What is war
1 Introduction
First, we study the various elements of war; secondly, we study the various parts or links of the war. Finally, we study the overall relationship between the various parts of the war. From the outside to the inside, first the parts and then the whole, first study the simple and then the complex. Before studying each part of the problem, we must first have a general understanding of the nature of the whole, because we must always consider the whole when studying some of the problems.
2. Definition of war
Here, we are not going to give a political definition of war right away, but first talk about the element of war-fighting. War is nothing more than an expanded struggle. If we consider the several fights that constitute a war as a unified whole, then the best way is to imagine a situation where two people fight. Each party tries to use its own physical strength or force to force the other party to obey their own will; its direct purpose is to defeat the other party and make the other party lose any resistance.
Therefore, it can be said that war is a violent act that forces the other party to obey our will.
Equip yourself with the results of scientific and technological research to deal with violence. International law conventions impose minimal restrictions on violence. Although these restrictions and violence exist at the same time, they cannot actually weaken the intensity of violence. What is violence? Violence is a means, and imposing one's will on the other party is the goal. In order to ensure that this goal is achieved with certainty, the opponent must lose resistance. Therefore, conceptually speaking, making the opponent unable to resist is the real direct goal of the war. This goal replaces the above-mentioned goal and treats it as something that does not belong to the war itself. Therefore, to some extent it has been ignored.
3. Maximize the use of violence
Some kind people, out of kind wishes, fantasize to find a clever way that does not need to cause a large number of casualties, but also can disarm or defeat the opposing party, and believe that this is the true direction of the development of military art. Although this view is very beautiful, it is a kind of wrong thought that must be eliminated, because the wrong thought derived from kindness is extremely harmful when dealing with demons like war. The full use of material violence does not exclude the use of wisdom at the same time. Therefore, if the party who uses violence at all costs and at all costs, if the other party is weak and shrinks, it will inevitably have the exclusive advantage. If one party forces the other party to resort to violence, the contradictions between the two parties will intensify and become increasingly extreme. This trend will be completely restricted by the inherent restraining force and will not be affected by any other external factors.
Ignoring the nature of "brutality" because of aversion to this element is not only useless, but harmful. Because it exists objectively, this issue must be faced squarely.
If the cruelty and destructiveness of civilized national wars is much less than that of barbaric national wars, this is also determined by the social conditions of the belligerent countries and the relationship between these countries. Although war is produced in a certain social state and state-to-state relationship, and is determined, restricted, and moderated by them, the social state and state-to-state relationship are not elements of war itself. Wars existed before they happened, so it would be unreasonable to insist that these factors belong to the philosophy of war itself.
The struggle between people originally includes two different elements-hostile emotions and hostile intentions. The reason why we choose the element of hostile intentions as the symbol of our definition of war is because hostile intentions are universal. Even the most brutal and almost instinctive sense of hatred, that is, hostile feelings without hostile intentions are unimaginable; and many hostile intentions , But no hostile feelings at all, at least not strong hostile feelings. In barbaric peoples, hostile intentions mainly come from emotion, while in civilized peoples, hostile intentions mainly come from reason. However, this difference in hostile intentions is not determined by barbarism and civilization itself, but by various factors such as social conditions and systems at the time. Therefore, this difference does not necessarily exist in every occasion, but most occasions have this difference. Therefore, even the most civilized nations may ignite a strong sense of hatred between them.
It can be seen from this that if the war between civilized nations is described as purely a rational act between governments, it is believed that the war is gradually getting rid of the influence of all passionate factors, and even that it no longer needs to use the material force of the army, and only needs to calculate the two sides. It’s a great mistake to perform mathematical calculations on actual actions.
In recent years, some theories have begun to develop in this direction, but recent wars have corrected it. Since war is an act of violence, it must belong to the category of emotions. It is more or less related to feelings, but feelings are not the decisive factor, and even have nothing to do with the level of civilization; it depends on the size of the stakes and the length of time between the two sides of the war.
If civilized nations do not kill captives or destroy cities and villages, this does not mean that they have not resorted to violence, it is because they have used wisdom more and more skillfully in wars, and learned to use more crude venting instincts than this primitive. More effective methods of violence.
The invention of gunpowder and the continuous improvement of weapons have fully proved that the improvement of civilization has not hindered or changed the nature of war-the purpose of war is still to eliminate the enemy.
Let us repeat our point again: war is an act of violence, and the use of violence is unlimited. Therefore, each side of the war forced the other to use violence like it did, and this resulted in an interaction. Theoretically speaking, this interaction must lead to extremes. This is the first interaction and the first extreme of war.
4. To make the enemy give up resistance is the goal of war
As mentioned earlier, losing the enemy’s resistance is the ultimate goal of war, at least in theory. To make the enemy obey our will, we must make the enemy's situation more unfavorable than we expected. This disadvantage should not be temporary at least on the surface. Otherwise, the enemy will wait for a favorable opportunity and give up surrendering. Therefore, any changes in the situation brought about by continued military activities must make the enemy more disadvantaged, at least in theory. The most unfavorable situation that a combatant may fall into is complete loss of resistance. Therefore, if we want to force the enemy to obey our will by means of war, then we must make the enemy truly powerless to resist, or fall into a situation where the enemy will be powerless to resist. It can be concluded that in any case, destroying the enemy’s arms or destroying the enemy is always the only goal of warfare.
War is not a violent action by a living force on a dead material, but a conflict between two living forces. If one party absolutely endures concessions, it will not evolve into a war. In this way, the supreme goal of the aforementioned acts of war must be seriously considered by both sides. Before we defeat the enemy, we have to consider the situation in which we are defeated by the enemy caused by the reversal of the situation. At that time, we will no longer be a victor and can control everything by ourselves. This is the second interaction and the second extreme.
5. Maximize the use of force
If we want to defeat the enemy, we must determine the strength we should invest in based on the enemy's resistance. The size of the enemy's resistance is the product of two inseparable factors. These two factors are the means to defeat the enemy and the strength of willpower.
The number of existing methods can be calculated because it is based on the quantity--although it is not completely the case, the strength of willpower is difficult to determine by the concept of quantity. It can only be estimated based on the strength of the motive for war. . If we use the above method to roughly estimate the enemy's resistance, then we can use it to decide how much we should invest in, or increase our strength to form an advantage, or try to increase our strength if we can. However, the enemy will do the same. This is another competition between each other. From a purely conceptual point of view, it is bound to go to extremes. This is the third interaction and the third extreme.
6. Correct in reality
In the abstract realm of pure ideas, thinking activities will never stop before reaching extremes, because the object of thinking is an extreme thing, a force that does its own thing and is not bound by any other laws except obeying its own internal laws. Conflict. Therefore, if we are to find an absolute point in the pure concept of war for the proposed goals and the measures used, then under continuous interaction, we will go to extremes and fall into the inevitable caused by playing with logic. Predictive concept game. If we must adhere to this attitude of pursuing absoluteness, regardless of all difficulties, and we must follow a strict logical formula, believing that we must be prepared to deal with extremes no matter what, and we must use our strength to the maximum every time, then this approach is undoubtedly Talking about soldiers on paper does not apply to real society in the least.
Although the maximum use of power is an absolute value that is easy to calculate, we still have to admit that human emotions are difficult to accept the dominance of this logical fantasy. If this illusion plays a decisive role, it will inevitably cause unnecessary waste of power under certain circumstances. At the same time, it will inevitably conflict with other aspects of governing the country; when willpower develops to a degree that is not commensurate with the established political goals , This requirement will not be fulfilled, because human willpower is never obtained by playing with logic.
If we move from abstract to concrete, then the situation is different. In the abstract realm, things are often imagined to be flawless, and people will inevitably imagine that the fighting party is not only pursuing perfection, but also striving to achieve perfection. But is this really the case in reality? No, this will only happen in the following cases:
(1) The war broke out suddenly, had nothing to do with the life of the country in the earlier period, and was completely independent; (2) The war was the only decisive battle, or a decisive battle involving several separate wars at the same time; (3) The war was a decisive battle. The result is absolute and will probably have no effect on the development of the post-war political situation.
7. War is never an isolated act
The first point of the previous discussion, we believe that either side of the warring parties is concrete to the other, not abstract, even if it is willpower, this factor that does not rely on external things in the confrontation is not abstract. of. In fact, willpower is not completely unknowable. Its strength today may indicate tomorrow's victory or defeat. The war did not break out suddenly, and its scale was not instantaneous. Therefore, most of the two parties can judge him based on the size of the other party and what he is doing, rather than judging him based on what the other party should be and what it should do. No one is perfect, so it is difficult to achieve perfection. This kind of defect that both parties have becomes a mitigating factor.
8. War is not a short blow
In the second point of the previous discussion, we believe that if there is only one decisive battle in a war, or several simultaneous decisive battles, then all preparations for the decisive battle will inevitably go to extremes, because in the preparation process, any small mistakes , Will cause irreparable losses; and in reality, it can be used as a basis for measuring this preparation, at most we can only understand the enemy's preparations, and nothing else can be known. Of course, if the result of a war is the result of a series of continuous actions, the previous action and all its phenomena can of course be used as a measure of the next action. In this way, the actual actual situation replaces abstract concepts, thereby alleviating the trend toward extreme development.
If all the means used for war are used or can be used at the same time, then each war will be a decisive battle or several simultaneous decisive battles. A failed decisive battle will inevitably reduce these means. Therefore, if all the methods that can be used have been used in the first decisive battle, then there is no longer a second decisive battle. All military operations that will continue in the future are actually just a continuation of the first operation.
We have seen that in the preliminary preparations for the war, the actual situation has replaced pure ideas, and the scale of reality has replaced illusory assumptions; therefore, under the interaction between the two sides of the war, they will not use their power to the maximum limit, and they will not Will use all power at the beginning of the war.
Judging from the nature and characteristics of modern warfare, it is impossible for all forces to be used at the same time. These forces include: the army, the land and the allies.
The country (including land and residents) is not only the foundation of the army, but also a factor that plays an important role in the war. Of course, this only refers to the part of the country that belongs to the war zone or has a significant impact on the war zone.
In addition, it is possible to use all the troops at the same time, but all the fortresses, rivers, mountains, residents, etc., in short, it is unrealistic for the entire country to function at the same time, unless the country is very small, so small that it only has to break out. War will sweep across the country. Furthermore, the cooperation of the allies is not shifted by the will of the belligerents. They often join the war very late or join in to restore the lost sphere of influence. This is determined by the nature of international relations.
This part of the force that cannot be invested immediately sometimes accounts for a much larger proportion of the total resistance than people imagined at the beginning. Therefore, most of the forces were invested in the first decisive battle, and the army was severely damaged as a result, and its momentum will inevitably be affected, but it can be restored. This issue will be discussed in detail in the future. Here we just want to explain that the simultaneous use of all forces is against the principle of war. Of course, this should not be an excuse for not strengthening strength in the first decisive battle, because a failed decisive battle is a result that no one is willing to accept. Moreover, the first decisive battle was not the only battle. The larger its scale, the greater its impact on future battles. However, because there will be other decisive battles in the future, people are unwilling to use too much force. In the first decisive battle, they will not concentrate their forces and use power as if there is only one decisive battle. Either side of the two warring parties did not use all their power because of certain weaknesses. For the other side, it became a real objective basis for mitigating it. Through such a comparison and weighing, the trend toward extreme development has been eased to the extent that power is used to a certain limit.
9. The ending of the war is not absolute
Finally, the final outcome of the entire war is not always absolute. The defeated countries often regard failure as a temporary misfortune that can be remedied in future international political relations. Obviously, this result will greatly ease the tension and intensity of the use of power.
10. Probability in reality replaces the extreme and absolute in the concept. According to the above, the whole process of war gradually got rid of the strict rule that the use of force always develops to extremes. Since you no longer worry about the other party's pursuit of extremes, and you no longer pursue extremes, then there is no need to maximize the use of force. You can decide how much force to use through negotiation. Of course, the basis can only be an understanding of the actual situation, and The materials provided by other phenomena and the laws of probability are determined. Since the warring parties are no longer abstract concepts, but specific countries and governments; since war is no longer an invisible and intangible abstract thing, but a special course of action, people can naturally grasp what they actually know Data to determine what is going to happen that should be known but not yet known.
Either of the two warring parties can infer the actions that the other side will take based on the characteristics, organization, facilities, conditions, and various relationships of the other side and formulate its own action plan according to the law of probability.