I have two questions regarding this sentence from section 28, “Die Aufgabe ist also, daß sich die Theorie zwischen diesen drei Tendenzen wie zwischen drei Anziehungspunkten schwebend erhalte.” and the video clip from this article which Lexington Green was good enough to bring to my attention.

1. If an eduacated German-speaker of CvC’s time had described that demonstration, would he have used ‘erhalt’ to describe the movement of the pendulum?

2. Why is it so common to think that the pendulum represents war when CvC specifically states that it represents theory?

Prussia was predominantly Lutheran and Russia was overwhelmingly Orthodox with both faiths being “state” churches.

Both Prussia and Russia contained religious minorities, including Jews who were not full citizens in either country in Clausewitz’s day and were not permitted to engage in military service, if I recall correctly. Catholicism, from the Polish population and Western Ukranian Uniates would have been the next largest religious sect in Prussia nad Russia but Catholic officers (to the extent that there were any) would have found their prospects for promotion to be slim.

An interesting question would be the religious affiliation of Russia’s ethnic Germans who were disproportionately represented in Tsarist service, civil and military.

Thanks! I intend to continually write about Clausewitz’s idea of the military genius as we read, so you can expect more from me on that.

Thanks for the tip.

My other comment is in response to Nathaniel’s post. There is another element of Clausewitz’s concept of genius which does not come up in Book 1, but does later in Books 6 & 8, especially Book 8, Chapter 2. That being the ability of the military genius to understand the changes that have occurred in politics/society and to harness those changes in exercising a new art of war, in effect something very similar to Kuhn’s paradigm shift concept. The period of confusion among those overwhelmed by the new political/military realities corresponds as well to Kuhn’s period of crisis. I also see this element of genius as being very close to Max Weber’s ideal type of the charismatic leader . . .

I have always taken his comments on military genius to be indicative, and a polite way of saying “some folks should not be allowed to command.”

Count me among the ranks of the surprised. LOL!

That is a tall order!

I know a lot of people, but I don’t know any Lutheran theologians. I know some Catholic ones.

Probably too late to enlist their participation … .

“The Holy Spirit = Uncertainty”

More than that: The Holy Spirit = “inspiration”, which is the will and energy and intelligence and courage of the commander, who directs the war — which overcomes the uncertainty.

It strikes me as interesting that the dialectic used by Clausewitz was the same dialectic used by a theologian. Perhaps there are other similarities between Christian doctrine and warfare:

For example: The Trinity, where
The Father = Political Subordination to Policy
The Son = Passion of the People
The Holy Spirit = Uncertainty

There are other trinities which might be worth exploring, too (Army + Government + People) just to see how they interrelate. This might be a good exercise in lateral thinking!

Does anybody know of any theologians (especially Lutheran ones) who might be interested in reading On War? They would be a late addition to the Round Table, but I’m sure their contributions would be weighty.