The general purpose of conventional warfare is to weaken or destroy the opponent's military, which negates its ability to engage in conventional warfare. In forcing capitulation, however, one or both sides may eventually resort to unconventional warfare tactics.[1][2]
The state was first advocated by Plato but found more acceptance in the consolidation of power under the Roman Catholic Church. European monarchs then gained power as the Catholic Church was stripped of temporal power and was replaced by the divine right of kings. In 1648, the powers of Europe signed the Treaty of Westphalia, which ended the religious violence for purely political governance and outlook, signifying the birth of the modern state.[3][4]
Within the statist paradigm, only the state and its appointed representatives may bear arms and enter into war. In fact, war then became understood only as a conflict between sovereign states. Monarchs strengthened that idea and gave it the force of law. Any noble had been allowed to start a war, but European monarchs had to consolidate military power in response to the Napoleonic Wars.[5]
Clausewitzian paradigm
Prussia was one of the countries that tried to amass military power. Carl von Clausewitz, one of Prussia's officers, wrote On War, a work rooted solely in the world of the state. All other forms of intrastate conflict, such as rebellion, are not accounted for because in theoretical terms, he could not account for warfare before the state. However, near the end of his life, he grew increasingly aware of the importance of non-state military actors, as is revealed in his conceptions of "the people in arms", which he noted arose from the same social and political sources as traditional interstate warfare.[6]
Practices such as raiding or blood feuds were then labeled criminal activities and stripped of legitimacy. That war paradigm reflected the view of most of the modernized world in the early 21st century, as is verified by examination of the conventional armies of the time: large, high-maintenance, and technologically-advanced armies designed to compete against similarly-designed forces.[7][8]
Clausewitz also forwarded the issue of casus belli. Wars had been fought for social, religious, or even cultural reasons, and Clausewitz taught that war is merely "a continuation of politics by other means." It is a rational calculation in which states fight for their interests (whether they are economic, security-related, or otherwise) once normal discourse has broken down.[9]
The state and Clausewitzian principles peaked in the World Wars, during the 20th century, but they also laid the groundwork for their dilapidation from nuclear proliferation. During the Cold War, the superpowers sought to avoid open conflict between their respective forces, as both sides recognized that such a clash could very easily escalate and quickly involve nuclear weapons. Instead, the superpowers fought each other through their involvement in proxy wars, military buildups, and diplomatic standoffs. Thus, no two nuclear powers have yet fought a conventional war directly except for two brief skirmishes between China and Soviet Union in the 1969 Sino-Soviet conflict and between India and Pakistan in the 1999 Kargil War.[13][14]
