Generals often stand accused of trying to fight the last war all over again. But it isn't only the military mind that is prone to assuming that every war will be the last war-redux. We are all prone to that error and there have been many quibbles over definition of the current situation as a "war" at all.
WWIII involves both state and non-state actors, unlike WWII and WWI, where the bulk of the participation was by nation states. The delineations of alliances in WWIII are also unclear, unlike the previous world wars where clear alliances fought for clear objectives.
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There are a multitude of non-state actors in WWIII. These are decentralised. Their personnel are drawn from all over. The leaderships are fluid. One non-state actor, Daesh, claims to be a state. There are also nation states involved. Some states claim to be on one side, while apparently providing help to the other side as well. In addition, some states, which have tried not to take sides, have been at the receiving end of violence anyway.
There are, loosely speaking, frontlines, but no "backlines". There's been open, continuous fighting in Iraq and in Syria, and in Afghanistan for much of this period. But there have also been flare-ups elsewhere. There is no such thing as a safe, non-combatant region. WWIII's battlegrounds are dotted across every continent, though South America has been least affected.
There aren't much in the way of clear objectives either. Nobody, including the non-state actors themselves, really know what the non-state actors want, since they speak of mystical rewards receivable after death, and of triggering Armageddon. Nor can anybody credibly claim to speak for all those decentralised groups. So, there is little room to negotiate either: how can you negotiate with groups that have no stated rational goals and no designated spokespersons?
WWIII has been extremely asymmetric. There have been few open battles and campaigns involving conventional forces, since the invasion of Iraq back in 2003. There have been terror incidents spread across many locales. There have been drone strikes and special forces operations across many locales.
The ratios of active combatants are very skewed. The states have deployed millions of people in uniform, along with sophisticated gear. The non-state actors amount to perhaps, 50,000 active fighters, or maybe 100,000 fighters at best. They are all lightly armed. But it is painfully obvious that effective ways of winning this war have not yet been devised, despite the enormous differences in firepower.
Loss of life has been remarkably low, even if all the numbers are added up. Somewhere between half a million to a million have died in Iraq and Syria. The worst of the terrorist attacks killed around 3,000 people on 9/11. I am not trying to minimise the scale. But over 70 million people were killed in WWII and over 40 million died in WWI. This conflict has lasted much longer and the toll in comparison has been less.
At one level, the low-key nature of this war has meant that its business pretty much as usual across the world. At another level, however, civilian populations have gone, for want of a better word, sour as the conflict has continued. Perhaps it is a form of collective PTSD.
People deal with the binary of war /peace by soldiering on, or relaxing. This situation is harder to cope with, psychologically. Statistically speaking, a given front may be all quiet for months, or years on end. But an incident may also occur anytime, anywhere. As individuals some people may have come to terms with life in this twilight zone. But collectively speaking, we have not yet learnt to cope.
Twitter: @devangshudatta