3rd Global Conference
Monday 18th October - Wednesday 20th October 2004
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Conference Programme, Abstracts and Papers
Session 1: Generals, Civil Society & Military Culture
Chair: Rob Fisher
“Inventing the General”: A
Re-appraisal of the Sunzi bingfa
Andrew Wilson and Andrew Meyer,
United States Naval War College and Brooklyn College, USA
The Sunzi
bingfa, commonly known as Sun Tzu's Art of War,
reads like a treasure trove of strategic wisdom. When it first appeared
in the late 4th century B.C.E., however, the Sunzi was
more derided than lauded, due to the radical departure by the author
from the strategic culture of the age and the call for a professional
standard for command in war. The revolutionary nature of the text
is often lost on contemporary readers who assume the existence of
a professionally-run military. This oversight obscures much of the
value this book can hold for modern students of war and strategic
theory.
With military culture still trapped in the aristocratic era,
the mass armies equipped with standardized weapons, common in late
4 th century China, could not be effectively led until new social
roles were created, such as military officers who wielded routinized
rather than charismatic authority. The Sunzi railed against
'traditional' approaches to war and argued for a strategic culture
centred upon the professional expertise of the commander. In other
words, the author was inventing the 'general' and providing the conceptual
framework within which the military technology of his day could reach
its full potential. The Sunzian general, for whom command
was not a test of valour or mantic office but an intellectual enterprise,
was defined by his professional expertise and unique qualities of
mind. As such, the Sunzi is an elaborate defense of the
authority of the commander and the autonomy of the realm within which
he operated. The Sunzi, therefore, exemplifies the kind
of military-intellectual complex that all advanced societies manifest,
and highlights many of the enduring tensions evident between the “professional” military
and the “amateur” statesmen and rulers whom they serve.
The New Minutemen: Civil Society and the
Evolution of Military Culture
Mark Perry
Department of
Cultural Studies,
Lebanese American University, Beirut
Since World War I we have witnessed
the blurring or elimination of the boundary between combatants and
civilians. The conduct and aftermath of war now have unlimited effects
on society at large. With the rise of the Internet and civil society’s
increasing sophistication in the use of communications media, this
process has only accelerated, as witnessed most dramatically by the
enthusiasm with which the documentary “Fahrenheit
9/ll” has been greeted in the United States.
That war directly
affects civilian life on a global basis is becoming more clear. But
as yet little understood are the hidden ways in which daily life has
been organized on the basis of military culture. Our primary social
institutions—schools, hospitals, corporations,
governments—are heavily influenced by paradigms created and perpetuated
by the military.
We now have witnessed several powerful anti-war movements
in the last half century. Is the influence of war and military culture
declining, and a new influence originating in civil society rising?
If so, how will the new civil society culture affect the ongoing evolution
of the military’s direct political role and more subtle cultural
influence?
Let us accept the premise that the civil society movement,
supported by increasingly powerful global communications tools, will
increasingly influence the military’s functioning. Therefore
the blurring of the line between the soldier and the civilian means
not only that civilians are vulnerable, but also that they are effective
in influencing the causes, conduct and outcome of warfare. By gaining
greater access to global information they are able—whether or
not governments approve—to play a greater role in decision-making.
If power hinges on information, then as information becomes ever more
accessible, power becomes ever more diffused. This new factor therefore
counterbalances the increasing centralization of the technologies of
warfare, and challenges us to redefine the meaning of power.
