Clausewitz Roundtable

If Sun Tzu is the Tao of War, then Carl von Clausewitz is its Te. Where Sun Tzu gave birth to generalship and strategy, Clausewitz gave military strategy shape and power. Where Sun Tzu’s The Art of War is Zen-like in its brevity, Clausewitz’s On War is profound in both its breadth and its depth – elucidating a far deeper understanding of the nuance of “genius” and strategy.

Many of Clausewitz’s ideas endure to this day: “center of gravity”, “culminating points”, etc. What is more striking is that his best ideas are also applicable – perhaps even more applicable – in the realm of “soft” power. While the attritionist in Clausewitz would not have approved of the logic of “The Surge”, he most certainly would understand its political (vice military) imperative.

I first encountered Clausewitz in 1992 as a young scientist at the Navy’s “Naval Ocean System Center”, while enrolled in the U.S. Naval War College’s Non-Resident Seminar program at the 32nd Street Naval Station. RADM(ret) Jack Shaw was my professor for “Joint Maritime Operations”, and led us on a “deep dive” into On War.

But I did not appreciate Clausewitz then as much as I do today, thanks to the courtesy of Lexington Green and the ChicagoBoyz – as well as the enormously insightful writings from my colleagues in this Roundtable. I can say unequivocally that this has been an intellectual adventure of the highest regard, and I am humbled to have been invited to be a passenger. I hope you, too, have enjoyed the ride.

To me, book seven feels the most unfinished of all of Clausewitz’ writings. It is true that in discussing other ideas in other books, Clausewitz has already given us several points that might be contained in seven. Even so, more than the rest of the series, this book has the feel of an outline or draft to built on later.

Even though this may be the case, Clausewitz gives us the fundamentals of strategic attack. Essentially, Clausewitz tells us, seize and hold the initiative, assault through the enemy using fire and maneuver, and don’t over-extend. Also, choose objectives appropriately, and be mindful of the terrain. Of course, Clausewitz goes into some detail on each of these points, and where the overall theme is similar to ideas in early works, Clausewitz explains to us the nuances regarding application in the attack. Again, while some of the fine details have changed do to the progress of time and advances in technology, the overall ideas are still sound.

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Nathan Bedford Forrest, an unlettered but practiced dealer in the market for human flesh, came to the study of war as an intelligent layman. He started as a private and rose to lieutenant general. Everything he learned about the art of war he learned on the job. This lack of formal military training freed him from some of the worst Jominian excesses of the Old Army’s officer corps (future president James Garfield, another general without professional military training, once observed “I declare that if this union goes down in blood and ruin, let it’s obituary read, “Died of West Point.”). Forrest summed up his hard-won knowledge in two memorable action hero catchphrases:

• The secret of victory was “get there first with the most men”

and

• “War is about fighting and fighting is about killing”

Killing is the essence of war as Book IV Clausewitz saw it. This made Book IV Clausewitz more popular with his immediate successors than Book I Clausewitz, who spouted (old school) liberal nonsense like “war is the continuation of policy by other means” which sounded suspiciously like chaining the unrivaled genius of Ludendorff and his many chins to the petty whims of Kaiser Bill, Bethmann-Hollweg, and all those commie Social Democrats in the Reichstag. But, with Book IV Clausewitz, here was a writer any red blooded Prussian with an iron backbone could respect. Seek out the decisive battle. Collide head to head with the enemy. Kill more of his men than he kills of yours. Drive him before you in relentless pursuit until victory falls into your righteous iron fist. Here was a prophet of war that any warrior would appreciate. You’ve never read Book IV until you’ve read it in the original Klingon.

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Book VII features Clausewitz’s famous analysis of the “culminating point of the attack”.

I have little to add to the many analyses of this point, or to Clausewitz’s own words.

I did note that in places his discussion reminded me of our current American misadventure in Iraq.

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Book VI, the longest book in On War, is entitled “Defense”. It is also the one which is most closely tied to the specific military practices of Clausewitz’s day. Hence, it contains the most material which has become outdated, and is usually skipped over by people who study and teach from On War in our era.

I decided to read it anyway. There is, in fact, a lot of valuable material in Book VI.

The chapter shows the amount of intense, hard thought that Clausewitz applied to the various types of defensive warfare, which must have been derived from both personal experience, discussion with other soldiers, and reading. In its day, portions of it could probably have been used as a manual for commanders who were going to be fighting on the strategic defensive, and for their opponents who were going to have to dislodge and defeat them. That function no longer pertains, due to greatly changed conditions. Therefore, much of Book VI can at best be suggestive in its relation to current practice.

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