Picture Post #73 The Children's Hospital in Ukraine

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'Because things don’t appear to be the known thing; they aren’t what they seemed to be

neither will they become what they might appear to become.'

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Posted by Martin Cohen

This is actually a still from a video, which is partly a matter of practicality – I was looking for a particular image to sum up the futility and horror of the Russian ‘Special Operation’ in Ukraine – but also a small aesthetic statement too. For today war-reporting, and news is seen more through moving images than still ones.

The trouble with that is that our attention is constantly distracted. We see terrible scenes but barely absorb them before (perhaps mercifully) the camera has moved on.

Anyway, this scene that creates this still image, is rather hidden in the video, which generally pans around the courtyard of the Maternity and Children’s Hospital in Mariupol, Ukraine. Indeed, most of the photographer’s attention is on several burning wrecks of cars and this sad figure just appears to the side, walking slowly with a body in wheelbarrow. I don’t know if the body is alive or dead – I assume the former from the care being taken with the sheets, but within such a tragic scene it hardly seems to matter.

Does History Shape Future Wars?

Posted by Keith Tidman

To be sure, lessons can be gleaned from the study of past wars, as did Thucydides, answering some of the ‘who’, ‘what’, ‘how’, ‘why’, and ‘so-what’ questions. These putative takeaways may be constructively exploited—albeit within distinct limits.

Exploited, as the military historian Trevor Dupuy said, to “determine patterns of conduct [and] performance . . . that will provide basic insights into the nature of armed conflict.” The stuff of grand strategies and humble tactics. But here’s the rub: What’s unlikely is that those historical takeaways will lead to higher-probability outcomes in future war.

The reason for this conclusion is that the inherent instability of war makes it impossible to pave the way to victory with assurance, regardless of lessons gleaned from history. There are too many variables, which rapidly pile up like grains of sand and get jostled around as events advance and recede. Some philosophers of history, such as Arthur Danto, have shed light on the whys and wherefores of all this. That is, history captures not just isolated events but rather intersections and segues between events—like synapses. These intersections result in large changes in events, making it numbingly hard to figure out what will emerge at the other end of all that bewildering change. It’s even more complicated to sort out how history’s lessons from past wars might translate to reliable prescriptions for managing future wars.

But the grounds for flawed historical prescription go beyond the fact that war’s recipe mixes both ‘art’ and ‘science’. Even in the context of blended art and science, a little historical information is not always better than none; in the case of war, a tipping point must be reached before information is good enough and plentiful enough to matter. The fact is that war is both nonlinear and dynamic. Reliable predictions—and thus prescriptions—are elusive. Certainly, war obeys physical laws; the problem is just that we can’t always get a handle on the how and why that happens, in face of all the rapidly moving, morphing parts. Hence in the eyes of those caught up in war’s mangle, events often appear to play out as if random, at times lapsing into a level of chaos that planners cannot compensate for.

This randomness is more familiarly known as the ‘fog of war’. The fog stems from the perception of confusion in the mind’s eye. Absent a full understanding of prevailing initial conditions and their intersections, this perception drives decisions and actions during war. But it does so unreliably. Complexity thus ensures that orderliness eludes the grasp of historians, policymakers, military leaders, and pundits alike. Hindsight doesn’t always help. Unforeseeable incidents, which Carl von Clausewitz dubbed friction, govern every aspect of war. This friction appears as unmanageable ‘noise’, magnified manifold when war’s tempo quickly picks up or acute danger is at hand.

The sheer multiplicity of, and interactions among, initial conditions make it impossible to predict every possible outcome or to calculate their probabilities. Such unpredictability in war provides a stark challenge to C.G. Hempel’s comfortable expectations:

“Historical explanation . . . [being] aimed at showing that some event in question was not a ‘matter of chance’, but was rather to be expected in view of certain antecedent or simultaneous conditions.” 

To the contrary, it is the very unpredictability of war that 
makes it impossible to avoid or at least contain.
The pioneering of chaos theory, by Henri Poincaré, Edward Lorenz, and others, has 
shown that events associated with dynamic, nonlinear systems—war among them—are 
extraordinarily sensitive to their initial conditions. And as Aristotle observed, “the least 
deviation . . . is multiplied later a thousandfold.”

Wars evolve as events—branching out 
in fern-like patterns—play out their consequences. 
The thread linking the lessons from history to future wars is thin and tenuous. ‘Wisdom’ 
gleaned from the past inevitably bumps up against the realities of wars’ disorder. We 
might learn much from past wars, including descriptive reconstructions of causes, 
circumstances, and happenings, but our ability to take prescriptive lessons’ forward is 
strictly limited.
In describing the events of the Peloponnesian War,

Thucydides wrote:


“If [my history] be judged by those inquirers who desire an exact knowledge of the past 
as an aid to the interpretation of the future . . . I shall be content.” 


Yet is our knowledge of history really so exact? The answer is surely 'no' – whatever the comfortable assurances of Thucydides.





Can History Shape Future War?

Posted by Keith Tidman

In describing the events of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides wrote, “If [my history] be judged by those inquirers who desire an exact knowledge of the past as an aid to the interpretation of the future ... I shall be content.”

Yet is our knowledge of history really that ‘exact’? And can we apply what is learned, to shape wars still to be fought? Is there a prescriptive use of military history? That is, does the historical study of past wars increase the probability of victory in the next?

In spite of the optimism of Thucydides, the answer has to be no. And for an overarching reason: The complexity, indeterminacy, and dynamical nature of war. Conditions unfold in multiple directions; high-stakes choices are made to try pushing back against the specter of chaos; and overly idealised visions are applied to war’s unfolding—where ‘victory’ is writ large, to win both in battle and in the arena of political will. Of course, lessons of past wars may be useful within limits. Yet, in the words of military historian Trevor Dupuy, only to provide “basic insights”—tracing the contours of conduct and performance.

Variables pile up like grains of sand and are jostled as events advance and recede—unforeseeable incidents that the military theorist Carl von Clausewitz dubbed ‘friction’, which become magnified when war’s tempo spikes or acute danger looms. The instability of war makes it impossible to have confidence in victory, regardless of historical lessons. If the ultimate metric of war is wins, consider a few of America’s post-World War II crucibles: Korea, a stalemate; Vietnam, a loss; Iraq and Afghanistan (fifteen years later!) teetering precariously—constabulary skirmishes in Panama, Haiti, Somalia, Grenada, and Kosovo too minor to regard.

An example of failure has been counterinsurgencies. The last century has seen many efforts go awry. The history includes France in Algeria and Indochina, the Netherlands in Aceh, Britain in Malaya, the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, and the United States in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. These were asymmetric conflicts—often fought, by insurgents’ intent, away from sweeping battlefields, and where insurgents at least instinctively understood military strategist Sun Tzu’s observation that “all warfare is based on deception”. Field manuals have provided military, political, informational, intelligence, and psychological tools by way of a counter—yet sustainable victory has often proven elusive.

Some philosophers of history, such as Arthur Danto, have shed light on the whys and wherefores for this disconnect. History does not merely deal with isolated events, but with great intersections—and how they play off one another. These intersections result in major changes, making it numbingly hard to figure out what will emerge. It is even more complicated with war, where one seeks to translate intersections that have played into past wars into reliable prescriptions for managing future wars.

Further, a blizzard of events does not yield dependable means to assess information about what was going on and to convert conclusions into sound, high-probability prescriptions for the next time. Even with hi-tech battlegrounds and mathematical simulations, a little historical information is not always better than none. A tipping point must be reached before information is good enough and plentiful enough. The reason is war’s nonlinear and dynamic nature. To this point, Arnold Toynbee was right to assert that history progresses in nonlinear fashion. In the eyes of those caught up in war’s mangle, therefore, events often play out as chaos, which military planners cannot compensate for. It has been called the ‘fog of war’.

Minor events, too, may lead to major events. Chaos theory has shown that events associated with dynamic, nonlinear systems—war among them—are extraordinarily sensitive to initial conditions. The sheer multiplicity of, and interactions among, the initial conditions make it impossible to predict most outcomes. Efforts by decision-makers run into head winds, as conditions degrade. Errors cascade. The many variables are just the starting point of war, subject to change dramatically as war persists. The ‘butterfly effect’, as dubbed by Edward Lorenz, where the metaphorical flapping of a butterfly’s wings (initial conditions) can cause extreme weather far elsewhere.

Too many to list here, the initial conditions of war include the prospect of third-party intervention, risk of battle fatigue, unexpected coupling of variables, cost-benefit bargains, resilience to setbacks, flexibility of tactics, match between force mix and mission, weaker party’s offsets to the other’s strengths, inspirational leadership, weight placed on presumed relative importance of factors—and numerous others. And as Aristotle observed, “the least deviation . . . is multiplied later a thousandfold.”

The thread linking the outcome of future wars to lessons from history is thin, and errors have come with high costs—in blood, treasure, and ethical norms. ‘Wisdom’ gleaned from the past bumps up against wars’ capacity to create disequilibrium. Much might be learned descriptively from past wars, but the prescriptive value of those lessons is tenuous.

Do We Need Perpetual Peace?

By Bohdana Kurylo

Immanuel Kant viewed war as an attribute of the state of nature, in which ‘the freedom of folly’ has not yet been replaced by ‘the freedom of reason’. His philosophy has influenced the ways in which contemporary philosophers conceive of political violence, and seek to eliminate it from global politics: through international law, collective security, and human rights. Yet is perpetual peace an intrinsically desirable destination for us today?

For Kant, peace was a question of knowledge – insofar as knowledge teaches us human nature and the experience of all centuries. It was a matter of scrutinising all claims to knowledge about human potential, that stem from feelings, instincts, memories, and other results of lived experience. On the basis of such knowledge, he thought, war could be eliminated.

Kant realised, however, that not all human knowledge is true. In particular, our ever-present possibility of war serves as evidence of the inadequacy of existing knowledge to conceive the means and principles by which perpetual peace may be established. Kant’s doctrine of transcendental idealism explained this inadequacy by claiming that humans experience only appearances (phenomena) and not things-in-themselves (noumena). What we think we know, is only appearance – our interpretation of the world. Beyond this lies a real world of things-in-themselves, the comprehension of which is simply unattainable for the human mind.

While realists, on this basis, insist on the inevitability of anarchy and war, Kant conceived that the noumenal realm could emancipate our reason from the limitations of empiricism, so enabling us to achieve perpetual peace. He sought to show that we have a categorical moral duty to act morally, even though the empirical world seems to be resistant to it. And since there is no scientific evidence that perpetual peace is impossible, he held that it ought to remain a possibility. Moreover, since moral practical reason claims that war is absolutely evil, humans have a moral duty to discipline their worst instincts to bring about perpetual peace.

Claiming to be guided by the universal reason, Kant proposed three institutional principles which could become the platform for a transnational civil society, superseding potential sources of conflict:

• The road to peace starts with the transition from the natural condition to an ‘original contract, upon which all rightful legislation of a people must be founded’, which needs to be republican.
• In order to overcome the natural condition internationally, external lawlessness between states should be solved by creating a ‘Federation of Free States’.
• Finally, a peaceful membership in a global republic would not be possible without ‘the right of a stranger not to be treated with hostility […] on someone else’s territory’ – the cosmopolitan right to universal hospitality.

Yet Kant, in spite of wanting to emancipate humans from natural determination and past experience, seems to have fallen under the same phenomenal influence as the realists. His pessimistic view of human instincts, which needed to be suppressed to avoid war, strongly reflected an internalisation of the social perceptions of human nature in his time. Humans, he thought, by choosing to overcome their instincts, ought to move from the tutelage of human nature to a state of freedom. The problem is that this ‘freedom’ was already socially defined. Therefore, viewing war as a purely negative phenomenon that hinders human progress, Kant never subjected his reasoning to the total scrutiny which he himself advocated.

Consequently Kant offered a rather deterministic solution, which merely aimed at social ‘tranquillisation’ through feeding people the ready-made values of global peace. Hence one observes his rather excessive emphasis on obedience to authority: ‘all resistance against the supreme legislative power […] is the greatest and most punishable crime’. Kant’s individual requires a master who will ‘break his self-will and force him to obey’. In turn, the master needs to be kept under the control of his own master. Crucially, this would destroy the liberty to conceive for oneself whether war is necessarily such a negative phenomenon.

Even such pacification, through obedience to authority, is unlikely to bring perpetual peace, for it refuses to understand the underlying factors that lead humans into war with each other. Perhaps more effective would be to try to find the cause of war, prior to searching for its cure.

Kant missed the idea that war may be the consequence of the current value system, which suppresses the true human will. Thus Friedrich Nietzsche argued for the need to revaluate values. Being unafraid of war, he recognised its creative potential to bring about a new culture of politics. Where Kant’s peace would merely be a temporary pacification, a complete revaluation of values could potentially create a society that would be beyond the issues of war and peace.