“Cry, ‘Havoc!’ and Let Slip the Managers of War”: The Strategic, Military and Moral Hazards of Micro-Managed Warfare

If intrusive political, media and public oversight into the fine detail of the conduct of military affairs were to become the norm, what could be the implications? This paper argues that the micro-management of warfare, and less intensive military operations such as humanitarian intervention and peacekeeping, can distort and unbalance the broad political-military relationship. The consequences of that unbalancing could be described in terms of three related hazards: strategic (where the Clausewitzian model, predominant in the West, of the linkage between society and armed forces, and between politics and war, becomes strained); military (where modern western military practices such as manoeuvre warfare, mission command and rules of engagement become difficult if not impossible to sustain); and moral (where the western liberal project to contain and moderate the effects of warfare is undermined).