"New War?"

I’m not sure if Michael Vlahos of the National Security Assessment Team at Johns Hopkins University is a genius or a lunatic.

An excerpt from his article on The Puzzle of New War:

An unrecognized armed community is above all, unrecognized: this is the final and the most oppressive "not" word that we impose on them. Thus this community is also fighting for the formal recognition -- as in legitimacy -- and it is fighting with every fiber of its being. In contrast, to win, the offended nation state must be Roman in its ruthless vision and razor execution: it must destroy the whole of the offending people. Certainly Israel could have destroyed Hezbollah: it should have been easy. Do like the Russians did in Chechnya: kill a couple hundred thousand Shi'a -- or more. Eventually you will "win."

But what if you (Thank God) cannot?

Again the Romans have some instructive alternative examples for us. Remember, even for Romans there were some unrecognized armed communities that they could not be defeated. Indeed, sometimes non-state actors instead defeated entire Roman armies. What exactly did Rome do then?