"War is a sheer continuation of politics with other means," wrote
Carl von Clausewitz (On War, 1818). It is difficult to argue
against this; but a paraphrase, intended to put the line in
historic perspective, might be appropriate: War is the
continuation of the practical experience of survival in the
context of a society trying to control and adjudicate resources.
Accordingly, combat follows the line of other practical
experiences. The practical experience of hunting-formerly combat
with non-human adversaries-required the weapons eventually
associated with war. These were the tools that primitive humans
used to wrest food for their survival and the survival of their
community. Future aspects of these activities, and the associated
moral values, make us sometimes forget that the syncretic nature
of human beings, i.e., projection of their natural endowment in
the practical act, is expressed in the syncretism of the tools
used. This syncretic condition evolved under the need for labor
division, and one of the main early demands of labor division
resulted in the establishment of the semi-professional and
professional warrior.
As the tools of the martial profession diversified more and more
from working tools, a conceptual component (tactics and
strategy) became part of the praxis. The conceptual component
set forth a sequence to be followed, a logic to be used, and a
method for counteracting enemy maneuvers in order to achieve
victory. Von Clausewitz was the first to explicitly point out
that war continues politics, while other writers on the subject,
living centuries before he did, perceived war as a practical
effort. Two Byzantine emperors, Maurice (539-602) and Leo,
called the Wise (886-911), tried to formulate military strategy
and tactics based on the pragmatic premise. They stipulated that
the pragmatic framework defined the nature of the conflict and
the actual condition of the battle, weapons included. Indeed,
every known change in military materiel in a society has been
synchronized to changes in the status of its practical
experience. The invention of the stirrup by the Chinese (600)
improved the ability of men riding horseback. It opened the
avenue to wars where the backbone of battle formation was no
longer composed of foot soldiers but of warriors on horses.
Mechanical contraptions (e.g., the Trebuchet, acknowledged at
1100, based on releasing a heavy counterweight) for throwing
large stones or missiles, opened the way to what would shift
superior defensive capabilities (through fortifications, city
walls, castles built before the 14th century) to superior
offensive power. This was also the case with the cannons that
the Turks used to conquer Constantinople (1453). But it is not
military practice per se that concerns us here, but rather the
implications of language, in particular literacy.
At a very small scale of human activity, with many autarchic
groups composed of few people, there was little need for
organized combat or specially trained warriors. Incipient,
rudimentary military practical experience, in its basic functions
of aggression and defense, became desirable at a larger scale of
human activity. This experience was simultaneous with the
establishment of language, especially writing. Sun Tzu's book, as
well as many earlier testimonies to battles (mythology,
religious writings, epic poetry, and philosophy), can be
mentioned here. This military practice integrated the means and
skills of survival, such as hunting and safeguarding the
territory from which food was obtained.
Awareness of resources corresponded to awareness of scale. The
scale of human activity in which the constitution of community
member-warrior took place corresponded to increased settlement
of populations, increased demand for resources, higher
productivity, and accumulation of property-all reflected in the
need to expand the practical experience of language beyond the
immediate characteristic of orality. The efficiency of work and
combat was at about an equal level. In a sense, wars lasted
forever; peace was merely respite between conflicts. The notion
of prisoner (usually sold into slavery) confirmed the importance
of human labor and skill for consolidating a community,
producing wealth for those in power, and subsistence for everyone
else. The social constitution of the military was not excepted
from pragmatic requirements of efficiency and mediation, i.e.,
of ensuring the highest efficiency within the given scale of
human experience, as needs and expectations corresponding to this
scale were manifested. While it is true that combat efficiency
was spelled out in units of intentional destruction or
preservation (of life and various artifacts relevant to human
self- constitution), combat efficiency also referred to defenders
whose goal was to make destruction by the enemy less possible
(even impossible).
While individual conflicts did not require the intervention of
language more than orality could provide, conflicts between
larger groups made the need for a coordinating instrument clear.
Human language, through new words and constructs, testified to
the experience of conflicts and the associated mytho-magical
manifestations. Through language, this experience was projected
against the background of many different forms of human praxis.
As a general rule, armies of all types, under every type of
government, acquired a special status in society due to the
function they fulfilled. Written language did not generate
armies; but it served as a prerequisite (even in its most
rudimentary notation forms) for the institution of the military.
Writing introduced many elements that influenced the combat
experience: a record of means and people, a record of actions,
an instrument for planning, a record of consequences. All the
components of the military institution objectify the purpose of
war at a particular time. They also objectify the relations
between a society at war and, during times of peace, between
society and its warriors. Language is the medium through which
objectification takes place. The sequentiality of writing and
the need to express sequences pertinent to conflicts are
consubstantial. Von Clausewitz's line encompasses the extension
in language of the many aspects of wars.
"Did Gideon know how to read Hebrew? Did Deborah?" some people
might ask, referring to leaders of decisive battles documented
in the Old Testament. Others would refer to examples from the
same time that are accounted for in Greek epics and the
chronicles of the Middle East. Roman mythology and the testimony
of Islam do not tell us whether all their warriors wrote or
read. These documents do inform us of the pragmatic
circumstances that led to the institution of the army as a body
constituted in continuation of syncretic practical experiences,
progressively constituting its own domain of existence and its
own reason for being.
From face-to-face conflicts that required almost no language, and
which resulted in the victory of the stronger, to the conflicts
between humans in which much technology-requiring little
language-was also involved, changes parallel to the levels of
literacy occurred. Under the circumstances of wars fought by
armies facing each other, language was the medium for
constituting armies and coordinating action. In order to define
goals, to share plans for achieving victory, and to modify plans
in response to changing conditions, language was as important as
the number of horses, quality of swords and shields, and quality
of ammunition. The profession of warrior, as much as the
profession of hunter, was based on the ability to attack and
defend, and on the skills needed to adapt means to goals within
a changing balance of power. The first wars, and probably the
majority of them, were fought before generalized literacy. The
major warriors-the Egyptian pharaohs Tuthmose III in the battle
for Meggido (1479 BCE), Ramses II battling the Hittites at
Kadesh (1296 BCE), Nebuchadnezzar and Darius, the Spartans under
Leonidas (480 BCE), Alexander the Great (conquering Babylon in
330 BCE), Julius Caesar (49-46 BCE) and Octavian (31 BCE), and
the many Chinese warriors of this period and later-did not need
literacy for their battles as much as for their politics. Their
strategies resulted from the same expectations and pragmatic
requirements that gave rise to the experience of written
language.
Wars were fought on terrain well chosen, by armies composed of
men who carried out orders selected from a limited set of
possibilities. To paraphrase the terminology of generative
grammars, it was a limited war language, with not too many
possible war sentences. Once improved means of work and
production became the means of carrying on war, those in command
could write more war texts, more scripts. As war efficiency
increased, so did the possibility of a breakdown of the effort
due to lack of integration and coordination. The military
structure reflected the characteristics of the human praxis that
fostered written language and, much later, literacy: relatively
limited dynamics, centralized, hierarchical organization, low
level of adaptability, a strictly sequential course of action, a
deterministic mentality. David Oliver convincingly described the
process: "Mechanics is the vehicle of all physical theory.
Mechanics is the vehicle of war. The two have been inseparable."
He refers to the practical demands of warfare in the context
that led to the science of mechanics and eventually to the
beginnings of projectile ballistics. By 1531, Nicolo Tartaglia of
Brescia overcame his disdain for war and devised the gunner's
square, which was perfected 100 years later by none other than
Galileo. In 1688, the French introduced the socket bayonet on
their muskets, which occurred simultaneous to changes in tools
used at the time, i.e., the tools that allowed for manufacturing
the bayonet.
The framework that created conditions for the ideal of literacy
affected the pursuit of war not only in technology, but also in
the way wars were played out. The advancing line of exposed
troops were involved in a dynamics of confrontation that
reflected linearity, a phenomenon prevalent in the practical
experience of civilian life. Destructive power was added until
the enemy was destroyed. Row by row, soldiers stopped to fire
platoon volleys, then continued onto the decisive bayonet charge.
The structure of writing (sequences, hierarchy, accumulation,
closure) and the structure of this particular military
engagement were similar. Literacy as such was registered rather
late as a qualifier of the warrior. But once integrated in the
practical experience of military self-constitution, literacy
changed the nature of making war and enabling higher levels of
efficiency corresponding to the new scale of war. These were no
longer skirmishes among feudal warlords, but major conflicts
between nations. These conflicts diminished in number but grew
in intensity. Their duration corresponded to the relatively long
cycles of production, distribution, and consumption
characteristic of literacy-based practical experiences.
Under the pressure of many types of necessity embodied in human
pragmatics, war was submitted to rules. It was civilized, at
least in some of its aspects. The Catholic Church, preserver of
literacy during the Dark Ages, when many little wars between
feudal lords were carried on, took the lead in this direction. In
order to avoid destruction of crops and lives in the barbarian
societies of Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire, the only
viable hierarchy tried to tame warriors with the literate rules
that the Church preserved. With their own pragmatic
considerations in mind, rulers accepted these prescriptions. It
took a millennium for people to discover that wars never have
final results. But they also learned that the experience of war
creates knowledge-for example, of means used, weather patterns,
territory, characteristics of the enemy-and creativity-what is
called the art of war. Resulting in death and destruction, wars
are also instances of self-education in one of life's most
unforgiving schools.