Conflict Realism: A New School of Thought for Examining the Future of Armed Conflict

The future of armed conflict is a divisive topic in which competing camps and actors grapple to control the narrative.[1] Not formalized in existing literature, four basic schools of thought exist in the conflict and defense studies fields.[2] These camps include the Futurist, Traditionalist, Institutionalist, and Conflict Realism. Each of these camps provides value to the study of armed conflict. Yet, the over-reliance on one camp over others creates unhelpful distortions and implications that can impede the student and practitioner of war’s ability to think clearly about war and warfare. A holistic view of armed conflict, which takes into consideration all four camps, is needed to help overcome unhelpful distortions and find the essence of the problems in armed conflict.     

This article asserts that Conflict Realism is a marginalized field regarding the future of armed conflict and that Conflict Realists are one of the most overlooked actors when it comes to the study of war. Nonetheless, Conflict Realists provide a useful and pragmatic alternative to the Futurists, Traditionalists, and Institutionalists that dominate the study of war today.  

The primary problem with these camps is that they generally represent modern, and future, war through the gilded lens of aspiration and how armed conflict should be, instead of viewing war and warfare through the blood-red lens of how things are, and arguably, how armed conflict will be in the future. Futurists, Institutionalists, and Traditionalists thinking on armed conflict fails to appropriately account for realistic deductions from modern war and how those deductions factor into future armed conflict.   

Moreover, all three camps reflect a view of war which is idealistic, optimistic, and self-centered. This gilded and bureaucratic outlook on armed conflict overlooks or discredits many disquieting realities of war and warfare. The impact of these omissions and rejections of reality tends to not be felt in the moment, but down the road when the truth of armed conflict again overturns rosy assertions of how wars should be fought. The U.S. government provided Ukraine dire warnings of a pending Russian invasion ahead of February 2022.[5] Nonetheless, The mea culpas emanating from theorists, academics, and practitioners in the wake of Russia’s February 2022 re-invasion of Ukraine, and the horrendous combat that has ensued, make this point self-evident.[6] Conflict Realism, not so much a coherent body of knowledge, but a generalized grouping of thoughts by critically minded analysts, offers a more useful alternative to the study of war and warfare. 

States and Western militaries must more fully embrace Conflict Realism as a viable school of thought when examining future armed conflict. Conflict Realism, which emphasizes the importance of causal mechanisms in armed conflict, as opposed to preference, narrative, procurement strategies, and centuries-old logic, provides a useful tool for policymakers, academics, and practitioners preparing for future armed conflict.   

The Conflict Realism taxonomy is offered with a degree of reservation because detractors will quickly find flaws with the schools of thought set forth in this paper. Nonetheless, the schools of thought are not intended to be a scientific classification, but an ontological frame to illuminate an overlooked and underappreciated element in the study of armed conflict. Further, to think strategically about the future of armed conflict requires embracing a holistic view of war, as opposed to a preferential view, and must not operate in a zero-sum manner, which is a problematic undercurrent stifling military thought today. 

The conflict and defense studies communities can be classified along various lines. Aligning participants into three primary interest groups—theorists, academics, and practitioners—is a useful taxonomy. These groupings are the large pots in which the conflict and defense studies’ schools of thought socialize their respective ideas. Individuals can easily fit into more than one classification. For instance, a practitioner can also be an academic, or an academic can also be a theorist. This degree of fidelity, however, is not required to continue discussing the schools of thought.

A 2021 paper by John Myers and David Jackson makes a good attempt to further classify military thought by aligning it into Futurist and Traditionalist camps.[7] These groups are useful, but simultaneously insufficient. Four basic schools of military thinking—Futurists, Traditionalists, Institutionalists, and the Conflict Realists—provide the community of interest a more nuanced understanding of contemporary military thought.  

Futurists

Futurists—the prophets of technology—promise that applied science will make future armed conflict more precise, less expensive, more indirect, and less destructive.[8] As a result, the Futurist prospectus commands attention today. The U.S.’s fascination with technological advancement and technology-based problem-solving results in the Futurists being the camp de jure, and at the front of nearly all contemporary discussion on future armed conflict. Recent Western investment in futures commands in both the U.S. and the U.K. make this fact readily apparent.[9]

Futurists are often the leading proponents for so-called revolutions in military affairs, and the assertions that game-changing technology has, or will, fundamentally alter the nature of war.[10] Futurist thought thumbs its nose at analysis which posits that technology is more often evolutionary instead of revolutionary, and that technological advancement just contributes to the morass of wars of attrition.[11] Further, Futurists brush aside inconvenient truths about armed conflict, such as the fact that neither drones, precision targeting, nor precision munitions have made modern armed conflict any less destructive, less expensive, or less resource-intensive than war from a generation ago.[12] To be sure, billionaire Futurist Elon Musk recently, and incorrectly, argued that the side in war which possesses the best technology wins, and does so quickly.[13]

Ukrainian HIMARS in Zaporizhya Oblast (Wikimedia Commons)

As of the time of this writing, Russia’s detestable war against Ukraine is closing in on twelve months of vicious combat in which over 100,000 Russian soldiers have been killed or injured, numerous Ukrainian cities have been flattened, thousands of Ukrainians have fled their homes, and an unpublished number of Ukrainian soldiers have been killed.[14] Throughout the conflict, U.S. and other partners have provided Ukraine invaluable security assistance through provisioning Ukraine with the latest military technology, yet no swift political victory, nor any decisive battle have materialized.[15] Instead, the ongoing war in Ukraine clearly demonstrates that the latest warfighting technology, such as drones, cyber capabilities, HIMARS (High Mobility Artillery Rocket System), fuel destructive battles of attrition, and do not necessarily bring war any closer to a quick conclusion.[16] 

Traditionalists

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Traditionalists are the inverse of Futurists. Traditionalists are often well-versed in history, military theory, and military doctrine, and in gazing towards the future they look to the past for precedent.[17] As a result, Traditionalists repeatedly conflict with Futurists because of the former’s view that the nature of armed conflict is unflinching and immutable, which clashes with the latter’s aggrandizement of the impact of nascent technology on armed conflict.[18]

Traditionalists are readily identifiable because of their belief in the idea that, despite technological advancement, war remains fundamentally the same as it has always been—a contest of wills, a human endeavor, and bound with friction and chance.[19] The interposition of Clausewitz’s thoughts into nearly every conceivable situation, such as the Russo-Ukrainian War or cyber warfare, at the expense of potentially more relevant analytical tools, is a clear indication of a Traditionalist.[20]

Nonetheless, Traditionalists are helpful to the study of armed conflict because they provide ballast to the Futurists through the provision of historical and theoretical context. Left unchecked, however, Traditionalists can create an anchor bias around any number of historical or theoretical examples, which can impede pragmatic thinking about the future of war. 

Institutionalists

Institutionalists are usually heard echoing the talking points and narratives of their organization. Institutionalist thought tends to reflect both political and domestic idealism, as well as organizational capital investment strategies. In terms of military thought, Institutionalists fall into advocating for ideas and tools that reinforce service, or organizational, priorities, and not venturing far from their existing doctrines and cultural myths. Because of their self-referential character, Institutionalists place little value on ideas that do not align with their organization’s narratives and cultural prerogatives. Further, Institutionalists tend to classify those inside their organizations who possess non-Institutionalist views as disloyal. The U.S. Army’s court martial of Billy Mitchell, although dated, is a classic example of this situation.[21]

Gen. William "Billy" Mitchell's Court-Martial (U.S. Air Force).

An Institutionalist’s value resides in their bureaucratic approach to modernization which helps ensure that their respective organizations do not invest too much in nascent material solutions. On the other side of the coin, Institutionalists can embody a “not invented here” attitude and hinder growth through an recalcitrant position toward those that they feel do not align with their organization’s priorities. Institutionalists can also be the biggest killers of organizational change and drivers of organizational “brain drain” because of their status as defenders of the status quo.            

Conflict Realists—not to be confused with Realist political theory—scrutinize armed conflict through reality’s blood-red lens in search of the causal mechanisms in war. Conflict Realists then determine whether those events are unique to a certain set of environmental considerations, or if they are universally applicable in armed conflict. If the assessment indicates that an event is situational, the Conflict Realist pockets those events as either a passing fad or white noise in armed conflict. If the Conflict Realist determines that those events or situations are universally applicable, however, then those features are salient threads which warrant inclusion in conversations of future armed conflict.

The Conflict Realist position, which is a less unified camp than the Futurists, Traditionalists, and Institutionalists, contends that future armed conflicts will be long, bloody, and destructive affairs of attrition.[22] When viewed as a collective cohort, Conflict Realism posits that war in the post-Cold War and post-9/11 eras is decidedly urban.[23] From the Bosnian War’s Siege of Sarajevo to the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian War’s siege of Mariupol, urban operations sit atop modern armed conflict. Moreover, Conflict Realists accept that political and military proxies, and proxy wars as a whole, reflect a cynical attitude towards the idealism of Western liberalism and an international rules-based order. Lastly, Conflict Realists contend that military victory in armed conflict is predicated on the longitudinal fracture, and exhaustion, of an opposing actor’s political, military, and economic system.[24]  

The Conflict Realist camp asserts that military victory sides with the combatant best disposed to weather war’s attritional storm.[25] As a result, Conflict Realism asserts that strategic depth is the currency of modern, as well as future, armed conflict and thus shrugs aside arguments supporting short wars and decisive battle as delusional.[26]

Because of its pessimistic assessment of current and future armed conflict, Conflict Realism is not the preferred school of thought amongst most policymakers, practitioners, academics, and theorists. Nevertheless, preferential views of war and warfare are of little value when crisis tips into conflict, because realistic and pragmatic assessments and solutions are required.    

The praxis of Futurists theory, as the shortcomings of drones and precision strike to deliver on their professed benefits in the post-9/11 era demonstrates, readily contribute to the Conflict Realist’s interpretation of armed conflict. Institutionalists, the product of idealistic organizations, which are rooted in Western liberalism, and bent on mirror-imaging and self-replication, often find themselves unprepared for pragmatic actors and quickly turn to Conflict Realism when they stumble out the gate to understand an unfolding conflict. Traditionalists provide cautionary tales to the overzealous Futurists and the Institutionalist hankering for quick, decisive victory in war.

The study of future armed conflict must not be approached as a zero-sum game. To that end, Conflict Realism must not be viewed as the product of a small band of pariahs that “don’t get it.”  Instead, Conflict Realism must be considered germane to discourse on the future of armed conflict. Conflict Realists are gaining more relevance as the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian War continues down the terrible path forecasted by the Conflict Realist school of thought. Policymakers, academics, and theorists must accept the fact that Conflict Realism, despite its grotesque assessments and forecasts, is a force of nature that must be accounted for when thinking about the future of armed conflict. 

Amos Fox is a PhD Candidate at the University of Reading, an associate editor at the Wavell Room, and the Deputy Director for Development for the Irregular Warfare Initiative. The views expressed are the author’s alone and do not reflect those of the U.S. Army, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government.

This article appeared originally at Strategy Bridge.

[1] Alex Pascal and Tim Hwang, “War is as War Does: World Order and the Future of Conflict,” Just Security, 26 August 2019, accessed 11 December 2022, https://www.justsecurity.org/65959/war-is-as-war-does-world-order-and-the-future-of-conflict/.

[2] Roberts, Peter. 2021. Interview with Amos Fox. March 4, 2021. Western Way of War. Podcast. https://westernwayofwar.libsyn.com/fighting-for-the-soul-of-western-militaries.

[3] National Science and Technology Council, “The National Artificial Intelligence Research and Development Strategic Plan,” Network and Information Technology Research and Development Subcommittee, October 2016, accessed 11 December 2022, https://www.nitrd.gov/PUBS/national_ai_rd_strategic_plan.pdf.

[4] Valerjis Bodnieks, “The New Institutionalism: a Tool for Analysing Defence and Security Institutions,” Security and Defense Quarterly 32, (2020): 84-85. DOI: 10.35467/sqd/130903.

[5] David Sanger, “The United States’ Message to Russia: Prove Us Wrong,” New York Times, 17 February 2022, accessed 21 January 2023, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/17/us/politics/blinken-russia-ukraine-predictions.html.

[6] Hans von der Burchard, “We Failed on Russia: Top German Social Democrat Offers Mea Culpa,” Politico, 25 October 2022, accessed 11 December 2022, https://www.politico.eu/article/we-failed-germany-depended-on-russia-social-democrat-said/.

[7] John Myers and David Jackson, “The Fault Line Between Futurists and Traditionalists in National Security,” War on the Rocks, 18 January 2021, accessed 8 December 2022. https://warontherocks.com/2021/01/the-faultline-between-futurists-and-traditionalists-in-national-security/.

[8] Mark Gunzinger and Bryan Clark, Sustaining America’s Precision Strike Advantage (Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, 2015), 8-11.

[9] “British Army Modernizes, Transforms for the Future,” Association of the United States Army, 7 May 2021, accessed 10 December 2022, https://www.ausa.org/news/british-army-modernizes-transforms-future.

[10] Assassination Drones and Bioweapons: The Future of Warfare?” Al Jazeera, 15 September 2022, accessed 8 December 2022, https://www.aljazeera.com/program/the-bottom-line/2022/9/15/assassination-drones-and-bioweapons-the-future-of-warfare.

[11] Anthony Cordesmam, “The Real Revolution in Military Affairs,” Center for Strategic and International Studies, 5 April 2014, accessed 8 December 2022, https://www.csis.org/analysis/real-revolution-military-affairs.

[12] “Drone Warfare Just Got Deadlier: System Error,” Vice News, 8 March 2022, accessed 11 December, https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PsQr2nL3RjA.

[13] Dan Carlin. 2021. Interview with Elon Musk. 13 December. Hardcore History: Addendum. Podcast. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/engineering-victory-with-elon/id1326393257?i=1000544785111.

[14] “Situation Ukraine Refugee Situation,” United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, accessed 21 January 2023, https://data.unhcr.org/en/situations/ukraine; “Ukraine: Civilian Casualty Update 26 December 2022,” United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner, 26 December 2022, accessed 21 January 2023, https://www.ohchr.org/en/news/2022/12/ukraine-civilian-casualty-update-26-december-2022.

[15] “Biden Administration Announces Additional Security Assistance for Ukraine,” US Department of Defense, 19 January 2023, accessed 21 January 2023, https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/3272866/biden-administration-announces-additional-security-assistance-for-ukraine/.

[16] Pavel Baev, “Time for the West to Think About How to Engage with Defeated Russia,” Brookings Institute, 15 November 2022, accessed 15 December 2022, https://www.brookings.edu/articles/time-for-the-west-to-think-about-how-to-engage-with-defeated-russia/.

[17] Michael Howard, The Causes of Wars (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1983), 190-197.

[18] Rosa Brooks, “Fighting Words,” Foreign Policy, 14 February 2014, accessed 8 December 2022, https://foreignpolicy.com/2014/02/04/fighting-words/#:~:text=According%20to%20the%20Prussian%2C%20war's,%2C%20interactive%2C%20and%20fundamentally%20political.

[19] Mike Martin, “Strategy, Logistics, and Morale: Why the Fundamentals of War Haven’t Changed,” Telegraph, 25 September 2022, accessed 8 December 2022, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/09/25/strategy-logistics-morale-why-fundamentals-war-havent-changed/.

[20] Olivia Garard, “Some Clausewitzian Thoughts on the Ukrainian Defense,” Modern War Institute, 25 April 2022, accessed 9 December 2022, https://mwi.usma.edu/some-clausewitzian-thoughts-on-the-ukrainian-defense/.

[21] Lawrence Freedman, Strategy: A History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 125.

[22] Stephen Walt, “The Ukraine War Doesn’t Change Everything,” Belfer Center, 13 April 2022, accessed 8 December 2022, https://www.belfercenter.org/publication/ukraine-war-doesnt-change-everything.

[23] Anthony King, “Will Inter-State War Take Place in Cities?” Journal of Strategic Studies 45, no. 1 (2022): 90-91. DOI: https://www.tandfonline.com/action/showCitFormats?doi=10.1080/01402390.2021.1991797.

[24] Amos Fox, “On the Principles of War: Reorganizing Thought and Practice for Large-Scale Combat Operations,” Association of the United States Army, Land Warfare Paper 138 (June 2021): 7-15.

[25] Cathal Nolan, The Allure of Battle: A History of How Wars Have Been Won and Lost (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017): 577.

[26] Nolan, The Allure of Battle, 577.