How Wars Are Fought 281In 2003, the George W. Bush administration, frustrated with Saddam Hussein’s
repeated refusal to abide by the terms of the cease- fire that had ended the first Gulf
War in 1991, deci ded to prepare for a pos si ble military invasion of Iraq. Among the U.S.
government’s many concerns was the possibility that Saddam Hussein was develop-
ing WMD. This concern proved to be the administration’s main justification for war.
The fear that Saddam’s Iraq would either use such weapons against the United States
or its allies or transfer such a weapon to a terrorist group helped gain sufficient U.S.
public support for the invasion.
More recently, the realization that Iran is developing uranium- enrichment capac-
ity and refuses to renounce a nuclear option has led to some of the most contentious
po liti cal conflicts of the new millennium. In October 2015, Iran signed an agreement
called the “Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action,” limiting its development of compo-
nents for a pos si ble nuclear weapon for 15 years in exchange for an end to crippling
economic sanctions. While this agreement may be an impor tant step in stemming the
tide of nuclear proliferation, it still leaves open the questions of whether Iran can cheat
on the agreement and what will happen once the 15- year moratorium ends. Likewise,
North Korea’s tests of nuclear weapons since 2006, and more recently, new launch vehi-
cles, have raised serious concerns in the international community.
Unconventional Warfare
Unconventional warfare is as old as conventional warfare and is distinguished in gen-
eral by a willingness to flout restrictions on legitimate targets of vio lence or refuse to
accept the traditional outcomes of battles— say, the destruction of a regular army, loss
of a capital, or capture of a national leader—as an indicator of victory or defeat.
Two major changes progressively moved unconventional war from a side role to a
prominent feature of war. First, the French Revolution unleashed the power of nation-
alism in support of large- scale military operations, enabling Napoleon Bonaparte’s
armies to make use of tactics that the older professional militaries of Eu rope at first
could not counteract. Nationalism inflamed common people to resist “foreign” aggres-
sion and occupation, even when faced with receiving bribes or being penalized through
torture and death. Nationalism has proven a double- edged sword ever since. Although
Napoleon’s forces initially swept aside the old order, the source of his greatest defeats
lay in nationalist- inspired re sis tance in Rus sia and Spain (Spanish re sis tance came to
be called “small war” or, in Spanish, guerrilla warfare). But nationalist- inspired re sis-
tance was not by itself sufficient to make unconventional warfare effective against
the power of states or incumbent governments. That took a strategic innovation that
combined the ancient doctrine of guerrilla warfare with explicit use of the power of
nationalism.