In this great read, Mark Galeotti describes how a new way of war emerges in modern conflicts in which everything can be weaponized. Although this book was published just before the war in Ukraine, and therefore does not take this event into account, the main conclusions are still valid and applicable. One could even argue that they are more applicable than ever. Gaelotti explains that there are several types of weaponization, being:
Information Warfare: Galeotti describes how information, particularly through social media and news, is weaponized to influence public opinion, spread disinformation, and create divisions within societies. This type of warfare aims to control narratives and undermine trust in institutions.
Economic Warfare: This involves the use of economic tools like sanctions, trade wars, and financial manipulation, to weaken an adversary without direct military engagement. Galeotti highlights how economic pressure can destabilize economies and governments, thereby achieving strategic goals effectively.
Cyber Warfare: Galeotti defines cyber warfare as the use of cyberattacks to disrupt, sabotage, or gather intelligence from an adversary. This includes hacking, espionage, and the disruption of critical infrastructure, all of which can have devastating effects without physical violence or direct military engagement.
Cultural Warfare: He introduces the concept of cultural warfare, where cultural values and identities are used to influence and destabilize other societies. This can include promoting certain ideologies or undermining the cultural cohesion in a targeted nation.
Legal Warfare (also known as Lawfare): Galeotti discusses how international and domestic legal systems are manipulated as tools of conflict. This can involve using legal frameworks to harass opponents, constrain their actions, or legitimize aggressive policies.
Diplomatic Warfare: This type of warfare involves the strategic use of diplomacy to isolate opponents, form alliances, or manipulate international organizations to achieve strategic objectives.[1]
Galeotti defines these forms of warfare within a broader concept of ‘unrestricted warfare’, where anything can be weaponized to achieve political or strategic goals. This reflects a shift away from traditional kinetic warfare which is focused on physical military force, towards a multi-dimensional approach that targets all aspects of society. In this new era, according to Galeotti, the boundaries between war and peace are increasingly blurred, and conflict occurs across a spectrum of domains beyond the battlefield. One could argue that these domains should be (or are already) part of the concept of Multi-Domain Operations (MDO), which primarily concerns military engagement within the Land, Air, Maritime, Space and Cyber domains.[2]
Although Galeotti asserts that this unrestricted warfare is ‘new’, he also provides numerous historical examples of how these types of warfare have already been used for decades or even centuries. For example, Galeotti explains that economic and diplomatic warfare was also being used centuries ago by the Italian city states such as Florence. Another example concerns lawfare, where during the Vietnam War, the Soviet Union and its allies frequently used the UN and other international platforms to condemn the United States' actions, framing them as violations of international law. This strategy was aimed at isolating the U.S. diplomatically and influencing global public opinion. Galeotti emphasizes that this use of legal instruments to achieve strategic objectives, by tying down adversaries in legal battles and using international law as a tool of propaganda, demonstrates how lawfare has been an essential part of geopolitical conflict for many decades already.
These historical and in-depth explanations of non-military engagements are what makes this book relevant, because these examples show that these types of warfare are not new (Galeotti seems to contradict himself) and that we can learn from history about why and how they have been employed before.
Commentary
What I am less enthusiastic about is the framing and classification of warfare into numerous subsets. War has always been all-encompassing. The only reason why it was perhaps limited in the past is that we, or our opponent, likely did not have a need for more creative ‘weapons’ or simply did not see them within the realm of possibilities. The majority of conflicts however have always been broader than just direct military engagement, of which Galeotti himself gives numerous examples in his book. To quote Clausewitz: war is the continuation of politics by other means.[3]
The value of classifying different types of warfare is that it becomes more apparent what kind of force is being applied. However, I want to question its usefulness. I see little value in these endeavors to classify ‘warfare’ into infinite subsets or types. Warfare can be characterized by being for example asymmetric in relation to your opponent, but to classify this as a type of warfare is unnecessary and can even be deceiving because your opponent can evolve. Just look at the Vietnam war, where the North Vietnamese switched between fighting an asymmetrical and symmetrical battle within the same war. I see a risk in limiting yourself in thinking that you are in a particularl defined type of war. No war is the same or remains constant. More importantly, wars are often won by surprise and deception, which means that you cannot limit yourself to this or that type of war.
But Galeotti is far from alone is his endeavor to classify and delineate types of war. There are many types of war nowadays. There is for example such a thing as ‘cognitive warfare’, as described by David Pappalardo on War on the Rocks.[4] My first thought: What the hell is cognitive warfare? Isn’t all warfare cognitive? Of course this article gives a nice and reasonable definition, but is it necessary and useful to designate it as a new type of war?
The classification of generations of warfare can also been seen in this light. Somehow we need to delineate where one generation of warfare ends and another one starts. Moreover, it is crucial to be the one who predicts what the next generation of warfare (the Fifth or Sixth) will be. This classification of generations is perhaps useful in retrospect in order to understand military history, but we must not mistake it for being real generations of warfare. They are mere constructs as in an agreement, just like we have labelled a period in history the Middle Ages or Dark Ages.
To conclude my main critique on Galeotti, I do not think it is necessary or useful to delineate or classify war into numerous types. War is all-encompassing and should always been seen and interpreted as such.
Nonetheless, I would highly recommend this book to anyone because it gives a broad overview of conflict and the all-encompassing nature of war. It is one of those great books that goes ‘Beyond the Art of War’.
[1] Summary of these points have been supported by ChatGPT.
[2] NATO, Alliance Concept for Multi-Domain Operations. NATO and Allied Command Transformation, NATO Initial Alliance Concept for Multi-Domain Operations, March 10th 2023.
[3] https://clausewitz.com/readings/Cquotations.htm
[4] “Win the War Before the War?”: A French Perspective on Cognitive Warfare - War on the Rocks
Bibliography
Mark Galeotti, The Weaponization of Everything (Yale University Press, 2022)