The Dispatches on War

``but the Muslims overcame this hindrance by employing armies of non-Muslims to fight their wars.``

Can you give examples of where Muslims have done that.

``Therefore, it was not surprising for Saudi Arabia to ask for United States’ military protection against Saddam Hussein’s Iraq in 1990 and to garrison non-Muslim armies on Islam’s holiest soils.``

I think ythis conclusion has flaws, I don`t think Saudi Arabia asked United States for help becuase the U.S. army was non-muslim. Sr. Bush was as eager to protect the oil pipelines in Saudi as the Saudis were to ask for help. Don`t forget that U.S. was and still is the strongest army the world has ever seen. Saddams army before the first Gulf war was, if not the best then one of the best armies in the middle east. I don`t think the Saudis would have taken any chances with Osama`s rag tag army. Regarding Pakistan, where does its military get its hardware and planes. Do you think India-centric Pak would have sent a 500,000 strong army to defend Saudi against 500,000 - 1 million Saddams battle hardened force.

``The Arab idea of mercenaries was later included in the armies of the Ottoman Turks in the guise of the corps of Jannarsies, who were non-Muslims and who fought for the Turkish Ottoman Empire. ``

The turks have been using Jannisaries since 14th century. Though the Janissaries consisted of conscripted Christian kids/youths (from the defeated populace) they were converted to Islam and brainwashed into defending the faith and the Sultan.

``It was this power, which was contested in the Thirty Years War (1618-1648), when the Europeans nations fought the church’s power to define their own sense of political suzerainty without the church’s influence. Reformation of 1517 might be the brainchild of Martin Luther, but it was sustained politically and via military resistance by the German principalities of Mitteleuropa not on religious grounds but on the need to break the church’s political monopoly over European states symbolized in the sovereign right to declare wars.``

Thirty years war was occured for a number of reasons but basically it was fought between the Protestants and the Catholics. The Holy Roman Empire wanted to extend its influence over more states and the Protestants and the Calvinists wnated to defeat these Empire. Hence it was a religious war.

``In the aftermath of the Thirty Years War and the Treaty of Westphalia of 1648, the powers to make war was taken away from the individual (the pope) and given to the state.``

I don`t think the Pope and the Papal states had anything to do with the Thirty year war. These battles were fought in Central and Eastern Europe along religious, lingual and ethnic lines.

``Since the church had assumed supremacy over the European states and the war was fought to break that supremacy, it was decided that all states would be equal in power and wars could only be fought for reasons of preserving the state’s power. It was hoped that through this, wars would be of defensive political nature only and not of an aggressive religious style. ````
Once againt the war was fought between the Imperial forces and various groups like the Bohemians, the Danes, the Swedes (they wanted to check Catholicism), the French (even though it was a Catholic state, it wanted to weaken the Hapsburg). Even within the Holy Roman Empire there were several princes some Catholic, some Protestants and some Calvinists. You can say that the treaty helped to establish nation-states. Also, it was agreed that the citizens of the nation state was subjected to the laws and actions of their own government rather than to those of neighbouring powers. These laws/actions could be religious or secular. The nation state could have become Catholic/ Lutherans/ Calvinist states depending on what the king and the populace favoured. The difference was earlier overlapping political and religious loyalties were common. Hence Catholic Spainiards could could in aid of the Holy Roman Empire against the Protestant Swedes. Islam has still retained this characteristic thats why you see people from several nationalities in Al Qaida.

Feroze,

There is only one real reason to start a war - might is right!! People can come up with all kinds of justification but the reality is that whoever is strong and powerful, attacks and defeats the weak. It has little to do with religious philosophies. Even if the stronger party has democracy, free press etc, it can barely control the lust for war. The current war in Iraq is a perfect example where imaginary reasons were given for a war. The same goes for Vietnam. Look at the German instigation of WW2. Some imaginary justification was given about conditions of germans in Sudetenland.

In the subcontinental context, the Ghazanavis and Ghauris repeatedly attacked and plundered India when Indians never did any harm to any muslims. Some false justfication was given about some ruler in Sindh. Babur attacked Ibrahim Lodhi only because he could and because of his lust for the throne at Delhi. So it is just human nature to take advantage of the other party`s weakness.

The real lesson from all this is that you must have a rock solid defense. It does not matter how good your own intentions are. You should never depend on the kindness of others not to harm you. Today India and Pakistan are talking real peace because they know that they cannot conquer each other.

there was once upon a time when Islam civilized the barbarian`s Europe -- now it`s European`s turn to civilize barbarian`s Islam.......

and it will be done not by war -- but by Europeanizing the Imam ... ban on importing Imams from the mother countries -- educating Imams in European universities -- with compulsory courses of Religions of the World 101....

.....assimilation assimilation assimilation -- there will be assimilation for the Musliims in Europe -- no escaape from that ....

....as they say when the jackal has a death wish it heads for the city -- same for the fundamentalist Muslims heading for Europe -- the European St. Bernards are going to rescue the FUN from the Fundamentalist Islam in coming decades....

it wont happen in Born-again Evangelical United States to the Ghettoized Islam........they will be segregated and pretty safe -- in the Land of the Neocons.....

To those, who have responded and commented, I offer my thanks. I have just a few points to make on this article and the rest, which will follow it. The intention of the statements made in the article are open to question and the arguments made are open to debate. I am not stating an idee fixe on the nature of war, but merely offering a historic perspective on its evolution. This an interpretation of an event, which in this case happens to be war and the political and economic contexts associated with it. This is not the Sermon on the Mount on the nature of the war itself. The idea behind the article was to generate a debate on the issue and like with all debates, I think that I will learn more from the interacts than I can hope to teach my readers.

Dear readers, you are free to state your views, question my statements and hopefully, you will eludicate me on my favorite hobby, which is the study of war.

To those who might respond in the future, I thank you!

Ciao

Netizen, I agree with you with what you had to say about how it was mere interest for Sr. Bush . However, I do not have any contemporary examples to support the authors claim however Muslims have indeed recruited Christians and many Christians have used for Muslim wars. Backtrack to the Ottomon Turks, dude, they had entire programs where Christian parents would give their childern to the Turkish authorities. The Turks would create `batches` and these young childern, aged 4-5, would lose all contact with their family. They would have no loyalty to any one segmenct of society nor would they be in the petty family rivalries. They would however have loyalty to one man alone and that would be the Turkish Sultan. Therefore, that would decrease chances of mutiny. Most Vazirs in the Ottoman Empire governiing Ottoman Provines came out of this system. Also, Janasseries of the Turkish Armies. Elite Christian unit which would exceptionally strong. Most Generals were also out of this amazing system.

Its very rare now that one finds intellectually stimulating articles on Chowk... there are a bunch of articles that feroz has written here and elsewhere that deserve to be compiled in a bookform...

re: Netizen # 3

I will see if I can get the names of the books from the library, which cite the examples of the early Muslims using mercenaries and once I do, I will post them for you.

As to Saudi Arabia asking United States for protection in 1990-1991, the point is that the Saudis went to a non-Muslim army to help it guard its interests. Whether Bush, Sr. fought that war for oi or notl is a side issue, because if the American interest was oil, oil was also the interest of the Saudi ruling family to have called in the American divisions to guard the oil fields of the House of Saud. Saudi Arabia has a long tradition of using proxy wars to fight for its interests. It used Iraq to fight against Iran, when the Iran revolution of 1979 threatened its interests and it used the Americans to fight the Iraqis, when Iraq threatened it in 1990-1991.

Pakistan did not send its armed forces to fight Saddam not due to its India centric policy, but due to the politics of GHQ in Rawalpindi. Had the COAS not been so politically against United States, Pakistani army would have had more than a brigade fighting Iraqi army. Pakistani brigade did not fight as it was stationed in the rear for ``logistical`` reasons. Secondly, the deployment of Pakistani soldiers to Saudi Arabia would not have re-orientated its India specific threat axis, because the hardware would have been provided by the Saudis and the Pakistanis would have simply manned the Saudi equipment. Since Pakistan has a large number of manpower and its was a low-tech army in the 1980s, light on technology and heavy on human resources, the prospect of earning hard dollars by being rent-a-soldiers for the Saudis was quite attractive to the officer corps in Rawalpindi.

In this sense, Pakistani army can classified as a mercenary army. For that matter, it can also be safely argued that United Nations peacekeeping missions are nothing more than mercenary wars also. United Nations is simply hiring soldiers from the Third World to go and fight wars, which no one wants to fight and in return, the nations contributing troops to the United Nations get foreign exchange. Any army of any nation, which deploys outside of its national territory to defend another nation and in return makes a financial gain from it, can be considered as a mercenary army.

As to the Thirty Years War, my interpretation of that conflict was in the sense of its contribution to nature of war. I do not disagree, with your statements since they are the basic version of the conflict. What you are discussing is the origins of that war and what I was discussing, were the consequences of that war upon the nature of war itself and on the political development of Europe as a collection of secular states. Every school child knows that the war of 1618-1648 was between Catholics and Protestants, but revolt of Martin Luther was basically an attempt to break the political power of the Holy Roman Empire and that of Spain and it was to prevent the domination of Europe by a single nation. If you closely look at the Treaty of Westphalia, and how the balance of power was recreated, you will see that Europe wanted to remain politically fragmented and with a multipolarity of power centers.

The pope and the papal states had a lot to with the Thirty Years Wars. What is often overlooked is that the Church was a very temporal power in Europe in 1500s. Starting with the coronation of Pepin the Short by the pope in the 1200s, the legitimacy of the king came from his being be crowned by the pope and the popes often used religion to get political aims. Prior to the Thirty Years War, the popes were quite wary of the power of Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor and King of Spain, because his power was a direct threat to the power of the popes. According to the Peace of Augsburg of 1556, the first conflict phase of the Reformation of 1517 ended when Charles V agreed to abdicate as the Holy Roman Emperor and not because the Prostestant German princes were defeated. In fact, there is a strong historic chronology that suggests that the period of 1517 to 1648 was actually a series of the same war to decide the political future of Europe and religion was an afterthought to that outcome and was not the scintilla of the conflict.

In the end, I think we agree because as you have stated and I quote ``Islam has still retained this characteristic thats why you see people from several nationalities in Al Qaida``. I believe, I had made similar point that unlike Europe after 1648, Islam was not able to develop this argument its politics and is still struggling to settle the issue. As you pointed out, Europe was pan-religious but then it discarded the idea and Islam still thinks that Pan-Islamism or pan religion is a good idea.

Ciao

re: amit # 2

Sir, I do not have any disagreements with your point of view, since it is the realist or realpolitik view of power. As Bismarck stated, might is right! I myself subscribe to this point of view.

However, a good question is what makes a nation think that it is mighty? The mighty British army of its time did not win the war of 1776 to 1783 just as the mighty American army did not win the war in Vietnam and is not winning in Iraq. Might makes a nation right, and can start a war, but it will not help it win the war. Wars are won on the basis of economics and politics. Starting a war is not the same as fighting it and winning it.

Lust for war, false justifications and strong defences still does not answer the question, why war has changed since its invention nearly 4000 years ago and why the face of war of todayis so different from yesterday`s war?

re: nasah # 1

Aptly said and willingly agreed! :)

Ciao

In reply to #5 by haroonellahi

``Muslims have indeed recruited Christians and many Christians have used for Muslim wars``

I am myself curious to know about it, as I have no such knowledge of Muslims employing non-Muslims to fight their wars/battles. The Mughal army did have Hindu generals and the Rajputs did fight for the Mughals. But it was a pact, whereby the Rajputs always had a 50,000 (somewhat) standing army ready at the disposal of the Emperors. These forces fought anyone, anywhere to expand the Mughal Empire. They were used against those Rajput kingdoms who preferred to stay independent as well as against the Deccani Muslim Sultans.
Regarding the Janissaries, you have only reflected my views in comment # 3.

``they had entire programs where Christian parents would give their childern to the Turkish authorities. ``

The program that you are mentioning is nothing but devshirme, which produced the Janissaries, (``New Force`` in Turkish). In addition to what you have wrote about the Janissaries, these Ottoman foot soldiers were pre-adolescent Christian boys who were taken from their families ( some of the families readily gave them for a better life), housed in special barracks, converted to Islam, and trained either for military or bureaucratic service. Hence, their being Christian is not right, they had become Muslims. Also these kids were from the Christian territories like the Balkans which the Ottomans had captured. What do yo umean by ``Elite Christian unit``? Do you still mean the Janissaries or some other Catholics/Orthodox units serving the Ottomans?

Re:Ferozk#8

You raise some very interesting questions. I think there are three kinds of wars - the purely materialistic wars, the purely ideological wars and thirdly a hybrid of the two. Purely materialistic wars are started simply to gain territory, wealth and power. I would say the conquests of Alexander, Romans, Mongols, Ashoka etc fall in this category. Purely ideological wars are started to establish the supremacy of an ideology or religion. The crusades in the middle ages, the cold war between US and USSR and the current war on terrorism are examples of purely ideological wars. Finally you have the hybrid where there is both ideology and greed involved. Most wars fall in this category including WW2, the Islamic conquests of India etc.

A nation starts believing it is mighty if it has both the strength of material resources and an accompanying ideology for their way of life. In fact, ideology is even more important than just material strength to sustain and win wars because it motivates people to die for their cause. Early muslims were victorious all over simply because of the strength of their ideology. Even Osama Bin Laden felt he was mighty simply on the basis of religious ideology and attacked the twin towers in New York. On the other hand Alexander`s victories fizzled out after his death because it really didn`t have any ideological base to support it after his demise.

The US believes it is mighty because it has humongous material resources backed by a powerful ideology of capitalism and individual liberty. The war in Iraq is an ideological war. It is wrongly protrayed as a war for oil. In fact the primary purpose of the neo-cons in US is to change the ideological landscape of the middle-east, defeat political Islam and force all middle-eastern countries to become democratic and secular i.e. adopt western ideology. Iraq was just chosen to be the battlefield because it was in the cross-hairs for a long time. Some flimsy excuses were given to launch the conflict. In reality it was just the place where the Bush administration chose to wage battle against political Islam and hoped for a domino effect in the middle-east.

As far as winning a war is concerned, it depends on the material strength of the aggressor, the ideological strength if there is an ideology involved and the nature of the losing side as to how quickly they succumb. The US was able to win Iraq militarily but holding on to it has been very tough. This is because political Islam is a tough ideological opponent and its followers do not give up easily and succumb to the western ideology of democracy and freedom. If the Iraqis simply wanted to get rid of the US, they would peacefully hold elections, adopt their new constitution and have the US leave. Rather they want to establish an Islamic regime in Baghdad for which not only must the US leave but it must also lose in the process. Hence the violence that we see everyday. I wonder what would happen if the US had attacked Pakistan or India to wage such an ideological battle. I think far from fighting, we would probably line up at the US embassy and ask for green cards and US citizenships :-)

Ferozek #8: ``Pakistan did not send its armed forces to fight Saddam not due to its India centric policy, but due to the politics of GHQ in Rawalpindi. Had the COAS not been so politically against United States, Pakistani army would have had more than a brigade fighting Iraqi army. Pakistani brigade did not fight as it was stationed in the rear for ``logistical`` reasons. ``

Pakistan used to have a huge Army presence in Saudi Arabia. It was the (un)official protector of the Saudi royalty. I think the presence was around an Army div or so. Unlike the PAF, which has (had) a presence, for training purposes, in most Arab countries, the presence of the Army in Saudi Arabia was for non-trainnig purposes.

This presence was withdrawn during the Zia regime, when the Saudis demanded that Pakistan Army only send Sunni soldiers to Saudi Arabia. The Army obviously could not accept this, since it is a mixture of a large number of Sunnis and Shias, hence the Army presence in Saudi Arabia ended.

Pakistan did not send frontline troops in the first Gulf war due to the same reason for which it did not send them during this Gulf war. The population of Pakistan is always, overwhelmingly, against the USA, in any war. In this Gulf War, 98% of Pakistan is against it. In the previous one, I remember there were pictures of Saddam praying, as US jets flew over, his country, on the backs of vans in Pakistan.

The above is despite the fact that Saddam had attacked another Muslim country. And even moreso, despite the fact, that Saddam had always been more pro-India than pro-Pakistan. Iraq never supported Pakistan on Kashmir etc. While Saudi Arabia has traditionally been quite pro-Pakistan.

In the big scheme of things, I think anti-American feeling in Pakistan`s (non-Chowk) crowd, always supersedes anti-anything else feeling............People viewed the first Gulf war as a fight between USA and Iraq, not as a fight between Saudi Arabia and Iraq..........

it wont happen in Born-again Evangelical United States to the Ghettoized Islam........they will be segregated and pretty safe -- in the Land of the Neocons.....

The funny thing is muslims are not ghettoized in the US (with the possible exception of arabs in detroit, but even that is a stretch) while they are ghettoized in northern europe.

Netizen, 98% of them were indeed converted and you are correct in your claim that they were taken from Christian areas. However, those Christian areas were economically and politicall subordinate to the Ottoman Empire and soon even fell to the Ottomon Collosus. Any hows, the 2% that were not converted were the elite bodyguards of the Sultan. They were exceptionally fine soliders and I even got a chance to see their bodyarmour and weapons when I was in Istanbul. I visited the Top Kopi Palace and a multitude of other historical sites.

Amit #10: I think you are correct.

The concept of ideology is very strong in Islam. Within the context of war, the concept of, ``Shahadat`` must be amongst the strongest concepts, of any kind, in the world. It is generally accepted by Muslims of all sides. This includes radical Muslims as well as the most Westernized ones. The Pakistani soldiers who couldn`t recite a single verse of the Quran, during the gora days of the 60s etc., still believed in the concept of Shaheeds. Even the non-Muslims who have died fighting for Pakistan, are refered to as Shaheeds.

Once a population is convinced they are going to heaven if they die, fighting for a cause they consider legitimate, they become extremely difficult to occupy. This is why it is difficult to take over a Muslim country. Even though, due to their backwardness it may not be too difficult to defeat them in a war. The Afghans broke the back of the mighty USSR. Even though, the USSR was able to invade much more powerful and developed East European countries as and when it wanted. It was the maulvis who fought in Afghanistan. While the secular forces joined up with the invading Soviets or fled to California.

Similarly, it is the maulvis who are leading the fight in Iraq. While most of the secular Iraqi leadership has joined with the occupying Americans, or have fled to Dearborn, Michigan. There is, as you said, an ideological Islamic resistance, alongwith a nationalistic Iraqi resistance to the USA in Iraq.......

``I wonder what would happen if the US had attacked Pakistan or India to wage such an ideological battle.``

Hmm... I don` think this can happen. No country that has nuclear weapons has ever been attacked by an Army, across its borders, in the history of mankind. The first indication that Iraq did not have nukes was the fact that the USA attacked it. If Iraq had nukes, it would never have been attacked. Much like North Korea will never be attacked........(sidenote: the Egyptian attack on Israel in the Yom Kippur holiday is an exception to the above rule. However, at that time, I am not sure how sure Egypt was about Israel`s nuclear power)......

re: #7 by ferozk

``Saudi Arabia has a long tradition of using proxy wars to fight for its interests. ``

With so much of petro-dollars around, I guess they can buy anything.

``Pakistan did not send its armed forces to fight Saddam not due to its India centric policy``

I used the word India centric because any flare up on kashmir would require Pak to be ready with the entire military strength. As happened a few years back, Pak was going to recall all its peace keeping force as well as depute the forces from the Afghan border to the east.

``because the hardware would have been provided by the Saudis and the Pakistanis would have simply manned the Saudi equipment.``

Now from where would the Saudis get there hardware from? I don`t think the F16 U.S. fighters fly are the same as the ones Saudis has or Pak will have. Also Osama also was ready to bring in his battle hardened, high morale mujahids to the rescue of Saudis.

``the prospect of earning hard dollars by being rent-a-soldiers for the Saudis was quite attractive to the officer corps in Rawalpindi. ``

Definitely, but my concern would be why take a chance. If the best fighting machine in the world is offering you help, why would you look some where else. U.S. and its allies not only discisively defeated Saddams army, they crushed his ability to even rebuild it by enforcing sanctions and no-fly zones. Also remember how Saddams army burnt the oil wells. American came in handy there too.

Coming back to The Treaty of Westphalia,
``......and how the balance of power was recreated, you will see that Europe wanted to remain politically fragmented and with a multipolarity of power centers. ``

Before the war too there were several power centers like the French, Spain, Hapsburg, and the Holy Roman Empire. Towards the end of the war the Holy Roman Empire was clearly in no position to carry on but neither could the Swedes or the French deliver a knockout blow from a military point of view. Hence this treaty was also called The Peace of Exhaustion.
And after 30 years of war the centers of powers changed. Along with the end of the supremacy of the Holy Roman Empire, France emerged as a dominant power.So even though there were several powers these were allies during the war just like present day U.S./U.K./Spain. Even though three new great Powers arose from this peace: Sweden, the United Netherlands and France, Sweden`s time as a Great Power was short lived.

But after the war definitely the Protestants were there to stay. In Islam more than 90-95% are sunnis, shias are hardly a match for them. Iran-Iraq 8 year war could be compared to the 30 year war. But it failed to bring any introspection in Islam. because of its rigidity it will never compromise on its principle. I had an experince with a Jordanian, we were in a seminar. After some data was presented and some conclusions drawn, the Jordanian who is a devout Muslim asked him why is he (the presenter) so much sure of the conclusion. Has he independently verified it? I started to think the same why is he blindly following his religious books. Has he independently verified it? I guess when you have faith, you don`t care for reason.

BTW, because of this article I did some more reading. It was really an interesting discussion.

re: amit # 10

Yes, those are the broad classifications, by which wars are judged and understood. However, there is a fourth classification and it is of economics. Traditionally, most histrographies had concentrated on the politics of wars and very few had sought to understand the role of economics behind the wars. The Muslim invasions were motivated by the economics and ideology, but between the two; ideology was always at disvantage to the reasons of economics.

As I mentioned in my article, but not in specific detail, the primary focus of Muslim raids into India seems to be good examples of opportunism. India was vunerable to invasions and it was invaded not for conquest but for plunder. It was after many years of such periodic raids, that the Muslims sought to build their political rule in India. Likewise, the same example applied to the British and the British East India Company in India in the 1700s.

As to the American invasion of India and Pakistan, the Americans would have to fight back the Indians and Pakistanis or increase the HI-B quotas or add two more new states to the American union :)

Ciao