Physiognomy of the war in the postmodern: A case study of the Syrian armed conflict

Abstract

The transformation of war, as a result of the overall social changes in the postmodern, reflects significant changes in its physiognomy. These changes could be observed by getting answers to fundamental and eternal questions about war - between whom it is fought, why it is waged and, lastly, how it is waged. In the case of the armed conflict in Syria, the answers to these questions indicate that the nature of the war has remained the same and that only its character has changed, especially with regard to a conceptual approach based on reducing the effectiveness of a military instrument of power and increasing others in achieving the ultimate strategic goals of the war. This disproves the claims of theorists and strategists, representatives of the theoretical direction of the ?new wars?, who believe that the characteristics of the postmodern wars are fundamentally different from those of the modern era which are considered as ?old? wars. The aim of the paper is to illustrate, in the example of the Syrian conflict, that the definitions of war in the form of armed violence and political nature remain firmly embedded in that part of the physiognomy of war that Klauzevic explains as objective or immutable.