Modern War Institute Podcast: Are We Headed for Limited War?
Modern War Institute's CPT Jake Miraldi sits down with Dr. Jakub Grygiel, the George H. W. Bush Associate Professor at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies of The Johns Hopkins University, to talk about the concept of limited war. Grygiel talks about how limited war is influencing the security situation in Europe and what NATO is doing to counter.
Comments
"Limited war," today, to be seen from the perspective of our recent realization that:
a. Such things as "universal values" and "the end of history" (the western versions) have not obtained and that, accordingly,
b. For "progress" to be achieved (the transformation of other states and societies more along modern western political, economic and social lines -- and the integration of these transformed states and societies more into the global economy), this, much to our and our allies disappointment and dismay,
c. Might actually require some "fighting."
In this regard, consider the following excerpts from an earlier article (August 2015) by our interviewee here Dr. Jakub Grygiel; in this instance, re: Europe's/the West's contrary "illusions" and "delusions:"
BEGIN EXCERPTS:
- Europe saw no necessity to fight for what it stood, for the rules it formulated and implemented, for the prosperity it promised, for the security it was blessed with.
- Progress -- made concrete by the expansion of the zone of prosperity and security under the institutional umbrella of the EU and NATO -- required no fighting for it: it was a historical process, necessary and desirable, and universally appealing.
- The enlargement of the EU, in particular, appeared to occur without requiring a competitive strategy. Those leaders or states that initially opposed the march of progress could not do so for a prolonged period -- so the delusion had it -- and eventually they would be enticed to accept the inevitability of democracies, common markets, rule-based interactions, and diluted sovereignty.
- In fact, the EU saw its eastern policy toward Ukraine, Belarus, Georgia and even Russia, as merely a continuation of the 1990s, a gradual and peaceful expansion of institutions without the necessity to engage in a competitive behavior with the powers (such as Moscow) that were seen as not yet ready but surely willing at some point to join.
- (Thus) Europe thought it was at the forefront of a historical wave and could limit itself to manage the technocratic details of progress. Front-page news indicates, of course, a different story.
(Item in parenthesis -- immediately above -- is mine.)
END EXCERPTS
https://www.sais-jhu.edu/sites/default/files/geopolitics%20of%20europe…
So: To have our heads screwed on correctly, and so as to, accordingly, be able to move out smartly in the right direction, we must, I suggest, and much as in the past, accept today also that:
a. Our involvement in "limited wars;" this must be viewed as
b. Our attempt to achieve our political objective (see "progress" at the first sub-paragraph "b" above) via other ways and other means. This,
c. Due to the fact that our western version of "universal" values," and our western version of "the end of history," have not, as we had hoped (1) become manifest and, thus, have not (2) made "fighting" -- to overcome both state and non-state actor resistance to our such political objective -- unnecessary/a thing only to be associated with the past.
Thus, we "saddle up," once again, and in the current era -- not for novel, new and/or unusual reasons -- but, rather, for well-known and well-understood reasons?
Reasons that we are, indeed, intimately familiar with?