Richard Connaughton - The Nature of Future Conflict

THE NATURE OF FUTURE CONFLICT

The War of the Rising Sun and Tumbling Bear A Military History
of the Russo-Japanese War 19045.

The Republic of the Ushakovka Admiral Kolchak and the Allied
Intervention in Siberia 19181920.

Military Intervention in the 1990s A New Logic of War.

Shrouded Secrets Australias Mainland War with Japan 19421944

The Battle for Manila, 1945
(with Drs Duncan Anderson and John Pimlott)

Celebration of Victory VE Day 1945

THE NATURE
OF FUTURE
CONFLICT

Richard Connaughton

First published in Great Britain in 1995 by

LEO COOPER

190 Shaftesbury Avenue, London, WC2H 8JL

an imprint of

Pen & Sword Books Ltd,

47 Church Street,

Barnsley, South Yorkshire S70 2AS

Richard Connaughton, 1995

A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 0 85052 460 1

Typeset by Phoenix Typesetting, Ilkley, West Yorkshire

Printed in England by

Redwood Books Ltd,

Trowbridge, Wilts.

To those who ought to know but who do not know;
to those who do know but do not wish to know;
and to those who think they know but do not know;
this book is respectfully dedicated.

The nature of the majority of future conflicts will be within states, nations versus nations in civil war and ethnic strife. This sea change in the conflict environment has found the United Nations, established to deal with inter-state conflict, off balance and slow to adjust. In May 1994, there was but one inter-state conflict on the horizon which may have required military intervention and that was with regard to North Koreas military posturing and nuclear threat. In the West armed forces and equipment have been substantially reduced and military budgets squeezed. For those democratic states without world order responsibilities, it seems a well-nigh impossible task to justify even the most modest of force structures. Although of late there has been a preparedness for states to involve themselves in other states conflicts, it is a highly selective process involving careful permutations of interest and conscience. It is also a random process. Even those states that do have international responsibilities by virtue of permanent membership of the Security Council remain uncertain of the circumstances, conditions and environments whereby they might intervene. These fumbling uncertainties are glaringly obvious within the fragile foreign policies of most of the liberal western democracies.

There are three associated truths. First, the international order has been profoundly changed following the upheaval of 198990. Secondly, the United Nations and the Regional Organisations may be imperfect but they are the best collective security instruments available. Thirdly, if the UN is going to be used, it needs a brain appropriate to the new demands of the next millenium. The UN is a creature of the 1940s with a world view that is barely relevant today. If it was run as a business, it would already have turned over a number of times to remain up to the mark and competitive. There is an overwhelming need to remodel and restructure it. That involves a rethinking and preparedness to change, to revise interests and to eliminate practices which restrict the organizations effectiveness.

The forerunner to this book was arguably an academic treatise,* shaking out theories and making the point that enterprises must be governed by rules, principles or understandings. On the basis of recent performances, that message has largely fallen upon deaf ears. This work is more political, a polemical review. While generals in Brussels speak of the fog of war, implying the imponderables, uncertainties and lack of clarity associated with war, the presence of the fog of politics has rarely been in greater evidence. There is a pretence that there is no threat, essentially so that defence budgets may be tapped to feed insatiable social appetites. The fact is that if the powers that still maintain some semblance of capability do not get their act together, the outcome for world peace will be catastrophic. Walk-in armouries are almost as prolific as hypermarket grocery stores. Unless world order comes under some form of structural control, it is destined to fall apart.