Comments on: Clausewitz, On War, Book I: War is a Buffet. Eat Up. http://chicagoboyz.net/archives/6633.html Some Chicago Boyz know each other from student days at the University of Chicago. Others are Chicago boys in spirit. The blog name is also intended as a good-humored gesture of admiration for distinguished Chicago boys including those pictured above. Mon, 13 Feb 2012 06:24:49 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.4 By: josephfouche http://chicagoboyz.net/archives/6633.html/comment-page-1#comment-291149 josephfouche Sun, 18 Jan 2009 03:57:28 +0000 http://chicagoboyz.net/?p=6633#comment-291149 The elasticity of the term "war" is problematic. I and other commentators sometimes use it to refer to a wider spectrum of conflict than is supported by the conventional use of the word. Most people use it to discuss merely military confrontation. Clausewitz probably confined his use of the term war to military confrontations though there are hints that his thinking may have been expanding the spectrum of war beyond that. Perhaps we need better terms and concepts to discuss the gray region on the spectrum that falls between war-war and jaw-jaw since the majority of Great Power conflict since 1945 falls within that range and this nation is still poorly equipped for it in comparison with some other Powers. The elasticity of the term “war” is problematic. I and other commentators sometimes use it to refer to a wider spectrum of conflict than is supported by the conventional use of the word. Most people use it to discuss merely military confrontation. Clausewitz probably confined his use of the term war to military confrontations though there are hints that his thinking may have been expanding the spectrum of war beyond that. Perhaps we need better terms and concepts to discuss the gray region on the spectrum that falls between war-war and jaw-jaw since the majority of Great Power conflict since 1945 falls within that range and this nation is still poorly equipped for it in comparison with some other Powers.

]]> By: Lexington Green http://chicagoboyz.net/archives/6633.html/comment-page-1#comment-291143 Lexington Green Sun, 18 Jan 2009 02:40:47 +0000 http://chicagoboyz.net/?p=6633#comment-291143 "War, subject to unequal distributions of power, passion, chance, and friction, offers a wide range of fare to the discriminating policy maker of taste." It also offers horrendous risks, while presenting an enticing mask of simplicity. In war everything is simple. That simplicity beckons to the policy maker, beset by complexity. Draw the sword, cut the knot, unify the people, win a victory, reestablish the regime on the blood of its enemies. Yet everything is difficult in war. The very aim and purpose of the war, as the political leadership first imagined, warps and dissolves and hardens into new and unexpected forms. Fortuna turns her face away, and Nemesis offers her unwanted embrace. War as a means to a policy goal turns out to be not a strong medicine but a lethal poison. It is so easy to get it wrong. It is so easy to send the army out, so hard to get it back with anything worth having, and the dead stay dead. The first and highest self-discipline of the politician is to eat as little as possible from the buffet. Just as much as needed to sustain life, and not to be greedy. Some of those chocolate bon bons are laced with arsenic. “War, subject to unequal distributions of power, passion, chance, and friction, offers a wide range of fare to the discriminating policy maker of taste.”

It also offers horrendous risks, while presenting an enticing mask of simplicity. In war everything is simple. That simplicity beckons to the policy maker, beset by complexity. Draw the sword, cut the knot, unify the people, win a victory, reestablish the regime on the blood of its enemies.

Yet everything is difficult in war. The very aim and purpose of the war, as the political leadership first imagined, warps and dissolves and hardens into new and unexpected forms. Fortuna turns her face away, and Nemesis offers her unwanted embrace.

War as a means to a policy goal turns out to be not a strong medicine but a lethal poison. It is so easy to get it wrong. It is so easy to send the army out, so hard to get it back with anything worth having, and the dead stay dead.

The first and highest self-discipline of the politician is to eat as little as possible from the buffet. Just as much as needed to sustain life, and not to be greedy. Some of those chocolate bon bons are laced with arsenic.

]]> By: UNRR http://chicagoboyz.net/archives/6633.html/comment-page-1#comment-291072 UNRR Sat, 17 Jan 2009 13:45:21 +0000 http://chicagoboyz.net/?p=6633#comment-291072 This post has been linked for the HOT5 Daily 1/17/2009, at <a href="http://unreligiousright.blogspot.com/" rel="nofollow">The Unreligious Right</a> This post has been linked for the HOT5 Daily 1/17/2009, at The Unreligious Right

]]> By: josephfouche http://chicagoboyz.net/archives/6633.html/comment-page-1#comment-290923 josephfouche Fri, 16 Jan 2009 14:28:22 +0000 http://chicagoboyz.net/?p=6633#comment-290923 Indeed it should and now it does. Indeed it should and now it does.

]]> By: Anonymous http://chicagoboyz.net/archives/6633.html/comment-page-1#comment-290889 Anonymous Fri, 16 Jan 2009 10:00:34 +0000 http://chicagoboyz.net/?p=6633#comment-290889 <i>A war of annihilation, as Clausewitz points out, will involve less effort than simple armed observation, occupying a slice of territory, or even destroying the enemy’s forces</i> Shouldn't this be: involve more effort? A war of annihilation, as Clausewitz points out, will involve less effort than simple armed observation, occupying a slice of territory, or even destroying the enemy’s forces

Shouldn’t this be: involve more effort?

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