What is war? This short, profound question is posed by Clausewitz, the 18th century Prussian military philosopher, at the start of his monumental book On War. Later, he concludes a brief analysis of warfare through the ages by saying that all warring parties "conducted war in their own particular way, using different methods and pursuing different aims".
Despite this conclusion, Clausewitz's great work is to some extent time-bound due to his obvious belief that Napoleon and revolutionary France had succeeded in bringing warfare to its ultimate level; they had "liberated war, due to the people's new share in these great affairs of state". Bringing in "the people" was novel for his day, and prescient about the conditions of modern conflict. But the quote indicates his unquestioning acceptance of the prevailing concept of his day: that war is the exclusive province of states; that only the state has the legitimate right to use force; and that warfare consists of the uniformed soldiers of states clashing on a battlefield to determine whose interests should prevail. For Clausewitz, "everything is governed by a supreme law, a decision by force of arms."
Even in Europe, however, this concept only made sense as an explanation of war after the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648, which concluded the chaos of the Thirty Years War. It is a concept that makes even less sense now. Today the armed forces of states are being challenged, in many cases successfully, by the fighters of non-state forces, who are bound by none of the norms of conventional war and who operate in a way that neutralises a large percentage of the expensive and sophisticated equipment and armaments of state forces. This may not be the 'people's war', as Nepal's Maoists designate their struggle, but it is certainly war about the people, amongst them, and against them. There is no specific battlefield; military engagements can take place anywhere. This new style of warfare also starkly reveals the limitation of military force to achieve desired political outcomes, even for the most powerful of states.
All of this is well exemplified by what is happening in Nepal. The Royal Nepal Army (RNA) and the Maoists' self-styled People's Liberation Army (PLA) are fighting two very different wars, where even such basic concepts as combat success and failure are at variance, as are their respective estimates of what constitutes military strength and weakness.