The Strategic and Operational Dynamics of
Limited War
By
Adam Elkus
Journal Article |
Apr 17 2012 - 4:41am
Throughout military history, America has engaged in both limited and unlimited warfare. The Cold War
saw the United States pursuing limited objectives rather than the complete destruction of an adversary.
The threat of great power conflict and nuclear annihilation frequently had a restraining effect on local
conflicts. In the post-Cold War period, the United States returned to unlimited warfare in regional
interventions. Military operations and diplomatic pressure are used to overthrow target regimes. But
political and strategic failures, fiscal constraints, and the growing military power of other states are
prompting a return to limited war. Successful prosecution of limited wars, however, is contingent on a
sound understanding of their strategic and operational characteristics. If the United States wages limited
war, it must do so by setting genuinely limited objectives. This essay reviews strategic and operational
considerations for the planning of limited war.
Explaining Limited War
Warfare with unlimited goals ends in the destruction of an adversary as a political entity. Destruction need
not be total in material character, as regimes have been overthrown without substantial bloodshed. But
unlimited war, if prosecuted to its natural extremes, ends with the fall of a given political order and the
creation of a new reality. While all war is to some extent characterized by ill intent, unlimited war always
involves the escalation of an
adversary to an absolute enemy
. Such a total enemy is portrayed as
dangerous, illegitimate, and criminal. The only remedy for such a foe is political annihilation.
Limited war, in contrast, does not climax in the political annihilation of an opponent. It seeks lesser
objectives, such as territory or a shift in political behavior. It is true that limited war still involves enemies
and enmity, and certainly it also has become much less genteel since the age of 18
th
century maneuver.
Furthermore, limited war should not be mistaken as an alternative form of warfare. War has truly one
nature, and
its character in any given conflict
is predominately determined by its political object.
Limited war also is not distinguished by limited
means
. The means employed to gain the object only
loosely correlate with war aims. Decisive operations have enabled limited aims and economy of force
operations are often utilized for wars with expansive objectives. The Gulf War was a limited conflict
contingent on the expulsion of Iraqi forces from Kuwait, yet it required a powerful combined-arms ground
campaign and a massive air war. In contrast, the United States did not take on the hard work of ground
combat in Afghanistan in 2001 or slug it out with Muammar Gaddafi’s forces in Libya in 2011. Yet
despite the limited character of the means Washington was willing to devote to those conflicts, their
objects were the overthrow of adversary regimes.
Limited and unlimited wars are also ideal categories that
lie on a general spectrum of violence
. While
