Waging Modern War: Bosnia, Kosovo, and the Future of Conflict
536
Waging Modern War: Bosnia, Kosovo, and the Future of Conflict
536Paperback(Reprint)
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Overview
In Waging Modern War, General Wesley K. Clark recounts his experience leading NATO's forces to a hard-fought and ultimately successful victory in Kosovo in 1999. As the American military machine has swung into action in the months following the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, it has become clear that the lessons of Kosovo are directly applicable to the war against terrorism and the nations that sponsor it. The problems posed, and overcome, in the war in Kosovo-how to fight an air war against unconventional forces in rough terrain and how to coordinate U.S. objectives with those of other nations-are the problems that America increasingly faces in the today's world. As the Los Angeles Times noted in late September of 2001, this book's "lessons are highly relevant now…. We need to think about exactly what steps will lessen, rather than increase, the terrorist threat. And we also need innovative commanders willing to improvise to meet a new kind of threat, more determined political leadership, a more flexible outlook in the Pentagon…. Gen. Clark has performed another service by highlighting these problems at a crucial moment in American history."
Waging Modern War is history, memoir, guidebook, and forecast, essential reading for those who want to know how modern war is fought, and won.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781586481391 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | PublicAffairs |
| Publication date: | 08/15/2002 |
| Edition description: | Reprint |
| Pages: | 536 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.25(w) x 9.25(h) x 1.12(d) |
| Lexile: | 1130L (what's this?) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
As Supreme Allied Commander, Europe, I was responsible for the conduct of the military operations against Yugoslavia, as well as for the 30,000 troops on the ground in NATO's other operation in the nearby country of Bosnia-Herzegovina. And there was no doubt in my mind that I was responsible.
I looked over at the picture on the wall of our first Supreme Allied Commander, General Dwight D. Eisenhower. I looked down at my desk, the same desk he had used to sign the activation orders of our command almost fifty years ago. I was the first of his successors to have to lead NATO to war, and I wasn't going to lose.
As a first year cadet at West Point, in 1962, I was required to memorize General Douglas MacArthur's words, and recite them again and again. "From the Far East I send you one single thought, one sole idea, written in red on every beachhead from Australia to Tokyo: there is no substitute for victory!" I never forgot it.
In most of the twentieth century, wars were fought for territory. The survival of nations--or at least their systems of government--was at stake. It was national warfare, relying on the mobilization of populations, vast conscript armies, and national controls over the economy and the flow of public information. Military men were trained to fight to win.
This was the form of warfare that Napoleon had taught us, nation-state against nation-state. Cohorts of young men were organized and drafted; large, bureaucratic organizations were created; state ministries were created just to be able to handle the railroad planning required in case of mobilization for war. And then, the enemy was to be brought to climactic battle, a battle of annihilation.
Twentieth-century war seldom matched its Napoleonic ideal in terms of decisiveness. But the mobilization of the nation-state, the conscription, the large organizations, the extreme destructiveness of the weaponry, the focus on battle and the enemy force, the prodigious losses of men and material, and the dreadful burdens to the civilian populations were certainly features of war as we knew it.
NATO itself was itself the product of such a war. The Allies in World War II called for the unconditional surrender of Germany, Italy, and Japan, making that war a fight to the finish. Civilian populations were targeted by all sides, and millions died. In a war that saw the first and only use of the atomic bomb, almost no weapon was spared. And when it was over, and Europe and the United States sensed the threat of Joseph Stalin and the Red Army, NATO was established to protect against another such terrible conflict.
Operation Allied Force wasn't to be that kind of war. NATO and its member nations weren't under attack. This war wasn't about national survival, or the survival of our democratic systems of government. We didn't mobilize our populations or do anything in particular to affect the control of information. The conscripts remaining among the NATO nations never came close to getting to the fight, because there were national laws in most cases prohibiting their service outside their own countries. And the economies of the West weren't taken over by governments or turned to war production. Civilian populations and facilities were not targeted for destruction.
This was a different kind of war--a modern war. It was limited, carefully constrained in geography, scope, weaponry, and effects. Every measure of escalation was excruciatingly weighed by NATO. Diplomatic efforts continued during the conflict, even with the adversary itself. Measures of confidence-building and other conflict-prevention initiatives derived from the Cold War were brought into play. The highest possible technology was in use, but only in carefully restrained ways. There was extraordinary concern for military losses, on all sides. Even damage to property was carefully considered. And "victory" was carefully defined.