a prolonged period of time, with no effective end in sight, finally
snapped the political strength of the civilian population leading to the US defeat.
The ability of a democratic nation state to execute a war mainly comes from
the civilian society and its ability and willingness to support a war. And today with
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increased connectivity and 24 hour news channel this support can be manipulated or
coerced. The insurgent or militant knows that this is the Achilles heel of any nation
state and they try to manipulate the national will. In today’s asymmetric warfare,
one of the effective weaponry to be used for getting such a message across to the
opponent’s population is the Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs).If in Vietnam,
IEDs were responsible for 11% of deaths for US forces(Athul, 2015), during the war
in Afghanistan and Iraq IEDs accounted for more than 60% of casualties suffered
by US forces(Wilson, 2007). IED attacks are not random acts of terror; the types
of targets are specifically chosen to create certain effects, to reach a specific audi-
ence and to achieve short and long term goals. According to US Colonel William
Adamson Few experiences compare with the he
Helplessness felt by those involved in an IED attack. The experience is searing.
An IED attack has many of the attributes of a sniper ambush. IEDs are weapons of
surprise. An IED victim vaults from relative calm to chaos in the blink of an eye.
The IED strikes unexpectedly like the piercing crack of a sniper rifle. Personal
involvement with IED attacks begins with the response to a scene of a suspected
IED and often moves onto casualty evacuation, discussions with victims, patients
convalescingandcopingwithdailyrehabilitationfromwounds.Thesenseofurgency
felt on the battlefield or in the amputee wards enters living rooms via nightly news
coverage. Images of IED attacks invoke strategic influence over the public, a public
otherwise physically dislocated from combat. The strategic power of the IED comes
from a non-kinetic source, information(Martin, 2016).
MEGA TRENDS FOR FUTURE CONFLICTS
In an article by David J Kilcullen, The city as a system future conflict and urban
resilience, he states that there are three trends or mega trends which will shape
conflict environment in the future. They are Urbanisation (increasing tendency
of population to live in cities), Littoralization (more number of cities are in the
coastal areas or in proximity of costal area) and connectivity (communication). He
states that as the world’s population has grown, pace of urbanisation has increased.
In December 2011, China announced that it had reached a level of 51.3 percent
urbanization. He further states that this rate of urbanisation is mainly concentrated
in Asia, Africa and Latin America where the existing infrastructure is not capable
of handling the massive tide of humanity (Kilcullen, 2012). According to Richard
Saul Wurman, the American architect, “the world’s urban population will double
every 38 years … today’s urban population of 3.2 billion will rise to nearly 5 bil-
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lion by 2030, when three out of five people will live in cities. By 2050 two-thirds
of the world’s population will live in cities(Kilcullen D. J., 2012).” According to
estimates roughly 1.4 million people across the world migrate to a city every week
According to According to a UN report, United Nations noted in 2009:
Between 2009 and 2050, the world population is expected to increase by 2.3 billion,
passing from 6.8 billion to 9.1 billion… At the same time, the population living in
urban areas is projected to gain 2.9 billion, passing from 3.4 billion in 2009 to 6.3
billion [in] 2050. Thus, the urban areas of the world are expected to absorb all
the population growth expected over the next four decades while at the same time
drawing in some of the rural population. Asia, in particular, is projected to see its
urban population increase by 1.7 billion, Africa by 0.8 billion, and Latin America
and the Caribbean by 0.2 billion. In other words, the new cities which are already
over stretched by the pressure of the population, in the next few decades, will be
absorbing almost the entire increase in population across will be absorbing almost
the entire increase in population across the world, until 1960. This high rate of
urbanisation will happen predominantly in Asia, Africa, Latin America and the
Caribbean, where, already the infrastructure in place is over extended due to the
pressure of population(population Reference Bureau, 2001).
In 2000, there are 30 megacities – cities with a population of more than eight
million people – and of these, there are 21 in the Third World. By 2015, however,
it is estimated that there will be 36 megacities, 23 of which will be in Asia alone.
Currently, half of the world’s population lives in cities. “By 2025, the figure is ex-
pected to reach 85 percent.” Since so many people are going to be in the cities, this
will make the control of the urban areas vital to any strategic victory(Levi, 2000).
Inanarticle“UrbanwarfareandtheUrbanWarfighterof2025”whichappeared
in Parameters, US Army magazine, states that according to demographers and po-
litical strategists, many if not most of the military operations will be conducted in
and around urban areas(Jezior, 1999). Control of large urban areas will be critical
of successful accomplishment of strategic, operational and tactical objectives in
future conflicts. Urban warfare operations will wear many faces of war. Accord-
ing to three bloc war propagated by US Marine General Charles Krulak, in urban
battle space, we can expect to be providing humanitarian assistance in one part of
the city, conducting peacekeeping operations in another, and fighting a highly lethal
mid-intensity battle in yet a third part of the city(Jezior, Small Wars Journal, 1999).
Theincreasingimportanceofurbanlandscapeinwarfareisintherecentconflicts
is cemented by cities such as Fallujah, Baghdad, Mosul, Ramadi, Homs, Mogadishu
and others in the recent conflicts.
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Furthermore,accordingtoThecityasasystemfutureconflictandurbanresilience,
this urban growth is primarily in the littoral or coastal cities. By 2012, alone, eighty
percent of humans on the planet live within sixty miles of a coast, while seventy-
five percent of large cities are on a coastline. The implications for future conflict
are profound, with more people fighting over scarcer resources in crowded, under-
serviced, and under governed urban areas(Kilcullen D. J., The City as a System:
Future Conflict and Urban Resilience, 2012). Since these cities are near the coast
lines, the climate changes such as slight rise in sea level and the increasing salinity
of water will play an increased role in security and conflict in future. According to
Asian Development Bank report in 2011,
“Geography, compounded by high levels of poverty and population density has
renderedAsiaandthePacificespeciallyvulnerabletotheimpactsofclimatechange.
The region is home to more than 4 billion people and some of the fastest growing
cities in the world. By 2020, 13 of the world’s 25 megacities (of which 21 are along
the coastal area or riverine Delta), most of them situated in coastal areas, will be
in Asia and the Pacific. Climate change will likely exacerbate existing pressures
on key resources associated with growth, urbanization and industrialization (Asian
Development Bank, 2011).
The current conflict in Syria is a good example for the relation between climate
change and conflict. According to a recent report, according to researchers an
extreme drought in Syria between 2006 and 2009 was most likely due to climate
change, and that the drought was a factor in the violent uprising that began there in
2011.According to some social scientists, policy makers and others have previously
suggested that the drought played a role in the Syrian unrest, and the researchers
addressed this as well, saying the drought “had a catalytic effect.” They cited stud-
ies that showed that the extreme dryness, combined with other factors, including
misguidedagriculturalandwater-usepoliciesoftheSyriangovernment,causedcrop
failures that led to the migration of as many as 1.5 million people from rural to urban
areas. This in turn added to social stresses that eventually resulted in the uprising
against President Bashar al-Assad in March 2011.The link between climate change
and conflict has been debated for years. A working group of the Intergovernmental
PanelonClimateChangewrotein2014thattherewas“justifiablecommonconcern”
that climate change increased the risk of armed conflict in certain circumstances,
but said it was unclear how strong the effect was (Fountain, 2015). According to
the US military, climate change has become a threat multiplier.
Further another correlation between littoral cities and conflict can be seen in the
Arab Spring of 2011. According to human geographer Oliver Kramsch, describing
the process of urbanisation and Littoralization, described
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....Measured as a percentage of national population, the countries of the Maghreb
in general demonstrate high rates of urban Littoralization, striking examples being
Libya (eighty-five percent), Tunisia (seventy percent), Morocco (fifty-one percent)
and Turkey (fifty-two percent)(Kilcullen D. J., The City as a System: Future Conflict
and Urban Resilience, 2012).
As one may recall, Libya and Tunisia, which has recorded the highest rates of
urban Littoralization was where the popular uprisings had occurred. Further in
Egypt too the Arab Spring occurred in cities of Cairo and Alexandria, which are
again on the coast.
The littoral cities usually are economic and commercial hubs of a country and
rural migrants settle in the outer urban or peri urban areas which are usually slums
lacking proper sanitation and other services. They are lesser developed and has
less government or State presence and it is from these areas that most of the blue
collar workers come from, who do the essential and basic services to keep the city
running. According to David Kilcullen, at the level of the city itself, workers from
peri-urban areas often perform the menial, manual, or distasteful work that keeps
their city functioning, and they sit astride key communication nodes that connect
that city to the external world. Wealthy neighbourhoods, often in city cores, rely on
services(public transport, cleaners, shopkeepers, food servers, maintenance staff,
police, fire fighters, medical personnel, and ambulance drivers) from workers who
cannot afford to live where they work, and thus commute from peri-urban areas.
The same peri-urban areas represent social, connective tissue between a country’s
urban centres and its rural periphery, and connect that rural periphery to inter-
national networks (much as, say, the port facilities in the coastal city of Karachi
connect Pakistan’s hinterland with the enormous Pakistani Diaspora). Similarly,
at the global level, these areas play a connective role in patterns of transportation,
migration, finance, and trade. The growing size and complexity of cities also strains
the infrastructure of governance and security; police, district administrators, courts,
hospitals,schools,andmaintenanceservices.Inparticular,governmentpresencecan
be extremely limited in peri-urban areas, allowing the emergence of safe havens for
criminal networks or non-state armed groups, or creating a vacuum filled by local
youth, who do not lack for grievances arising from their new urban circumstances
or from their home villages (Kilcullen D. J., The City as a System: Future Conflict
and Urban Resilience, 2012). The rapid unplanned growth of the city which results
in lack of resources, leads the peri urban population to tap into licit and illicit activi-
ties offshore, and to connect with global networks, including diaspora populations,
an interaction that affects both local and international conflict dynamics.
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The existence of areas ‘governed’ by non state actors and the peri urban popula-
tion tapping into the illicit and licit networks can be used by other non-state actors
and militant groups launch irregular warfare. One of the best example is the Mumbai
Terror attack in 2008, when LeT militants landed in Mumbai, it was seen by many
locals, who thought that the terrorists were smugglers or illegal refugees.
Further, another example of the peri urban population playing a predominant role
in a conflict is in Syria. From the start of the peaceful protests in 2011, the main
participants in the demonstrations were the blue collared workers as well as the
unemployed youths. For example the first protest f the Syrian revolution occurred
on February 17, 2011 in the heart of Damascus. But it was residents of Douma,
a blue-collar Sunni Muslim suburb of Damascus, not Damascenes, who were the
participants. . In the ongoing conflict, the blue collar neighbourhoods such as Gh-
outa, in the outskirts of Damascus has become strong points of rebels. The map of
opposition-held neighbourhoods in Aleppo is almost exactly that of the blue-collar
working class neighbourhoods which have been poorly planned and neglected by
Government of services and lacked economic opportunity(Kilcullen D. J., The Rise
of Syria’s Urban Poor: Why the War for Syria’s Future Will be fought Over the
country’s New Urban Villages).
Another direct result of globalisation has been increased connectivity, and more
importantlyelectronicconnectivity.Mobilephonesandinternethasbeeninstrumental
in negating the geographical distance between places, and has brought the world a
lot closer. Social Media such as Twitter, Face book and communication applications
such as Google hang out, wats app etc had helped in faster dissemination of news,
and has increased the ability of individuals not only to be receivers of news but also
disseminate information. Another result of the increased connectivity has been that
the conflict zone has become more fluid and fast moving than it was a few years
ago. In Libya in 2011, when Gaddafi was killed on October 20, 2011, the video
clip of his death reached Al-Jazeera in 40 minutes of the incident and in 90 minutes
later it was with every major news organisation, and on the same day the regime
collapsed. This dynamic is pretty much unheard of in the previous wars. The events
will have an impact when it is relayed to the outside world, as the ‘broadcasting’
speed increases, the reaction time decreases.
Further, for militant groups, social media has become a tool to recruit people
without physically going near the, In a statement regarding militancy in Kashmir,
by GoC-In-C Northern Command, of Indian Army Lieutenant General D S Hooda
stated that attempts to attract the youth to militancy through social media is having
some impact and stated that steps are required to counter it(PTI, 2015).
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Furthermore, as we can see from the recent conflicts, there has been an increased
trend of ‘weaponization of available technology. For example in Syria, the rebels
used I pads and Android phones to adjust mortar fire and also used gaming consoles
and flat screens TVs to control ‘homemade tanks’. In Libya, rebels when fighting
against Gaddafi’s forces used Google hang out to connect with people from across
the world, who knew how to operate heavy weapon, which had fallen into their
hands. On another instance, they used Skype to plan an attack on a rocket launcher.
In Iraq in 2009, according to a wall street journal report Iran backed insurgents used
$26 off-the-shelf software to intercept live video feeds from U.S. Predator drones,
potentially providing them with information they need to evade or monitor U.S.
military operations(August Cole, 2009). According to Andrew Solonikov, one of
the software’s developers said he was unaware that his software could be used to
intercept drone feeds. “It was developed to intercept music, photos, video, programs
and other content that other users download from the Internet -- no military data or
other commercial data, only free legal content(August Cole, 2009),”
Also, with the increased availability of camera phones, insurgents in Iraq and
Afghanistan has been recording their attacks on Security Forces and use them as
propaganda tool to recruit more people to their cause.
A pertinent example of how connectivity has led to the rapid escalation of
violence can be seen in the Syrian Conflict. During the reign of Hafez-al- Assad
in Syria, the government had kept a tight restriction on flow of information and
connectivity. They allowed no international media or satellite television or mobile
phones This helped Hafiz’s government being able to isolate its population from
each other. During the Muslim brother hood uprising in the 1970’s, which resulted
in the Hamma massacre in 1982, the Government was able to isolate each area and
quench the rebellion because there was no free flow of information and citizens in
faraway places were not quite aware of what was happening in other parts of Syria.
However when Bashar-al- Assad became the president, in his effort to modernise
Syria,allowedelectronicconnectivityforordinarycitizenry,andby2010,therewere
13 million cell phone subscribers in Syria, in contrast to until 2000, when Syria
had 30000 cell phones subscribers(Cavanaugh, 2014). This increased connectivity
resulted in the increased awareness of what was happening in Egypt, Tunisia etc
where public protests had occurred against the ruling regimes.
The conflicts in Iraq as well as Syria also are in conformity with the mega trends
of urban and connectedness. Most of the fight in Iraq and Syria is for major cities
such as Idlib, Latakia etc and IS in Iraq controls a network of cities such as Mosul,
Ramadi and Fallujah. Major clashes in the war have been for the cities, where the
majorityofthepopulationresides.Furtherduetoincreasedconnectivity,thenumber
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of foreign participation has increased. According to Thomas Hegghammer, a senior
research fellow at the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment in Oslo, during
the summer or spring of 2013, “the number of foreign fighters in Syria exceeded
that of any previous conflict in the Muslim world(Athul, The ISIS and Conflicts
in Syria and Iraq: A Threat Analysis, n.d.).”One of the reasons for the increased
participation has been the dissemination of information via electronic media as well
as the increased physical connectivity of Middle East to rest of the world.
It was this increased connectivity and the democratisation of technology which
made possible the fact that the rebels in Syria were able to use homemade tanks,
nowfamouslyknownasAl-Shamtanks.Thesehomemadetankshaveamachinegun
mounted on top of it that’s remote controlled from inside. It has no turret or anyone
in the higher part of the vehicle. It is run with a Gameboy controller from inside on
a flat screen television that’s mounted to the front of the inside of the vehicle, and
it has video cameras around the outside that you use for driving the tank. This tank
was created by tech savvy and tech literate young population, who used of the shelf
non-lethal technology to suit their needs in a conflict(Kilcullen D. J., Urbanization
and the Future of Conflict, 2013).
Few Characteristics of Future Conflicts
As the battle field environment evolves and the character of partakers in the conflict
changes, the nature of future of conflict will also change. Some of the witnessed
and forecasted in the future conflicts are
1. Level of War: Combat has diffused across strategic, operational and tactical
level of war so that actions at one level of war have a direct effect at another.
The actions at a local level can be broadcasted by media and affect the course
of operation. One of the prominent example for this is the incident of March
31 2004 in Fallujah Iraq, when four American Black Water military contrac-
tors were ambushed and killed by insurgents and their bodies were hung on a
bridge. The photos of the charred bodies of Americans were released to media
outlets worldwide and was broad casted the world over. This directly had an
operational effect, where US launched it Operation Vigilant Resolve resulting
in the first Battle of Fallujah, which was inconclusively concluded. The local
level tactical action led to an Operational level response by US, which also
was a starting point for polarisation on opinion on War in Iraq in US home
front and thus affecting the Strategy.
2. Distributed Ground Forces: American strategist and educator Eliot Cohen
suggested that greater numbers of boots on the ground do not mean as much as
they once did. We agree that ground combat in contemporary conflict appears
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121
to be more disaggregated, but this may not result in a reduced requirement for
groundtroops.Itiscertainlytruethatabattalionmaynowcoverthegeographic
space of a brigade with fires, sensors, and influence. Yet, while ground forces
are spread out, they forces may be covering a far much larger area, or they
may be assigned to longer missions requiring greater endurance which require
more replacement units for subsequent rotations(Frank Hoffman, 2014).
3. VirtualTheatres:WiththeadventofUnmannedAerialVehicles(UAVs),anew
theatre “virtual theatre has cropped up in the 21st
century battlefield. Although
the operation may be conducted in a distant place, such as Afghanistan, the
pilots would be placed in Europe or US, and their participating effect will be
same as that of any other soldier who is physically present in the theatre of
conflict. Similarly a terrorist leader may be placed in a safe house faraway,
but he would be able to communicate and direct operations elsewhere. For
example during the November 2008 Mumbai attacks, terrorist handlers who
were safely placed in Pakistan were able to control and direct the terrorists
who were conducting terror attacks in India.
4. DisaggregatedBattleSpace:Today’sbattlespaceisdisaggregated.Intoday’s
conflict zones, there is no massed tank on tank or army on army battles, but a
number small team or squad level engagements in close proximity. The winner
of such an engagement, at least in a tactical way would be the party who could
bring in more fire power and importantly discriminative fire power within
the shortest span of time. The factor of discriminatory fire power is most im-
portant, since the battle space would not be empty (ie could contain civilian
population). Example the Battle of Fallujah was not a massive force on force
battle, but a series of small squad level engagements (fire fights) between the
US Marines and insurgents.
5. Diffusion of War Time and Peace Time: In today’s conflict scenario, there
is no clear cut separation of war and peace time. Both have been diffused into
the same. In the conflicts in Afghanistan or Iraq for example Italy, Denmark,
AustraliaGermany,Franceetchasnotofficiallydeclaredwaroneithercountry.
But this does not mean they are not involved in the conflicts either. War and
peace time have effectively been diffused.
FUTURE OF STATE ON STATE WARFARE IN 21ST
CENTURY: ASYMMETRIC HYBRID WAR
The ongoing conflict in Ukraine is another viable example of how warfare is becom-
ing more complex and complicated. In a January 2013 speech, chief of staff of the
Russian armed forces Valery Gerasimov stated that Russian military would engage
17. 21st Century Conflict
122
in a “new kind of war” fought with “non-military methods to achieve political and
strategic goals.”These methods, Gerasimov explained, would involve fomenting
popular protests, using covert military measures and deploying special operations
forces, often under the guise of peacekeeping or crisis management.(Hill, 2015)
This asymmetric, hybrid war, Gerasimov noted, requires “the close coordination
of military, intelligence and information operations.” He further went on to state
that goal of an asymmetric hybrid war is to achieve objectives without launching a
full-blown conventional military war.
The Ukrainian war is waged by Russia using proxies and also using their own
regular army units who take part in operations, without their Russian insignias and
markings, thus helping Russia maintain “plausible deniability” about its participa-
tion in Ukraine. During the early phase of the war, during the annexation of Crimea,
soldiers widely believed to be part of Spetsnaz (Russian Special Force), who were
masked and unmarked soldiers without any insignia to recognise them as a part of
any formal military unit, were involved in seizure of Crimea. Yet Russian President
Putin stated that they are in fact members of “self-defence groups” organised by the
locals who bought all their uniforms and hardware in a shop(Shevchenko, 2014).
They were dubbed as ‘Little Green Men’ by the media. The current conflict may
effectively be an attempt by Russia for a takeover or installation of a pro Russia
government in Ukraine. Although in effect it may well be called an invasion, the
use of proxies and use of special forces and effective use of information campaign
by the Russians and the absence of a direct link between State machinery of Russia
and fighting forces stops it from being called anything but an invasion. According
to some reports, this has been a ‘stealth invasion’ (Reversal of fortune, 2014).
Approximately three weeks before the 2008 August war between Russia and
Georgia, according to Small Wars Journal, ‘....online attackers started assaulting
Georgia’s websites. Since then, researchers have tried to find out who masterminded
the network strikes - military electronic warriors, patriotic hackers, cyber-crooks -
withoutfindinganythingdefinitive.(Hollis,2011)”Nevertheless,“…Russiainvaded
Georgia on four fronts. Three of them were conventional - on the ground, through
the air, and by sea. The fourth was new - their attacks via cyberspace ... It is, quite
simply, implausible that the parallel attacks by land and by cyberspace were a co-
incidence - official denials by Moscow notwithstanding. “The (alleged) Russian
attack upon the Georgia’s military and government networks was highly success-
ful. “It seems that 54 web sites in Georgia related to communications, finance and
the government were attacked by rogue elements within Russia ... So as tanks and
troops were crossing the border and bombers were flying sorties, Georgian citizens
could not access web sites for information and instructions.(Hollis, 2011) Georgian
authorities discovered their Internet access and communications networks to be
18. 21st Century Conflict
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exceptional vulnerable to (alleged) Russian interference. According to Internet
technical experts, it was the first time a known cyber-attack had coincided with a
shooting war(Markoff, 2008). With increased reliance of all economies on inter-
net for effective and smooth functioning of vital activities such as transportation,
banking and power, cyber warfare has increased relevance in today’s conflict or
war fighting spectrum. With increasing relevance of IT technology, and the relative
inexpensiveness to mount such an attack, which would result in a dis-appropriate
amount of losses, it will certainly remain a feature of modern warfare. According
to Bill Woodcock, the research director of the Packet Clearing House, a non-profit
organization that tracks Internet traffic, ““You could fund an entire cyber warfare
campaign for the cost of replacing a tank tread”.(Markoff, 2008)
On June 4 2015, US President Obama stated that in one of the largest breaches
of federal employees’ data, involving at least four million current and former gov-
ernment workers in an intrusion that officials said apparently originated in China.
(David E Sanger, 2015) According to US Cyber security experts, the hack appears
designed to build a vast database in what could be preparation for future attacks by
China against the U.S.(Kevin Llptak, 2015)
In future, the 21st
century, a state on state warfare would be different from that
of a conventional war. The fight would involve contests in multiple domains such
as cyber, air, media, land and cyber space, with both parties using both symmetric
or traditional modes of warfare as well as asymmetric modes such as cyber-attacks,
information campaigns, insurgency and usage of proxies etc to attain its strategic
goals. It would be multi domain warfare, involving both a ground level conventional
battle as well as disruptive cyber-attacks which will try to take out the communica-
tion systems which coordinate the military actions. Also a concentrated information
campaign to dispel once own narrative to the conflict, so as to galvanise or neutralise
public opinion in national and international levels would be seen during the conflict.
Further, as we see today in Iraq and Syria, a diffused armed body of state and non-
state actors could play increasingly visible role in a conflict.
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