TOP 10 TYPES OF WAR

 

I always found wars a fascinating subject of history as a hobby of mine, from the comfortable armchair of hindsight and the fortunate perspective of being well removed from any firsthand experience of them.

Hence, I’ve ranked my Top 10 Wars of history, but it doesn’t end there. No, indeed there’s my Top 10 Types of War in history, as the broad types of war arguably outrank individual wars in historical importance – or at least rank as high as a tool for the study of individual wars, albeit many wars fall into or consist of more than one type of war.

Just some notes – there is almost an infinite variety of types by or into which one can classify wars. One could even compile a top ten for types of types of war, classifying types within broader themes – political, strategic, technological, and so on. I have a mix of types from different broad themes, although I tend to focus on types by strategic doctrine or technological nature of weaponry.

This is also one of my more unusual top ten lists where I don’t count down from tenth to first place but instead simply count out in the reverse direction, from first to tenth place. What’s more, I’ve ranked them mostly in chronological order rather than historical importance, although there’s a general overlap between the two, as longer history tends to coincide with their greater impact, albeit not always.

Interestingly, six of my top ten types of war are ancient or even earlier, so much so that they might be regarded as transcending mere types of war to being archetypes of it. On the other hand, four are distinctively modern – and by modern, I mean twentieth century and onwards – but have effectively reshaped war in their own image.

 

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(1) INFANTRY WARFARE

 

Warfare in history commenced as infantry warfare, which has endured as the foundation of war and the predominant means of waging it.

That’s not to say that prehistoric war wasn’t also infantry war. In the broadest usage of infantry war as fighting on foot, all prehistoric war was infantry war (except to the extent of anyone ramming canoes or rafts into each other) – but for the most part, prehistoric war lacked the characteristic drill or regimen of infantry war, fighting as warriors rather than soldiers.

And that’s the essential nature of infantry war – fighting on foot and in formation, coordinated with each other rather solo-ing off into single combat, as soldiers with drill and regimen, typically with standardized weapons and equipment.

As such, the origins of infantry war are the origins of war itself in recorded history, since the first ancient empires fought with regular infantry, albeit often as an elite supplemented by conscript masses or militia as irregular infantry – something that has surprisingly endured as a practice since then to the modern period.

The ancient archetype of regular infantry remains the Greek phalanx, and even more so, the Roman legion.

While the archetypal infantry travels on foot – marches, that is, in a style and pace that has remained remarkably consistent throughout history – the defining trait of infantry is that they fight on foot, not necessarily that they get to the fight on foot.

Hence, there has been a variety of infantry distinguished by getting to the fight by other means than marching to it – most notably mechanized infantry or mobile infantry in the modern period but also mounted infantry, naval infantry, airborne infantry, and air assault infantry.

“Before the adoption of the chariot to create the first mobile fighting forces c. 2000 BC, all armies were pure infantry. Even after, with a few exceptions like the Mongol Empire, infantry has been the largest component of most armies in history.”

Infantry also remains the most basic or fundamental unit of war – the proverbial boots on the ground – for achieving strategic objectives, particularly when those objectives are measured in territory.

As such, infantry has not waned in war, albeit it has evolved with technology. Gunpowder saw infantry shift to line infantry tactics, shooting volleys at each other – until modern firepower overwhelmed even that, forcing infantry for its own survival to use “dispersed, maneuver-based, and heavily supported infantry units” as well as combined arms and the paramount importance of cover on the battlefield.

 

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(2) CAVALRY WARFARE

 

“Cavalryman, horseman, trooper, cataphract, knight, drabant, hussar, uhlan, mamluk, curaisser, lancer, dragoon, samurai or horse archer”.

Where infantry was the fundamental unit of war in history, cavalry was the fundamental means of mobile war – “providing armies with superior speed, mobility, and shock impact” as well as things for which mobility is used such as “scouting, screening, flanking and pursuing enemies” or “breaking enemy lines”.

Cavalry warfare involved soldiers or warriors fighting mounted on horseback – ranging from ancient horse archers to armored knights and modern light cavalry”. Obviously, the fundamental ingredient for cavalry is the domestication of the horse, or more precisely the domestication of the horse followed by breeding horses of sufficient size for warriors mounted on them.

Prior to being of sufficient size to be used for cavalry proper, the smaller domesticated horses were able to be used to draw chariots as the first mobile forces in about 2000 BC. Chariots played much the same role as cavalry but were obsolescent by cavalry once horses were of sufficient size. Hence the designation of cavalry is not usually given to “any military forces that used other animals or platforms for mounts, such as chariots” – or those occasional other animals used in war, camels or elephants. Interestingly, the last use of chariots was by the Britons at the time of the Roman conquest of Britain.

Also interestingly, that won’t be the last we see of obsolescence when it comes to cavalry war, but from its origin through to the twentieth century, cavalry has tended to eclipse infantry for decisive importance or impact – as the dominant force for winning battles rather than waging wars.

Of course, that is an oversimplification of the strategic balance between infantry and cavalry in war, as it has seesawed between them, complicated by the usual numeric predominance of infantry in armies and the higher cost of cavalry.

Certainly, the dominance of cavalry is reflected in the recurring military proficiency or superiority of the mounted nomadic warriors of the Eurasian steppes – as observed by military historians such as Azar Gat and John Keegan, as well as the colorful phrases of the “steppe effect” by Walter Scheidel and the “Golden Age of the Barbarians” by James C. Scott.

There was also the medieval dominance of cavalry, originating in the late Roman period, where “mounted forces became the dominant, often aristocratic, arm of European armies throughout the age of feudalism”.

“Cavalry had the advantage of improved mobility, and a soldier fighting from horseback also had the advantages of greater height, speed, and inertial mass over an opponent on foot. Another element of horse mounted warfare is the psychological impact a mounted soldier can inflict on an opponent.”

However, it is weird to think of cavalry forces originating without the subsequent aids to riding – spurs, saddles, and above all stirrups, which facilitated heavy cavalry and the use of lances.

One might also add a certain romanticism that has attached to cavalry throughout history, albeit not necessarily as a matter of strategic or tactical advantage.

Sadly for such romanticism, infantry has had the last laugh, as unlike infantry but like chariots, cavalry has become obsolescent from the twentieth century to, well, another entry in this top ten – which has assumed the same role and often even the same title as cavalry with greater mobility and less vulnerability, as have airborne or air assault units such as in the famous fictional depiction of the helicopter air assault 1st Squadron, 9th Cavalry Regiment in Apocalypse Now.

Whereas infantry could evolve, cavalry could not, at least on a large scale – the same deadly firepower of modern history that forced the evolution of infantry was fatal to cavalry.

 

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(3) NAVAL WARFARE

 

War on water!

No – not like when Roman Emperor Caligula literally declared war on the sea (in the form of the god Neptune or Poseidon), but war fought on water, albeit overlapping with war fought on land in amphibious operations and naval landings.

“Naval warfare involves military operations on, under, and over the sea” – “combat in and on the sea, the ocean, or any other battlespace involving a major body of water such as a large lake or wide river”.

As surprisingly capable humans are as swimmers for terrestrial mammals (particularly primates), naval warfare obviously involves the various vessels humans have devised for transport on water. Of course, it doesn’t just involve vessels but vessels of sufficient size, resilience, and above all means for combat with other vessels. Hence naval warfare originated from the Bronze Age onwards, with the first recorded sea battle as the Battle of the Delta between the Egyptians and the Sea Peoples in about 1175 BC, although the very name of the latter suggests some sort of naval warfare before that.

Prehistoric humans probably fought each other from canoes or even rafts but that seems more a form of naval proto-warfare. However, the former persisted in recorded history with the use of war canoes, usually as a form of amphibious warfare – an important subset of naval warfare – although “canoe versus canoe engagements…were also significant”.

Naval warfare rose to a surprising importance and prominence in ancient history that are often overlooked for the more famous warfare on land. That importance seems even more surprising as naval warfare was predominantly fought either by boarding enemy ships or ramming them – methods which seem crude by the standards of modern naval warfare but persisted for a surprisingly long time until (and to some extent even after) the advent of gunpowder allowed for shipborne artillery as the standard means of naval combat.

Homer’s Iliad may have had the siege of Troy as its focus but famously features the so-called Catalogue of Ships, in its second book no less, albeit for the transport of Greek forces to Troy rather than naval combat with Trojan ships.

Thereafter, naval warfare looms large in ancient history – from the Persians and Greeks (particularly the Athenians) through to the Romans, whose Pax Romana was as much a matter of Mare Nostrum as it was of the legions.

Galleys were the primary means of ancient naval warfare and persisted as the dominant vessels for war until the early modern period in that primary arena of naval warfare, the Mediterranean. Galleys were superseded by the vessels of the Age of Sail, which also saw naval warfare expand with maritime transportation from mostly hugging the coasts in seas to the open ocean – although it is striking how often naval battles continued to be fought in coastal waters.

On that point, while we typically think of naval warfare as battles fought on the sea or ocean, there’s also naval warfare fought on lakes and rivers – reflecting that “even in the interior of large landmasses, transportation before the advent of extensive railways was largely dependent on rivers, lakes, canals, and other navigable waterways”. Hence the modern distinction between brown-water navies for riverine or littoral bodies of water and blue-water navies (or green-water navies) for open oceans or seas.

From the Age of Sail to the Age of Steam and Steel – with naval warfare in the latter evolving to steam power for ships and coaling stations for bases or ports. The latter also saw “ironclad” ships – first used in naval combat in the American Civil War – reflecting the improved chemistry and metallurgy which not only provided the means for armor to ships but also the guns and shells “capable of demolishing a wooden ship at a single blow” for which the armor was required.

Interestingly, naval supremacy underlaid modern superpower in a similar manner to the Pax Romana, only more so – with the Pax Britannica of the 19th century (with the Indian Ocean being dubbed a “British lake” in a similar manner to the Mare Nostrum), succeeded by the Pax Americana in the 20th century.

Modern naval warfare has seen a proliferation of forms through technology – notably naval aviation and aircraft carriers or submarine warfare which came to the fore in the Second World War (effectively superseding battleships) but also more recently missiles and aerial or naval drones.

 

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(4) GUERILLA WARFARE

 

Although the term originates from the Peninsular War in Spain against Napoleon’s France, guerilla war predates the Peninsular War all the way back to prehistory. Indeed, it was conventional war that was the more recent outlier, originating only in the Bronze Age and recorded history, while guerilla war was the baseline or default setting of war before that – and since, with Sun Tzu’s Art of War essentially a handbook in guerilla war strategy.

Nor was guerilla war strategy isolated to China. The Romans are probably more famous for fighting against guerilla war in revolts against their empire, in the process demonstrating why guerilla war was not so prevalent against ancient states with their resort to removing entire population, but they also famously resorted to guerilla war tactics when they had to against Hannibal in the Second Punic War.

“Guerrilla warfare is a form of unconventional, asymmetrical conflict where small, mobile groups of irregular forces (rebels, partisans) use hit-and-run tactics, sabotage, and ambushes to fight larger, traditional military forces. Originating from the Spanish for “little war,” it focuses on harassment, psychological warfare, and exploiting local knowledge to weaken a superior enemy over time.”

As such, guerilla war often tends to combine more than one type of war – infantry war may predominate in guerilla war, but the mobility of cavalry often leads to guerilla war or at least similar tactics. Arguably, even naval forces have resorted to a style similar to guerilla warfare – most notably for privateers, merchant raiders, or submarine attacks on shipping.

Guerilla war strategy aims to avoid “”direct, conventional battles, focusing instead on reducing enemy morale, seizing supplies, and dragging out conflicts to exhaust the opponent’s political will” – relying heavily on “support from the local population for food, shelter, intelligence, and recruits” or “familiar, difficult terrain like jungles, mountains, or crowded urban areas”.

That literal usage of little war from Spanish has lent itself to one of the most common modern descriptors of guerilla war as “small wars”, although that has often been synonymous with “dirty wars” in description and practice, for all sides of such conflicts.

Guerilla war often seems the most distinctive and prolific type of war in modern warfare, from the Vietnam War onwards – as the destructive power of modern technology seems more favorable to guerilla war, and even more so, modern political ideologies enlisting populations for or against guerillas.

 

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(5) SIEGE & URBAN WARFARE

 

With fortifications – a historical development significant enough for its own interlude in John Keegan’s A History of Warfare – came siege warfare.

Or perhaps more precisely, prehistorical development, given that both cities or at least human settlements of sufficient size and fortifications emerged in the Neolithic and Bronze Age – indeed, one of the key features for archaeology. There may have been prototypes of fortifications or fortified positions using natural features or chokepoints in the Paleolithic, but not the resources for standing or field armies to hold or take them on the same scale.

“Siege warfare is a form of constant, low-intensity conflict focused on capturing a fortified position (castle, city, or fort) by surrounding it to block supplies (investment) and using active assaults to breach defenses. Common methods include starving defenders, utilizing artillery, tunnelling under walls, or scaling them.”

Sun Tzu in The Art of War admonished besieging cities as the “worst policy”, given the cost in time, resources and forces exceeds even that of the usual costly attrition to be avoided for war in general.

However, siege warfare is surprisingly prolific in history, notably in later medieval history where “sieges were more common than pitched battles”. It’s also surprisingly prolific in fictional depictions of war, in part due to the dramatic nature of last stands.

The rosy-fingered dawn of Western literature, Homer’s Iliad, is ultimately about the siege of Troy – which may or may not have some Bronze Age historicity. Similarly, both the literary and cinematic versions of Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings feature key battles, such as those for Helm’s Deep and Minas Tirith, that are sieges.

Without winning a siege by assault or attrition, that left options of negotiating surrender by diplomacy, “the use of deception or treachery to bypass defenses” or the blunter options that could affect either the besieged or besiegers – “starvation, thirst or disease”.

Siege warfare is usually seen as ending with gunpowder but that’s not strictly or initially the case, as something of an arms race developed between fortifications and artillery in early modern history. It was with the advent of greater firepower from the nineteenth century and particularly of mobile warfare from the twentieth century, that “the significance of classical siege declined” and “a single fortified stronghold is no longer as decisive as it once was”.

Ironically however, while the “classical siege” may have declined from modern firepower and mobile warfare, the same force of industrialization that underlay both led to battles or wars of attrition that resembled sieges. States had the means to maintain and supply forces in the field that could then effectively besiege each other or their defensive positions on an unprecedented scale and span.

The trench warfare on the Western Front of the First World War resembled a form of siege warfare. The Second World War might seem to have displaced that through combined arms and maneuver, but it is striking how many battles of that war were or resembled sieges – Stalingrad and Monte Cassino to name just two of them, apart from the famous siege of Leningrad.

The battles or sieges of the Second World War also demonstrate that while city walls may have stopped being a feature in siege warfare, cities themselves did not – with urban warfare resembling a form of siege warfare, only now of attrition of defensive positions within the city itself. Since the Second World War, urban warfare has also often combined elements of guerilla warfare with siege warfare.

The attritional nature of modern industrial warfare has extended beyond individual battles or even any direct combat to resemble sieges on a grand scale – such as the submarine warfare of the Second World War, with the Germans effectively besieging Britain and the Americans besieging Japan, or for that matter the Cold War in Europe, resembling two armies besieging each other.

 

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