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The shifting battlefield: how the state classifies internal dissent as foreign war

9 min read

In Brief

  • Classical warfare presupposes a clear, external enemy state; this framework is strategically adapted to redefine and combat internal disorder and political dissent.
  • The re-characterization of internal opposition as an existential military threat ('a hostile people') justifies the use of extraordinary state coercion, blurring the lines between domestic policing and warfare.
  • Non-state actors (such as the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan or the Islamic State) often appropriate military and holy war rhetoric to legitimize their violence and define their governments as tyrannical enemies.
  • The modern conception of conflict extends beyond the physical battlefield to include ceaseless economic and psychological warfare, creating a permanent security imperative and justifying broad state control over societal functions.

War, in its classical conception, is a contest between states, a violent means to compel an opponent to fulfill one's will [1]. The aim is the overthrow of the enemy, achieved through the destruction of its military forces . This framework presupposes a clear distinction between belligerents: organized armies operating within a state-based system, each with a discernible center of gravity and political objective [2, 3]. The enemy is a knowable, external entity, a hostile state whose military power must be overcome to secure victory and conquest [4]. This traditional model of warfare, centered on the defeat of a foreign army, provides a foundational logic for state power and national defense [5].

However, this clear delineation between the external foe and the domestic populace frequently dissolves. The very apparatus designed to wage war against foreign powers can be reoriented to address internal threats, transforming the conceptual landscape of conflict [6]. Historical and contemporary examples reveal a persistent tendency for state power to classify internal dissent, rebellion, and disorder using the vocabulary and strategic logic once reserved for international warfare [7, 8]. This shift is not merely semantic; it carries profound implications for governance, justice, and civil liberties, as the state's monopoly on force is brought to bear not on a foreign aggressor, but on its own people or on non-state actors operating within its borders [9].

This raises a crucial question about the nature of state power: How and why is the framework of foreign war used to define and combat internal adversaries? The process involves more than suppressing disorder; it is a strategic re-characterization of the threat itself. Internal opposition movements can be framed as existential dangers equivalent to hostile nations, justifying the use of extraordinary measures [10, 11]. Simultaneously, some internal groups adopt the mantle of warfare themselves, declaring their own government a tyrannical enemy and their actions a legitimate, even holy, struggle [12, 13]. Examining this dynamic reveals how the fluid definition of the 'enemy' serves as a critical mechanism for the stabilization and assertion of political authority.

The Archetype of the External Military Adversary

The traditional theory of warfare, as articulated by strategists like Carl von Clausewitz, is fundamentally built upon the concept of an external enemy state . In this model, war is a distinct activity conducted by armies, which, along with their fortifications, constitute a 'State in a State' where the conflict is contained and consumed [14]. The enemy is envisioned as a unified entity whose power is concentrated and must be subjugated . The ultimate goal is a decisive military victory that leads to the conquest of the enemy’s country and the security of one's own [15]. This requires a comprehensive understanding of the opponent's political objectives, national character, and military capacity .

The logic of this state-on-state conflict is strategic and territorial. Military operations are designed to mislead and surprise the enemy [16], to attack them in their own country [17], to cut them off from their objectives like the capital city [18], and to subject them to the 'hard hand of war' [19]. Success depends on superior vigilance, organization, and the ability to deprive the enemy of resources while securing one's own [20, 21]. Even when facing multiple opponents, the strategic calculus remains focused on identifying and overcoming the resistance of these distinct, external powers . This classical view firmly locates the enemy outside the nation's borders, as a foreign army to be defeated on the battlefield.

Yet, even within conflicts that appear to fit this model, the boundaries of the 'enemy' can begin to blur. During the American Civil War, for instance, the conflict was characterized not only as a fight against hostile armies but also against a 'hostile people' . This expansion of the enemy concept from a professional army to the civilian population itself represents a significant shift, justifying deeper 'incisions into the enemy's country' that make 'old and young, rich and poor' feel the consequences of war . Rebels laboring to overthrow a government are thus framed as having provoked the full consequences of war, meriting destruction for their crimes . This internalization of the enemy, where a segment of one’s own nation is treated as a hostile foreign power, serves as a crucial bridge between traditional warfare and the state's confrontation with internal disorder.

The War Paradigm Turned Inward

The conceptual leap from foreign invader to internal threat is often justified by portraying domestic disorder as an existential crisis for the state. A government's inability to suppress internal conflict can be seen as a fundamental failure, potentially inviting foreign intervention or leading to total anarchy [22]. The presence of an 'enemy in the rear,' comprising citizens sympathetic to an external foe or a domestic rebellion, can be perceived as a danger as potent as an army at the front . This framing creates a security imperative that transcends the distinction between policing and warfare, allowing the state to treat certain citizens or resident groups not as criminals to be prosecuted, but as hostiles to be subdued [23].

This dynamic is powerfully illustrated when internal movements themselves adopt the identity and language of a warring army. The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, for example, explicitly announced the 'start of the Jihad against the tyrannical government,' casting a domestic political struggle in the terms of a divinely sanctioned war . Similarly, the Islamic State described its attacks in Paris not as terrorism, but as a 'blessed attack' by 'soldiers of the Caliphate' targeting 'carefully chosen' enemy locations [24]. By labeling France a 'crusader' country and its citizens 'idolaters,' the group reframes its actions as legitimate military operations against a foreign enemy, complete with strategic objectives and a defined casus belli [25]. This appropriation of military rhetoric by non-state actors serves to legitimize their violence and challenge the state's monopoly on the definition of war.

When a state accepts or adopts this framing, it fundamentally alters its relationship with its own society. Randolph Bourne observed that a nation at war, even for ostensibly noble reasons, often adopts the 'most obnoxious and coercive techniques of the enemy' . The imperative to coordinate national power for destruction—both of the enemy and potentially of the nation at home—can lead to the suspension of democratic values in favor of intimidation and coercion . The state's unique position, as the entity that defines and monopolizes wrongdoing, allows it to reclassify dissent as sedition and protest as warfare, thereby justifying a level of force that would be unacceptable in peacetime . The line between national security and internal repression becomes dangerously thin.

The Expanding Battlefield of Modern Conflict

The modern conception of conflict has expanded well beyond the physical battlefield, further blurring the identity of the enemy. Warfare can be threefold: psychological, economic, and military, with the first two forms being ceaseless [26]. Economic action by a state, for example, can be designed to serve 'basic hostile objectives' directed at another nation, transforming trade into a political weapon [27, 28]. In this paradigm of 'economic warfare,' the enemy is not just a military force but an entire economic system. The state becomes an active participant in underground traffic and circumvention of controls, making illicit trade an official policy to weaken an adversary [29].

This perpetual, low-grade conflict requires a permanent state of 'economic defense,' a coordinated effort to control strategic shipments and counter the hostile objectives of a bloc of nations [30, 31]. The enemy is thus an ever-present systemic threat, and the 'battlefield' is global commerce itself. This broadens the definition of a hostile act far beyond a military invasion, creating a justification for constant vigilance and state control over economic and political life in the name of national security.

The danger of cultivating this permanent war mentality is that it can easily turn inward. As David Low Dodge warned, infusing a nation with a 'spirit of war' to fight a foreign enemy can become 'most dangerous to its own liberties' [32]. Once peace is made with the external foe, the agitated war spirit can fuel 'anarchy and confusion' at home, which may only be restrained by despotism . Conversely, Edmund Burke mused on the paradoxical idea that the 'internal repose of a determined and wicked enemy' is not something to be wished for; rather, its internal 'disorder, confusion, discord, anarchy, and insurrection' might be the best security for its neighbors [33]. This highlights the intricate link between a state's internal stability and its capacity for external aggression, suggesting that the line between foreign and domestic affairs is porous and strategically significant.

Ultimately, the expansion of what constitutes 'war' and who constitutes an 'enemy' concentrates immense power in the hands of the state. By defining its own actions as necessary for survival and the actions of opponents—whether foreign states, economic rivals, or internal dissenters—as illegitimate aggression, the state monopolizes the terms of conflict itself . This ideological dominance allows it to frame its coercive measures not as tyranny, but as a necessary defense of the nation against manifold and ever-present threats.

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The journey from a clearly defined external enemy, embodied by a foreign army, to an ambiguous and often internal adversary is a central feature of the modern state's exercise of power. The classical military framework, with its focus on defeating hostile armies and conquering territory, provides the foundational language and logic for conflict . However, this framework is consistently adapted and applied to new domains. It is used to characterize civil conflicts against a 'hostile people' , to confront internal political movements that adopt the rhetoric of war , and to wage perpetual economic and psychological campaigns against systemic rivals .

This strategic redefinition of the enemy is a potent instrument of statecraft. By framing internal dissenters or non-state actors in the language of war, the state can justify the mobilization of its full coercive and destructive capacity, often at the expense of domestic liberties . The distinction between wartime and peacetime, and between foreign and domestic threats, becomes dangerously blurred. The enemy ceases to be a specific, identifiable entity and instead becomes a fluid concept that can be applied as political necessity dictates, transforming the state's primary function from defense against external invasion to the management of internal disorder, a shift with enduring consequences for the relationship between the citizen and the state .