To summarize, the situation today is that the form of war has changed from
industrial war to war amongst the people. All our institutions, and their struc-
tures and processes, have evolved to conduct industrial war successfully; they are
unsuited to the conduct of war in the new paradigm of war amongst the people.
The consequences of this change with the greatest significance for the practice of
operational art are as explained above: (a) the difficulty of producing a strategy in
a multinational organization and without a strategy there is no operational art;
(b) where one side has a strategy and the other does not, all tactical acts of both
sides are understood only in the context of the single strategy; (c) it is rare to find
a single source of multinational strategic direction to those in the theatre of
operations; (d) the forces and agencies in the theatre are not under one source of
operational direction; (e) the difficulty in defining success; (f) the two objectives,
that of the overall confrontation and that of the conflict, have to be reconciled in
the theatre in the face of the opponent’s reconciliation of his two objectives; (g)
each objective is achieved by different means: firepower for conflict and informa-
tion for the confrontation; (h) the reconciliation takes place in the theatre of
operations and in terms of the hierarchy of command just above the level of the
commander of those engaged in the fight; and (i) it is difficult to define the theatre.
These consequences may also help to explain some of the other characteristics
of our current operations, such as (a) the shifting nature of the stated objectives
for the operation as expectations are recalibrated in the face of the opponent’s
measures, (b) the difficulty governments of contributing states have in analysing
operational events and explaining them to their people, (c) the difficulty in apply-
ing the law and the choice of the law to apply, and (d) the difficulty in foreseeing
the consequence of tactical events on the confrontation.
Above all, these issues explain why there is little, if any, evidence of the practice
of the operational art or design. In practice, the tactical acts in conflict, however
successful in themselves, are conducted in a strategic vacuum, in which multiple
sources of conflicting interests act more or less incoherently in an ill-defined
theatre. The people amongst whom the fight is conducted, those in the pit, are
fearful and wish to be without all who fight amongst them. But they cannot
realize this wish, so they tend to give at least tacit authority to those who they
think know them best and reward their allegiance.
FUTUREOn the assumption we wish to win our wars amongst the people, we must improve
on how we conduct them. Some of the causes of the difficulties we face in the
conduct of war amongst the people are a consequence of the position we hold in
the overarching confrontation. For example, to act outside the law, whether treaty,
humanitarian, or criminal, when the confrontational objective is in part at least to
establish the rule of law, is to undermine one’s own position, as the United States
Epilogue 241