Michael Howard's Five Forces Of War

As leaders evaluate the strategic environment to determine if war is required to address their fears, satisfy their honor, and/or secure their interests they must always remember their ultimate objective of achieving a better peace. Following a war, Michael Howard stipulates that a lasting peace can only be achieved through a decisive victory which leaves an opponent both physically and psychologically unable to carrying on and by reconciling the defeated party with the post-conflict world order. These two conditions are neither reasonable and/or achievable when applied to state-on-state conflicts and conflicts with VEOs in the 21st Century. Evaluating their reasonableness and achievability must begin with outlining and precisely defining
First, the victory must instill within the defeated people their complete and total loss while also leaving within them no hope for reversing the outcome by any means available for the foreseeable future. This decisive victory could involve the complete destruction of their military force or by presenting the adversary with a situation where additional hostilities would involve a cost they are unwilling to bear. Second, Howard ascertains that the victor must reconcile the defeated party and treat them as a partner in the post conflict international order. Reuniting the vanquished party with the new world establishment serves to both garner active participation from the new ruling elite by treating them with respect and to deprive the defeated power from all external sources of support that could abet the reversal of their military defeat. Additionally, Howard offers a unique condition for the attainment of a lasting peace for state-on-state conflicts by identifying the requirement for the formulation of a governing body within the defeated nation that takes responsibility for implementing the peace-terms on its
This condition is both reasonable and achievable with regard to 21st Century state-on-state conflict. As war is an extension of politics by other means, it is expected that once force is no longer required to compel an adversary toward a specific end the method of interaction will revert back to political collaboration within the international community. Japan and Germany are historical examples of this rapprochement. More recently, both Iraq and Afghanistan’s post-conflict governments are diplomatically recognized and their connections with the global commons were reestablished to carry out foreign trade. These historical examples provide insight into the expected post-conflict actions following 21st Century state-on-state conflict where defeated nations have historically been reintroduced to both the world commons and the world decision making organizations which has contributed to a lasting