When we go to war ... (Letters).(Letter to the Editor)

SIR: In his article "Clausewitz's Chameleon" (November 2002), Dr Michael Evans both ignores his own advice and appears to forget his Clausewitz.

He advises that "In the West we have to reconcile how we would like to fight with how we might have to fight" (his emphases). He later concludes that "Security in a new era of liberal globalism requires a willingness to undertake intervention ... this new challenge must be met by military pre-emption in ways not seen since the late nineteenth century." Dr Evans, apparently, would like to fight in what he regards as Australia's "way of war", expeditionary operations.

However, Dr Evans seems to forget Clausewitz's dictum, that war is the continuation of politics by other means. The politics of Australia adopting a military strategy of expeditionary pre-emption would be fraught with difficulty. The probability of a government adopting that strategy would seem to be limited, that an opposition would allow it to be implemented without United Nations sanction remote, and Australia's ability to persuade the Security Council to agree virtually non-existent.

What is really needed is some advice on how Australia might have to fight, not how Dr Evans would like Australia to fight.

 
John Donovan, 
Canberra, ACT. 

SIR: As quoted by Michael Evans, Mary Kaldor's "theory of [new wars] based on identity politics and the privatisation of violence challenging the new global order" would seem to best describe the Islamist terrorism which the West (read USA, Australia and ...