ABSTRACT
The term ‘trinitarian war’ was coined by the Israeli military historian Martin Van Creveld in his path-breaking work, The Transformation of War (1991). It described more or less war as waged by European states since Napoleon and as analysed by Clausewitz, Jomini and the other classical European strategic writers (Bonaparte 1985; Clausewitz 1980; Jomini 1811). War was conceived of as a means to an end, more precisely, a military means to the political ends of the state in its relations with other states. While politics could be conducted by the states directly, war was predominantly waged by state-controlled armies against their respective counterparts, but on behalf of the opposing states in pursuit of their political ends. Moreover, states were presumed to somehow ‘represent’ their citizens, i.e. the people or nation, on the basis of a ‘Hobbesian’, ‘Lockean’ or ‘Rousseauist’ form of ‘social contract’ (Hobbes 1968; Locke 1978; Rousseau 1966).
