Editing Conventional warfare

{{Short description|War between two states in open confrontation}}
{{more citations needed|date=September 2014}}
[[File:Soviet troops and T-34 tanks counterattacking Kursk Voronezh Front July 1943.jpg|thumb|300px|Soviet soldiers and tanks during the 1943 [[Battle of Kursk]], one of the largest battles of [[World War II]]]]
{{history of war}}
'''Conventional warfare''' is a form of [[warfare]] conducted by using [[conventional weapon]]s and [[battlefield tactics]] between two or more [[sovereign state|states]] in open confrontation. The forces on each side are well-defined and fight by using weapons that target primarily the opponent's military. It is normally fought by using conventional weapons, not [[chemical weapon|chemical]], [[biological agent|biological]], [[radiological warfare|radiological]], or [[nuclear weapon]]s.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |title=How are conventional and unconventional warfare different? |url=https://science.howstuffworks.com/conventional-unconventional-warfare.htm |access-date=2024-01-17 |website=HowStuffWorks.com}}</ref><ref name=":1">{{Cite web |last=Fabian |first=Sandor |date=2021-04-05 |title=IRREGULAR VERSUS CONVENTIONAL WARFARE: A DICHOTOMOUS MISCONCEPTION |url=https://mwi.westpoint.edu/irregular-versus-conventional-warfare-a-dichotomous-misconception/ |access-date=2024-01-17 |website=Modern War}}</ref>

The general purpose of conventional warfare is to weaken or destroy the opponent's military, which negates its ability to engage in conventional warfare. In forcing [[capitulation (surrender)|capitulation]], however, one or both sides may eventually resort to [[unconventional warfare]] tactics.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1" />

==History==

===Formation of state===
{{further|State formation}}
The state was first advocated by [[Plato]] but found more acceptance in the consolidation of power under the [[Roman Catholic Church]]. European monarchs then gained power as the Catholic Church was stripped of [[Temporal power of the Holy See|temporal power]] and was replaced by the [[divine right of kings]]. In 1648, the powers of [[Europe]] signed the [[Treaty of Westphalia]], which ended the religious violence for purely political governance and outlook, signifying the birth of the modern state.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2021-02-10 |title=Qual era a melhor forma de governo para Platão, que fazia duras críticas à democracia |url=https://www.bbc.com/portuguese/internacional-56004586 |access-date=2024-01-17 |website=BBC}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Burgess |first=Glenn |date=1992-01-01 |title=The Divine Right of Kings Reconsidered |url=https://academic.oup.com/ehr/article/CVII/CCCCXXV/837/521648?login=false |journal=The English Historical Review |volume=107 |issue=425 |pages=387–861 |doi=10.1093/ehr/CVII.CCCCXXV.837}}</ref>

Within the statist paradigm, only the state and its appointed representatives may bear [[weapon|arms]] and enter into war. In fact, war then became understood only as a conflict between sovereign states. [[Monarch]]s strengthened that idea and gave it the force of [[law]]. Any [[nobility|noble]] had been allowed to start a war, but European monarchs had to consolidate military power in response to the [[Napoleonic Wars]].<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Howard |first=Michael |year=1979 |title=War and the Nation-State |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/20024637 |journal=Daedalus |volume=108 |issue=4 |pages=101–110|jstor=20024637 }}</ref>

===Clausewitzian paradigm===
[[Prussia]] was one of the countries that tried to amass military power. [[Carl von Clausewitz]], one of Prussia's officers, wrote ''[[On War]]'', a work rooted solely in the world of the state. All other forms of intrastate conflict, such as [[rebellion]], are not accounted for because in theoretical terms, he could not account for warfare before the state. However, near the end of his life, he grew increasingly aware of the importance of non-state military actors, as is revealed in his conceptions of "the people in arms", which he noted arose from the same social and political sources as traditional interstate warfare.<ref name="Smith">Smith, M.L.R. "Guerrillas in the mist: reassessing strategy and low intensity warfare". ''Review of International Studies''. Vol. 29, 19–37. 2003</ref>

Practices such as [[raid (military)|raiding]] or [[feud|blood feuds]] were then labeled criminal activities and stripped of [[legitimacy (political)|legitimacy]]. That war paradigm reflected the view of most of the modernized world in the early 21st century, as is verified by examination of the conventional armies of the time: large, high-maintenance, and technologically advanced armies designed to compete against similarly designed forces.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Marsili |first=Marco |year=2023 |title=Shifting the Clausewitzian Paradigm from Battlefield to Political Arena |url=https://cesran.org/shifting-the-clausewitzian-paradigm-from-battlefield-to-political-arena.html |journal=CESRAN}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Herberg-Rothe |first=Andreas |date=2023-04-27 |title=Clausewitz and Sun Tzu - Paradigms of Warfare in the 21st Century |url=https://www.thepeninsula.org.in/2023/04/27/clausewitz-and-sun-tzu-paradigms-of-warfare-in-the-21st-century/ |journal=The Peninsula}}</ref>

Clausewitz also forwarded the issue of ''[[casus belli]]''. Wars had been fought for social, religious, or even cultural reasons, and Clausewitz taught that war is merely "a continuation of politics by other means." It is a rational calculation in which states fight for their interests (whether they are economic, security-related, or otherwise) once normal discourse has broken down.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Banta |first=Benjamin |date=2019-08-05 |title=The New War Thesis and Clausewitz: A Reconciliation |url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1758-5899.12722 |journal=Global Policy |volume=10 |issue=4 |pages=477–485 |doi=10.1111/1758-5899.12722}}</ref>

===Prevalence===
Most modern wars have been conducted using conventional means. Confirmed use of [[biological warfare]] by a nation state has not occurred since 1945, and [[chemical warfare]] has been used only a few times (the latest known confrontation in which it was utilized being the [[Syrian Civil War]]). [[Nuclear warfare]] has only occurred once: the [[United States|American]] [[Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki|bombing]] of the [[Empire of Japan|Japanese]] cities of [[Hiroshima]] and [[Nagasaki]] in August 1945.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Frischknecht |first=Friedrich |year=2003 |title=The history of biological warfare |journal=EMBO Reports|volume=4 |issue=Suppl 1 |pages=S47–S52 |doi=10.1038/sj.embor.embor849 |pmid=12789407 |pmc=1326439 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |date=2023-08-20 |title=The 10th Anniversary of Two Ghoutas Attack: The Largest Chemical Weapons Attack by the Syrian Regime on Syrian Citizens |url=https://reliefweb.int/report/syrian-arab-republic/10th-anniversary-two-ghoutas-attack-largest-chemical-weapons-attack-syrian-regime-syrian-citizens-enar |journal=SNHR}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings |url=https://www.icanw.org/hiroshima_and_nagasaki_bombings |access-date=2024-01-17 |website=ICAN}}</ref>

===Since World War II===
The state and Clausewitzian principles peaked in the [[World Wars]], during the 20th century, but they also laid the groundwork for their dilapidation from [[nuclear proliferation]]. During the [[Cold War]], the [[superpowers]] sought to avoid open conflict between their respective forces, as both sides recognized that such a clash could very easily escalate and quickly involve nuclear weapons. Instead, the superpowers fought each other through their involvement in [[proxy wars]], military buildups, and diplomatic standoffs. Thus, no two [[nuclear powers]] have yet fought a conventional war [[proxy war|directly]] except for two brief skirmishes between China and Soviet Union in the 1969 [[Sino-Soviet conflict (1969)|Sino-Soviet conflict]] and between [[India]] and [[Pakistan]] in the 1999 [[Kargil War]].<ref>{{Cite web |last=Yu |first=Miles |date=2022-12-13 |title=The 1969 Sino-Soviet Border Conflicts As A Key Turning Point Of The Cold War |url=https://www.hoover.org/research/1969-sino-soviet-border-conflicts-key-turning-point-cold-war |access-date=2024-01-17 |website=Hoover}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |year=2023 |title=The Kargil War: a war that defied all odds |url=https://www.gallantryawards.gov.in/assets/uploads/home_banner/FinalKargil_Mainwriteup-2023-07-25.pdf |journal=Gallantry Awards}}</ref>

However, conventional wars have been fought since 1945 between countries without nuclear weapons, such as the [[Iran–Iraq War]] and [[Eritrean–Ethiopian War]], or between a nuclear state and a weaker non-nuclear state, like the [[Gulf War]] and [[Russo-Ukrainian War]].<ref>{{Cite web |date=2023-11-07 |title=Are Ethiopia and Eritrea on the Path to War? |url=https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/11/07/ethiopia-eritrea-war-tplf/ |access-date=2024-01-17 |website=Foreign Policy}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Tillema |first=Herbert |year=1989 |title=Foreign Overt Military Intervention in the Nuclear Age |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/423868 |journal=Journal of Peace Research |volume=26 |issue=2 |pages=179–196|doi=10.1177/0022343389026002006 |jstor=423868 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Consequences of Conflict: The Russia-Ukraine War and the Gulf |url=https://gulfif.org/consequences-of-conflict-the-russia-ukraine-war-and-the-gulf/ |access-date=2024-01-17 |website=Gulfid|date=29 March 2022 }}</ref>

==See also==
* [[Asymmetric warfare]]
* [[Guerrilla warfare]]
* [[Low-intensity conflict|Low-intensity operations]]
* [[Psychological warfare]]
* [[Unconventional warfare]]

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
* {{cite web
 | year = 2004
 | url = http://www.dni.gov/nic/NIC_2020_2004_05_25_intro.html
 | title = Changing Nature of Warfare
 | work = National Intelligence Council
 | access-date = January 30, 2006
 | url-status = dead
 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20060615205240/http://www.dni.gov/nic/NIC_2020_2004_05_25_intro.html
 | archive-date = June 15, 2006
 }}
* {{cite web
 | author = Stathis Kalyvas
 | year = 2003
 | url = http://www.armedgroups.org/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=26
 | title = The Sociology of Civil Wars: Warfare and Armed Groups
 | work = Armed Groups Project
 | access-date = January 30, 2006
 | url-status = dead
 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20061009064348/http://www.armedgroups.org/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=26
 | archive-date = October 9, 2006
 }}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Conventional Warfare}}
[[Category:Warfare by type]]
[[Category:Military strategy]]
[[Category:Military science]]
[[Category:Military doctrines]]