From the Editors

Scholars have struggled to find a single label that captures the trend in armed conflicts that have occurred the post-Cold War world. Are they wars among peoples? Wars of precision strike? Are they post-modern wars? Or are they digital wars? As the title of Kareen Ayoub and Kenneth Payne’s contribution to this issue suggests, one truly profound change that will come to characterise future wars will likely be the result of advances in artificial intelligence. Fighting among super-intelligent machines or even partnering with them to conduct armed conflicts may have disruptive psychological effects on humans and, given the machines’ great capacity to learn and optimise their performance, perhaps even tremendously costly unintended consequences.¹

Some scholars of course have argued that despite changes in hardware, operational environments or computerisation, success on the modern battlefield ultimately rests on winning the battle of ideas. Hence the growing interest in what are now called ‘information operations’, or what an earlier generation would have called propaganda. Colin F. Jackson takes a critical approach to the topic by examining attempts to influence populations through propaganda during the Malayan campaign and Vietnam War. Drawing on concepts and terms from marketing studies, he deflates much of the hype that has come to surround ‘information operations’ by underscoring the limits to which information can be deployed as a weapon. His title encapsulates his thesis: ‘Information is Not a Weapons System.’²

The public reaction in Britain to the Chilcot inquiry and the growing debate among the American public about the United States’ role in the world are evidence of a renewed and widespread scepticism about the utility of sustained military intervention and counter-insurgency as tools of contemporary statecraft. Western states, so runs the current wisdom, should only intervene in short sharp operations, preferably through proxies and drones. David H. Ucko analyses Britain’s 2000–2002 military operations in Sierra Leone to argue emphatically that limited interventions can work. Not only did the application of force end the conflict in Sierra Leone, but it also helped to lay the foundation for a durable peace by neutralising spoilers and other adversarial actors who did not want the fighting to end.³ Although operations by foreign forces against transnational insurgencies may perhaps ultimately be unsustainable, Barnett Koven examines Peru’s struggle against the Shining Path to argue that national armed forces can adopt the sophisticated doctrines developed by more advanced militaries with success. As his case study illustrates, the Peruvian military swiftly improve its unity of effort, intelligence capacity, and operations to meet the demands of a population-centric hearts-and-minds approach to counterinsurgency.⁴

The last essay in this issue by Dong Jong Kim takes a broad perspective on the relationship between the military and economic components of US grand strategy. Although Washington has employed appropriate economic policies to work alongside military ones in countering adversaries, recent discussions of US grand strategy, especially vis-à-vis China,⁵ have neglected non-military means. Kim studies the limitations of economic means, especially what he calls ‘the capability–influence dilemma’: in other words, should the US seek influence through economic engagement or a relative advantage in power through disengagement? The implication posed by that dilemma is that the US, in its relations with China, may need to make a hard to choice: whether to focus on establishing influence through continuing extensive economic engagement or on elaborating its relative power position through the adoption of a security diseconomy against China.⁶

Notes

¹ Kareem Ayoub and Kenneth Payne, ‘Strategy in the Age of Artificial Intelligence’, Journal of Strategic Studies 39/5 (2016).

² Colin F. Jackson, ‘Information Is Not a Weapons System’, Journal of Strategic Studies 39/5 (2016).

³ David H. Ucko, ‘Can Limited Intervention Work? Lessons from Britain’s Success Story in Sierra Leone’, Journal of Strategic Studies 39/5 (2016); David H. Ucko, ‘The People are Revolting’: An Anatomy of Authoritarian Counterinsurgency, Journal of Strategic Studies 39/1 (2016), 29–61. On a similar French case, see Thierry Tardy, ‘The Reluctant Peacekeeper: France and the Use of Force in Peace Operations’, Journal of Strategic Studies 37/5 (2014), 788–89.

⁴ Barnett S. Koven, ‘Emulating US Counterinsurgency Doctrine: Barriers for Developing Country Forces, Evidence from Peru’, Journal of Strategic Studies 39/5 (2016). For a critique of the Dutch approach to counter-insurgency, see Thijs Brocades Zaalberg, ‘The Use and Abuse of the “Dutch Approach” to Counter-Insurgency’, Journal of Strategic Studies 36/6 (2013), 867–97.

⁵ For relevant and recent essays, see Luis Simón, ‘The “Third” US Offset Strategy and Europe’s “Anti-access” Challenge’, Journal of Strategic Studies 39/3 (2016); Andrew S. Erickson, ‘Rising Tide, Dispersing Wave: Opportunities and Challenges for Chinese Seapower Development’, Journal of Strategic Studies 37/3 (2014), 372–402; Yoram Evron, ‘China’s Military Procurement Approach in the Early 21st Century and its Operational Implications’, Journal of Strategic Studies 35/1, (2012), 63–93; Miangjiang Li, ‘The People’s Liberation Army and China’s Smart Power Quandary in Southeast Asia’, Journal of Strategic Studies 38/3 (2015), 369–82; James Manicom, ‘China and American Seapower in East Asia: Is Accommodation Possible?’ Journal of Strategic Studies 37/3 (2014), 345–71.

⁶ Dong Jung Kim, ‘Choosing the Right Sidekick: Economic Complements to US Military Grand Strategies’, Journal of Strategic Studies 39/5 (2016).