Military Review English Edition January-February 2016 | Page 11

GLOBALIZATION

Ethiopia at Starbucks. At the strategic level, globalization is responsible for rapid growth in emerging economies such as China and India.
While the effects of globalization are widely contested and not fully understood, what is becoming
clear is that globalization is a force that is significantly
changing how the world works. Predicting the future of war is a fool’s errand, but an examination of
global trends provides insightful clues to the security
environment that will shape how the United States
conducts war in the future.
As a result of globalization, the security environment the United States now faces is shifting away from
interstate conflict. Therefore, its military strategy must
reflect this change by enhancing its capacity to project
power in a future dominated by intrastate conflict,
transnational terrorism, and urbanization.
The following sections will address these global
trends and provide recommendations for how we can
face the challenges that stem from them despite the
fiscal realities at home.

Decline of Interstate Conflict
The world has entered the era of permanent great
power peace.1
—Christopher J. Fettweis
Since 1945, the number of interstate conflicts has
declined precipitously despite the number of states in
the international community tripling.2 In comparison to intrastate conflict, interstate conflicts are quite
infrequent. In most years, less than three conflicts are
ongoing at any time, and from 2004 to 2010, zero interstate conflicts existed .3 This declining trend in interstate conflict is remarkable, and yet the trend is mostly
unacknowledged in the U.S. military. Undoubtedly,
many variables contribute to this trend, such as the
deterrent effect of nuclear weapons or the advance of
democracy across the globe. But, a number of studies
attribute the decline of interstate conflicts to globalization.4 Kristian Gleditsch and Steve Pickering best
describe the pacification effect of globalization: “States
with more trade and more extensive economic relations are likely to have higher opportunity costs from
escalation to war and may have more opportunities to
signal intent and reach resolution by means other than
MILITARY REVIEW  January-February 2016

force.”5 The interconnectedness of states is, in effect,
limiting the benefits of conventional war and promoting other means to achieve political ends.
While the decline of interstate conflict is a positive
trend, it is important to note two things. First, although
the incidence of interstate conflict remains low, the risk
of conflict between states still exists, particularly among
neighboring nations with increasing populations competing for declining resources. Second, states are increasingly inclined to support proxy wars rather than engage
in direct conflict themselves in an effort to achieve
political or strategic gains. Russia’s material support to
the separatists in Crimea and eastern Ukraine highlights
such a strategy. While an all-out conventional invasion
would be unacceptable to the international community, Russia’s strategy of plausible deniability enables it to
violate Ukraine’s sovereign borders, instigate instability,
and seize strategic territory.
To further illustrate the reluctance of the international community to resort to conventional war, consider the following example. On 17 July 2014, Malaysia
Airlines Flight 17 was shot down over Ukraine, killing
298 people.6 Shooting down an airliner flying at 32,000
feet is clearly beyond the normal capacity of a guerrilla
fighter, and evidence points to Russian-backed separatists.7 Yet, despite Russia’s indirect involvement in an
attack that killed citizens from several different countries, the international community chose to respond
with an investigation and economic sanctions.
These are powerful examples of how states are inclined to behave in the era of globalization—and they
raise the question: What would be the threshold for
the United States to commit to a large-scale conventional war again, given the recent drawdown from our
longest period of war?

Rise of Intrastate Conflict
U.S. strategic culture has a long tradition of downplaying such atypical concerns in favor of a focus on more
conventional state-based military power.8
—Audrey K. Cronin
While irregular warfare accounts for approximately
83 percent of all conflicts in the past two centuries of
war, globalization creates conditions that will further
encourage irregular warfare and intrastate conflict
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