The ‘Transformation of War’ Debate: Through the Looking Glass of Ulrich Beck’s World Risk Society
| Published date | 01 March 2006 |
| Author | Yee-Kuang Heng |
| Date | 01 March 2006 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0047117806060929 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
International Relations Copyright © 2006 SAGE Publications
(London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi), Vol 20(1): 69–91
[DOI: 10.1177/0047117806060929]
The ‘Transformation of War’ Debate: Through the
Looking Glass of Ulrich Beck’s World Risk Society
Yee-Kuang Heng, Trinity College, University of Dublin, Ireland
Abstract
This article adopts an interdisciplinary approach to the ongoing ‘transformation of war’
debate in an age of globalisation. It suggests that careful scrutiny of recent Anglo-
American campaigns, from Kosovo to Iraq, reveals a shared underlying concern: the
management of globalised systemic risks. This implies an interesting continuity where
one might expect discontinuity, given the different US administrations and strategic
contexts involved. Policymakers, for instance, have consistently prioritised anticipatory
proactive stances to avert probabilistic scenarios. Underpinning the analysis presented
here is what sociologist Ulrich Beck terms the ‘world risk society’. Social sciences,
notably sociology, have fruitfully incorporated risk theories into their research agendas.
International relations, however, has largely not done so in a concerted fashion, despite
its cross-disciplinary nature. This article demonstrates that Beck’s ideas in fact have great
relevance to understanding the impetus, ethos and outcomes of contemporary war.
Keywords: globalisation, risk management, systemic risks, transformation of war,
Ulrich Beck, World Risk Society
Introduction
The West has ‘a real problem with the concept of war these days’.1Conflict in the
modern era has usually meant war or the threat of war between great powers.
Contemporary conflict in a period of globalisation, however, involves mostly failed
or ‘rogue’ states, and non-state actors. Overturning conventional logic, it is these
actors rather than powerful ones that now pose primary strategic challenges to the
West. This article addresses such conceptual difficulties in the context of Anglo-
American campaigns over Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq, from 1998 to 2004.
These operations, launched by different American presidents in dissimilar strategic
contexts before and after 9/11, in fact shared significant patterns and rationales.
Among the most prominent has been the presence of globalised risks.
Policymakers, speaking the language of risk, advocated the need for proactive risk
management. These patterns require a conceptual explanatory framework.
Academic works on risk, particularly sociologist Ulrich Beck’s World Risk Society,
have been generating much research attention within the wider social sciences. Yet,
notwithstanding some innovative international relations (IR) works discussed
below, IR scholars have largely overlooked these developments. This article re-
emphasises the interdisciplinary roots of IR and explores how Beck’s analytical
prism of ‘risk society’ illuminates the characteristics of contemporary war.
r
i
This article proceeds firstly by outlining the ‘transformation of war’ debate and
its strategic context. The discussion establishes how the globalisation of risk has
emerged as a core security concern. Methodological issues arising from the concept
of risk are also discussed. The second section provides a systematic analysis of
Beck’s World Risk Society. This serves to demonstrate what specific analytical tools
and benefits the book might bring to analysing war. Four elements are addressed:
reflexive modernisation, the globalisation of risk, active anticipation and risk
society’s minimalist ethos. Finally, these elements are applied to empirical case
studies of recent wars in terms of their impetus, ethos and outcomes. The findings
suggest that war is now driven by a perceived globalisation of risks. This manifests
itself in a ‘reflexive’ rationality predicated on proactive anticipatory strategies. The
goal is to avert undesirable outcomes that have yet to materialise. Exhibiting a
safety-first mentality, such wars are predominantly minimalist in ethos. As for
assessing results, there are no perfect solutions. Risks can only be managed, not
completely eradicated.
I. The transformation of war debate
My focus here is limited to the West. For other parts of the world, it should be noted,
war for states and non-state actors still involves threats to survival. The West is still
in the ‘war’ business but the business at hand has changed considerably. It no longer
faces survival threats or cross-border aggression. This article further distinguishes
between what Colin McInnes has termed the ‘transformation of war’ debate and the
‘revolution in military affairs’ (RMA) debate.2It is more concerned with the
former, especially how broader changes in the international system and societal
concerns affect war. The debate has continued unabated since Van Creveld’s 1991
The Transformation of War. War has changed substantially, not least due to
globalisation, the end of Cold War constraints and societal trends. Complex issues,
although previously present during the Cold War, have moved up the security
agenda and have assumed a new dimension with globalisation. WMD proliferation,
ethnic cleansing and transnational terrorism are highlighted here, since they figure
prominently in our case studies. The distinctiveness of the issues concerned require
an innovative approach more attuned to the broader context in which governments,
society and the international system has evolved.
In On War, Karl von Clausewitz emphasised historicist notions: ‘each age has its
own kind of war . . . its own limiting conditions . . . using different methods and
pursuing different aims . . . Each would therefore also keep its own theory of war’.
But rather than examining minutiae, to understand war we need a perceptive glance
at the main defining features of each particular age.3Thus, eighteenth-century
balance-of-power wars reflected a Newtonian fascination for mechanistic struc-
tures characterising that period.4The Cold War too spawned its own peculiar
strategic thinking.5More recently, Washington Post columnist Robert Samuelson
has observed that terrorism, economic uncertainties and Iraq were metaphors for the
70 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS 20(1)
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