The new June Esquire has an article/interview on John Yoo.

This is not a review or critique of the article which I can’t find on-line.

The article begins with Yoo lecturing his students trying to pull out a definition of what war is. There is no good answer definition presented though means, scale and scope are all discussed.

I though I could come up with a definition.

So here my pass at definitions.

Making War in the 21st century:

The non-trivial action(s) of a global actor(s) to purposefully attempt to coerce another global actor(s) to take some action(s), cease some action(s), or maintain a state of inactivity that the second actor(s) would not otherwise do or not otherwise consider beneficial to itself.

Here is a shorter version of Making War:

War is the attempted non-trivial coercion of one global actor(s) by another global actor(s).

Notes:

- The use of the wording non-trivial is a bit of a cop out…it is subjective.

- War is what you do, not what you think.

- Where do perceptions fit in? Do they at all?

- My definition doesn’t distinguish between kinetic and non-kinetic coercion. Should it?

- I think global actors that think war is just kinetic are going to loose a lot of wars.

- The term Purposeful implies war is deliberate, not accidental action.

- The term Purposeful implies at least one side is aware that there is a war.

- The def is broad enough to includes all types of wars.

- Hmm…does my definition imply all interactions between actors is war? If so, it needs to be refined.

Your response: