Amid the expanding column inches on the advisability of whether the UK should expand airstrikes against Isis, there is a mysterious absence. Those against the intervention are certain of ways in which it must surely fail. Those in favour talk up the positive outcomes.
What is absent from the debate is any concession to a fundamental truth about conflict – especially regarding limited warfare – and that is how outcomes, not least long-term outcomes, are both difficult to predict and essentially unknowable.
That truism – dramatised by Carl von Clausewitz, the great theorist of war – is no less valid today.
War is non-linear. Escalations – as demonstrated by events of recent weeks – are difficult to manage and control. Intrinsic and extrinsic factors, human error, hubris and accident can be as decisive as tactics or superiority on paper. Initial success can be the father of failure, and failure the mother of unexpected consequences.
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