Big Serge On The Theory Of Modern War--With Examples

Big Serge has a fascinating substack out today in which he discusses two distinctly different types of modern warfare, working from the Franco - Prussian war of 1870 and the analysis of its Prussian protagonist, Helmut von Moltke (the elder). Serge then applies his insights to the conflict in Ukraine. I will attempt to expand on his discussion somewhat. First, here is the substack:

The End of Cabinet War

Putin and Moltke grapple with the limits

To begin with, Serge explains the idea of “Cabinet War”:

Moltke viewed the ideal form of war as something which the Germans call a Kabinettskriege. Literally a Cabinet War, this referred to the limited wars which dominated affairs for much of the 16th through 19th centuries. The particular form of these wars was a conflict between the professional militaries of states and their aristocratic leadership - no mass levies, no horrible scorched earth, no nationalism or mass patriotism. For Moltke, his earlier war against Austria was an ideal example of a Cabinet War: the Prussian and Austrian professional armies fought a battle, the Prussians won, and the Austrians agreed to Prussia’s demands. There was no declaration of a blood feud or a guerilla war, but instead a vaguely chivalrous acknowledgment of defeat and limited concessions.

Briefly, this is the type of war that the Prussian Field Marshall, Moltke, intended to wage against France and for which he prepared. The French army would be quickly defeated by the Prussian army and Prussia would demand Alsace-Lorraine as the price of French defeat. All went according to plan, even to include the capture of Napoleon III at Sedan. With France’s army utterly defeated, that was the end of the Cabinet War. But the French refused to surrender and formed a Government of National Defense to carry on the war. That was no easy task with no army, but the new French government surprised the Prussians by rapidly forming new armies in a new sort of national mobilization. This led to what Moltke and the Prussians termed Volkskriege - a People’s War—which prolonged the conflict for another five months.

While many in Prussia—which had morphed into the German Empire—were content to think that all was well since the war had ended well for Prussia, Moltke was troubled by what he saw as a new form of war:

The days are gone by when, for dynastic ends, small armies of professional soldiers went to war to conquer a city, or a province, and then sought winter quarters or made peace. The wars of the present day call whole nations to arms…

And so, as Serge explains, Moltke argued that Germany would need to prepare for such a war. He had been overruled by Bismarck in the Franco - Prussia War. Bismarck demanded a quick end, and Moltke delivered—but he had wanted to go much further:

Moltke argued in 1870-71 that pursuing limited war aims against France no longer made sense, since the entire French nation was now aroused in anger at Prussia-Germany. The French, he argued, would never forgive Prussia for taking the Alsace region, and would become intractable enemies. Therefore, France had to be leveled as a military-political entity or else it would simply rise again and become a dangerous enemy very soon. Unfortunately for Moltke, the Prussian Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck, wanted a fast resolution to the war and was not interested in trying to occupy and humiliate France. He told Moltke to hunt down the new French army and get it over with, so Moltke did.

However, Moltke’s basic fear - that a limited war would do no lasting damage to France as a threat - proved true. It took only a few years for the French to completely rebuild their military - by 1875, Moltke and his staff estimated that the window of opportunity was closed and France was fully prepared to fight another war.

Meanwhile, from a military perspective, there were many in the Prussian establishment who were terrified by France’s success mobilizing an emergency army. Prussia’s victory, they argued, was possible only because the French mobilization had been improvised - lacking weapons and training. A nation that was prepared to mobilize and arm millions of men in repetitive conscriptions, with the requisite logistics and training infrastructure, might be nearly impossible to defeat, they argued, and put the entire framework of Prussian war-making in question.

Moltke didn’t live to see WW1, but his worst fears—and those of his students—were realized. In WW1 entire nations were fully mobilized for the war effort, and the conflict devolved into a global war of total strategic attrition. The entry of the US into WW1 finally tipped the scales against Germany, despite Russia’s exit. But it wasn’t simply American troops that tipped the scales, it was the commitment of all America’s resources that were turned to the war effort. The same sort of thing happened in WW2, with the difference that Russia absorbed the full might of the Wehrmacht and then went on the offensive. WW2 was also a war of total strategic attrition involving entire nations. In other words, both these world wars were People’s Wars, and the vast propaganda efforts on both sides reflected that reality.

I think readers will see where this is going. Serge argues, convincingly, that Putin hoped to prosecute a Cabinet War of sorts. I would add that the parallel to the Franco - Prussian war is not exact. In that case, Moltke fully intended and planned for the complete defeat of the French army—and achieved that goal. Putin, to my mind, attempted to provide Ukraine with a preview of what could happen, with the goal of inducing Ukraine into a negotiated, comprehensive strategic settlement. Whether Putin’s general’s agreed with that strategy is not known, but it must be conceded that Putin’s strategy very nearly worked. Only the intervention of the American Empire—once again—persuaded the Ukrainians to engage in full war against Russia. That war has turned into a People’s War, a war of total strategic attrition not only of manpower and war materiel but also of the nation’s resources more generally. Ukraine’s defeat—which is now being openly discussed—will be complete.

Serge concludes that Putin has absorbed the lessons of past global conflicts. Ukraine chose a People’s War and Putin has given that to Ukraine. The Neocons of the West are twisting and turning, trying to escape the coming demolition of their proxy state, but Putin will not allow that:

Putin is not going to leave a geostrategically intact Ukraine which will seek to retake the Donbas and exact revenge, or become a potent forward base for NATO. Instead, he will transform Ukraine into a Trashcanistan that can never wage a war of revanchism.

Clausewitz warned us. He too wrote of the danger of a people’s war. He spoke of the French revolution thus:

Now war stepped forth in all its raw violence.

War was returned to the people who to some extant had been separated from it by professional armies; war cast off its shackles and crossed the bounds of what had once seemed possible.

This endgame for Ukraine is being openly discussed. To give some idea of what Putin’s terms will be, I cannot recommend highly enough this 25 minute video:

Now, I would argue that Israel is making the mistake of believing that it can maintain it’s existence through serial Cabinet Wars. The basic Israeli and Zionist theory of war is embodied in the Dahiya Doctrine:

The Dahiya doctrine, or Dahya doctrine, is a military strategy of asymmetric warfare, outlined by former Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Chief of General Staff Gadi Eizenkot, which encompasses the destruction of the civilian infrastructure of regimes deemed to be hostile as a measure calculated to create civillian suffering to pressure combatants, and endorses the employment of "disproportionate force" to secure that end.

The doctrine is named after the Dahieh neighborhood of Beirut, where Hezbollah was headquartered during the 2006 Lebanon War, which were heavily damaged by the IDF.

In other words—or more precisely, in the words of Richard Falk:

… under the doctrine, "the civilian infrastructure of adversaries such as Hamas or Hezbollah are treated as permissible military targets, which is not only an overt violation of the most elementary norms of the law of war and of universal morality, but an avowal of a doctrine of violence that needs to be called by its proper name: state terrorism."

While the Dahiya Doctrine may appear on its face to be a total People’s War, there is a difference. The Israeli form of war, while it invokes the extermination of “Amalek”, it’s enemy, is actually limited. Israel lacks the resources—on its own—to accomplish such extermination. It relies on constant resupply by its vassal state—the American Empire. Without that resupply line, Israel could not prosecute its preferred methond of war, which is to exert disproportionate power that is technologically superior to that of its enemies. Nor is it able to totally disregard world opinion.

Thus, Dahiya Doctrine is reduced to serial punitive expeditions—serial Cabinet Wars—whose purpose is to intimidate the restless natives by administering painful “bloody noses” or “mowing the grass”. Israel and its Zionist supporters profess outrage that the Arabs have adopted something like the French approach of refusing to surrender to the intimidation: That’s not fair! is the refrain. We won, by our terms, so you have to surrender! But the Arab world has opted for a People’s War that Israel will, ultimately, be unable to win because it will be fought on terms other than its own.