The war of all against all

Reading Bill Lind’s interesting take on a Marine’s war-fighting field manual, I had a notion that the history of warfare has had two great hinge points: the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 and the fall of the Twin Towers in 2001. In the gory old days, it was the war of all against all. There were few formal armies (and those mostly mercenary), little distinction between soldier and civilian, and war crimes an everyday affair. Then the European nations clubbed together and declared that war was the exclusive province of the nation-state. Thenceforth armies in pretty uniforms fought wars, and they got extremely upset when civilians sniped at them from behind hedges, as in Napoleonic Spain and King’s George’s American colonies. Similarly, they set up criminal tribunals to punish governments and armies that didn't fight in a prescribed manner, like those of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan.

All that ended on 9/11. (For us, that is to say! An Israeli would date the change to the first Palestinian intifada; a Russian, to the first Chechen rebellion.) Once again it is war of all against all, civilians to the front, and savagery glorified. Blue skies! – Dan Ford