ABSTRACT
Introduction This chapter addresses the relationship between combat and war. Combat is a phenomenon that retains its essence in the twenty-first century. Whether experienced in Fallujah, Iraq or in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, it is still a dramatic spectacle of danger, suffering, incomprehension, emotional climaxes, and a test of who can take it and who cannot. War, on the other hand, is subject to social, economic and technological change, and the focus is increasingly on the instrumentalization of war through technology rather than political reflections that lead to desired strategic end-states. War as an instrument of policy too often becomes war by instruments, where the focus is on the tactical means of weapons technology as war winners, rather than carefully thought out strategies. The instrumentalization of war has increased throughout the twentieth century to a point where lean professional armies of skilled specialized professionals have replaced the vast conscript armies of the World Wars and the Cold War. The Vietnam War was in many ways an intersection between the wars we have today, with their heavy reliance on special forces and airpower, intractable insurgency challenges with safe havens in neighbouring states, and a great power context lurking in the background. Pakistan and Iran have replaced Cambodia, Laos and China, and the ‘war on terror’ has replaced the Cold War.
