Paris itself. The purpose was to save France from what the soldiers saw as Charles
de Gaulle’s betrayal of French Algeria. The abstractions of policy and military power,
and the often fraught and always challenging connection between the two, translate in
historical reality into the flesh and blood of people with distinctive professional cultures
and responsibilities attempting to reconcile what may appear to be irreconcilable. It is
necessary to emphasize just how difficult it is, and has always been, to function well as
a strategist. Politicians and soldiers have to cooperate to generate positive strategic
effectiveness. This need, and the hindrances to its efficient achievement, is a thread that
runs through all of strategic history.
The next theme is the dependence of war on society. War is a social institution and it
is waged by societies, not only by states. Because of war’s myriad varieties and contexts,
wars do not have anything resembling a standard social impact. World War II was literally
a total struggle for Germany, the Soviet Union and Britain. It was a conflict that required
the complete mobilization of those countries’ assets. Most wars are not of that kind, at
least not for both sides. Until the end of the Cold War, however, modern history did see
a fairly steady rise in the involvement, as well as the active participation, of society at
large, in both decisions for war and in the actual conduct of hostilities. In the mid-
nineteenth century the slow but inexorable growth of literate electorates was fed with
real-time news of distant events by the new profession of war correspondents exploiting
the recent invention of the electric telegraph. Suddenly, policy on war and peace had to
consider public opinion as a significant factor. Foreign policy and the resort to force were
no longer what they had been, almost strictly matters for executive discretion. The age
of industrial mass warfare, with its requirement for wholesale social commitment, closed
in 1945 – or perhaps at the very latest in 1991. But the revolution in communications
technologies effected in the last quarter of the twentieth century has meant that societies
today are informed, and misinformed, instantly by live ‘feeds’ via satellite of strategic
history in the making half a world away. Paradoxically, war’s social dimension is as
powerful in the 2000s as its actual intrusiveness is minimal by modern historical
standards in most cases. A potent contemporary exception to this claim may be the so-
called ‘war on terror’ – although, even in this case, barring the possible use of weapons
of mass destruction (WMD), terrorists comprise an enemy that can be opposed without
the mobilization of whole societies.
The final theme to be highlighted concerns the complex reciprocal relationships that
exist between peace and war. Analysis of the strategic history of the past two centuries
must examine the war–peace nexus from both perspectives. First, one must consider the
consequences of wars for the peace and order–disorder that follow. Second, and no less
important, one has to understand the consequences of periods of peace for the succeeding
wars.
War is not a sporting event; it is not waged for the purpose of winning. Victory, or a
tolerable stalemate, is sought for political reasons. It is inherently difficult to craft the
desired condition of peace with order out of war. Perhaps order with peace is the proper
way to express the relationship, because, following Clausewitz, one knows that war
supremely is the realm of chance and uncertainty. Moreover, it can be so challenging to
succeed militarily and strategically in war that the immediate demands of warfare easily
become all-consuming of available creative energy and scarce effort. However, the way
that a war is waged – and, for example, the deals that are made with allies – will be
8 War, peace and international relations