This is possibly the most difficult post yet. How to make a fitting conclusion to this very exceptional work, a work that influences not only military historians, but strategic theorists, military officers, those involved in the training of strategic theorists and military officers . . . It would be difficult to come up with a book going on 200 years old which retains more influence today than it did 20 years after it was published, that continues to open up new vistas of thought, in this the most complex of all human interactions, that being war.
Clausewitz Roundtable
Clausewitz, “On War”, Book 8: stating the bleedingly obvious
Clausewitz was not afraid to state the bleedingly obvious. In Book 8 of On War, he wrote that war’s most dangerous feature is “its tendency toward the extreme, and of the whole chain of unknown possibilities which would follow”.
“Well of course,” you might exclaim. “Everyone knows that!”
But do we really “know that”? Like a vicious dog that slips its lead and savages a young child, war results in chaos, carnage and unanticipated consequences which can be felt decades, even centuries, later. In large part, 20th century history was about war “untrammelled by any conventional restraints, broken loose in all its elemental fury”.
Carl von Clausewitz, On War, Book VI: The People, They Have Arms
- People With Arms
Clausewitz served a dynasty renowned for enlightened manpower management (“Dogs! Do you want to live forever?”) and cutting edge political agitation (“My people and I have come to an agreement which satisfied us both. They are to say what they please, and I am to do what I please.”). However, this passage from On War may have given even the avant-garde Hohenzollerns pause:
The system of requisitioning, and the enormous growth of armies resulting from it and from universal conscription, the employment of militia – all of those run in the same direction when viewed from the standpoint of the older, narrower military system and that also leads to the calling out of the home guard and arming the people.
The innovations first mentioned were the natural, inevitable consequences of the breaking down of barriers. They added so immensely to the strength of the side that first employed them that the opponent was carried along and had to follow suite. That will also hold true of the people’s war. Any nation that uses it intelligently will, as a rule, gain some superiority over those who disdain its use…
[…]
By its very nature, such scattered resistance will not lend itself to major actions, closely compressed in time and space. It’s effect is like that of the process of evaporation: it depends upon how much surface is exposed. The greater the surface and the area of contact between it and the enemy forces, the thinner the later have to spread, the greater the effect of the general uprising. Like smoldering embers, it consumes the basic foundations of the enemy forces. Since it needs to time to be effective, a state of tension will develop while the two elements interact. This tension will either gradually relax, if the insurgency is suppressed in some places and slowly burns itself out in others, or else it will build up to a crisis: a general conflagration closes in on the enemy, driving him out of the country before he is faced with total destruction…To be realistic, one must therefore think of a general insurrection within the framework of a war conducted by the regular army, and coordinated in one all-encompassing plan.
Clausewitz’s temerity, remarkable for an era where Prussia danced to the tune of the Concert of Europe, was echoed by Thomas Jefferson, a minor Clausewitz contemporary who was the political leader of the reactionary agrarian Republicans in the peripheral United States of America:
Carl von Clausewitz, On War, Book VII, Chapters 5 and 22, The Culminating Point of the Attack/Victory and the Uses of Strategic Theory
There are strategic attacks which have led directly to peace, but these are the minority. Most of them only lead up the point where their remaining strength is just enough to maintain a defense and wait for peace. Beyond that point the scale turns and the reaction follows with a force that is usually much stronger than that of the original attack. Since the object of the attack is possession of the enemy’s territory, it follows that the advance will continue until the attacker’s superiority is exhausted; it is this that drives the offensive on towards its goal and can easily drive it further. If we remember how many factors contribute to an equation of forces, we will understand how difficult it is in some cases to determine which side has the upper hand. Often it is entirely a matter of the imagination.
Chapter 5
It is not possible in every war for the victor to overthrow his enemy completely. Often even victory has a culminating point. this has been ampy demonstrated bz experience. Because the matter is particularly important in military theory and forms the keystone for most plans of campaign, and because its surface is distorted by apparent contradictions, like the dazzling effect of brilliant colors, we shall examine it more closely and seek out its inner logic.
Victory normally results from the superiority of one side; from a greater aggregate of physical and psychological strength. This superiority is certainly augmented by the victory, otherwise it would not be so coveted or command so high a price. That is an automatic consequence of victory itself. Its effects exert a similar influence, but only up to a point. That point may be reached quickly – at times so quickly that the total consequences of a victorious battle may not be limited to an increase in psychological superiority alone.
Chapter 22
This concept of the “culminating point” was later developed by Aleksandre Svechin in his Strategy which is imo the best development of the theory behind operational art we have. As to the actual use of the concept it has much to do with whether the military aim is following a strategy of destruction or one of attrition. The example of the Korean War (1950-53) offers an interesting subject of analysis in this regard.
Clausewitz, “On War,” How To Read the Book
On War is two centuries old, its author admitting that it is unfinished. It is a difficult book to read. Some sections are long and detailed, others are concise summaries, and yet others have the look of notes to be expanded.
Being two centuries old, On War treats the war of the early eighteenth century and the technologies then in use. We’ve come a long way since then: no more carefully formed-up marches into cannon fire. No more elaborate uniforms for battle. We can see through the dark of night and launch missiles that find their targets largely on their own.