The Clausewitz Collection (merged thread) [Archive] - Page 2

slapout9

10-11-2009, 10:23 PM

One of my CGSC instructors (retired officer) has this boo (http://www.amazon.com/Clausewitz-Delusion-American-Screwed-Afghanistan/dp/0760337136)k coming out next month. He argues our fixation with Clausewitz is responsible for us becoming strategically muddled.

He's let some of it fly in my classes so far, my opinion is he has created a strawman of Clausewitz and the whole center of gravity concept. He believes the trinity only applied in his era, and is irrelevant.

He advocates a US way of war based on the style most articulated by Sherman, total war and mass destruction to crush the willingness of the targeted society to resist. He figures this historically as 5-18% of the relevant population as KIA. The reason populations should suffer is to humiliate the warrior class and show that they are impotent to protect their society.

Provocative, to say the least. I got into quite a debate with him in class over some of it, and the moral implications therof. The instructor told me point blank he didn't like being lectured at by a student, so I have shut up on it.

I have paraphrased (perhaps inaccurately) some of the arguments made. Will have to wait for the book to appropriately and fairly respond to the arguments. Recommend Wilf review it for SWJ though.

Man I can hardly wait for the book!!! Sherman waged war against rich people, the secret to all victory. Judging from the table of contents it is going to be some book. Just like the original American system of Economics(it was actually called that) is superior to Keynes, Sherman is superior to St. Carl. When America starts to think for itself instead of trying to apply dead peoples theories to todays problems we will start winning again and making money to boot. Somebody invite the author to the SWC council. Get me his contact info and I'll do it.

Cavguy

10-12-2009, 01:06 AM

Here's some more details from his lecture that were missing from the OP:

1) Theory that a certain percentage has to die. Rationale is that the "warrior" caste has to be humbled in the eyes of its people as being unable to protect them. If the people don't perceive military capitulation insurgency will continue.

2) Ease of entry=harder insurgency. War weariness is a big factor.

3) Centers of Gravity don't exist. Only CoG that matters is perception of the populace that submits. External actors rarely can change internal cultures much, only pacify (see US South for 120 or so years after Civil War, etc.)

4) Clausewitzian trinity only works in monarchy-dictatorial systems, falls apart in anything less than total conflict. Even the Prussians and Napoleon never got the "single, decisive battle" they wanted.

Best as I can recall on the arguments half. Will have to wait for the book. A number of counter-arguments were brought up in class, along the lines of the above, both historical challenges (cases it didn't work), and moral challenges (who's signing up to mass murder civilians?), as well as a sense the version of Clausewitz he challenges is a strawman constructed for that purpose. I have the feeling that CvC is like the Bible, you can interpret what you want out of him, which is kind of a supporting argument for Mr. Melton's thesis in a roundabout way. However, he sees a lot of sympathy for the Jominian formula of war.

Ken White

10-12-2009, 02:22 AM

that Clausewitz has had undue affect on US thinking -- more correctly, the Germans have had undue effect on US military thinking and practice. The Germans and Clausewitz got a lot of stuff right and they do things that work for them. Unfortunately, we adopted some of their practices that do not work well for us. One prime example is our generalist approach to officer education and management. It works for the Germans because they have a great General Staff corps. We do not have that so it doesn't work nearly as well for us. :mad:

I agree with Melton that the center of gravity thing is vastly overused -- I do not agree with him that Jomini had much to offer and I suspect Billy Sherman had no use for Jomini either. The formulaic approach has not worked for the US Army in the many variations I've seen tried over the last 60 plus years. We're stil trying to do that to convince Congress we use objective measures to promote people... :wry:

Slap, I hear you on making war on the rich -- problem is that the poor get caught up in that and suffer even more while the rich tend to float out and survive. Sherman and Carl both were superior in their wars and their times. We just live in a different time.

I do agree that we are capable of doing our own thing and that we do better when we stop trying to copy others. Winston Churchill said "You can always rely on the Americans to do the right thing -- after they have tried all other options." What Winston missed is that we try the methods of others, find out they don't work for us and then finally cobble together an American way of doing it. We need to stop trying to imitate others. We are not they. They are not we. They are wee, we are not...

Steve the Planner

10-12-2009, 02:47 AM

March to the Sea

I'm taken with Slap's comments on making war on the rich.

One day, as I walked through Al Rasheed hotel, a deputy governor from northern Iraq insisted I meet with a Shiek and have my picture taken. It would assure my safety throughout the north.

Met this resplendently dressed Omar Sharif-turned-Saudi Multi-millionaire. Very nice chap. Plenty of US credentials, and free as bird to travel wherever he liked. Afterwards, I scurried off to find out who he was. Not on anybody's charts, but I figured it out easily enough. He was the head of oil smuggling operations around Bayji, probably in for a visit from Jordan/Syria or wherever.

We never touched the moneyed class in Iraq, cause they operate from across the borders. Open borders were not a part of Clauswitz's milieu, but there is the long story of the House of Rothschild. Napolean, to fund his Russian escapade, needed to sieze the treasury of the richest man in Europe, the Elector of Hesse (A fortune made from mercenary work just like Prince). The Elector wisely moved the money to the Rothschild's basement in Frankfurt, and they made so much for him while holding it that he could clip coupons. Napolean didn't fair so well...

My take on the Clauswitz assault follows Mike F: Unity of Command.

I think the fighting part went fine. Where we blinked, and blew it was all on the civil side. I suspect that the political imperative to turn it over too quick (pass the political hot potato of "occupier") kept us from actually occupying decisively, and, for both countries, that's where we went wrong.

Do we act decisively to re-occupy the central government as one option not on the table in current discussions. And what would come next????

Schmedlap

10-12-2009, 03:51 AM

He advocates a US way of war based on the style most articulated by Sherman, total war and mass destruction to crush the willingness of the targeted society to resist. He figures this historically as 5-18% of the relevant population as KIA. The reason populations should suffer is to humiliate the warrior class and show that they are impotent to protect their society.
When I read that, I didn't interpret that as, "let's all sign up to slaughter civilians," nor did I read it as him advocating "kill x% in order to achieve Y effect." I assumed that he was looking at examples in which total war concluded with a definitive surrender. For example, total war with Japan resulted in lots of dead civilians, but resulted in a comparatively orderly transition from a country mobilized for war to a country demobilizing for peace. I think a good case can be made that this was partly due to the people having their will crushed (although having the emperor tell them to put the kibosh on the kamikazes probably didn't hurt, either).

I think the hole in his theory - from what little I have gleaned from it without reading the book - is how you make it work in practice. Are we supposed to goad adversaries into total war, so that we can fight on our terms?

William F. Owen

10-12-2009, 05:22 AM

1) Theory that a certain percentage has to die. Rationale is that the "warrior" caste has to be humbled in the eyes of its people as being unable to protect them. If the people don't perceive military capitulation insurgency will continue.
Clausewitz would agree. Speaks to the setting forth of policy, and trinity of people, leaders and military.

2) Ease of entry=harder insurgency. War weariness is a big factor.
Again Clausewitz would agree. War is Politics.

3) Centers of Gravity don't exist. Only CoG that matters is perception of the populace that submits. External actors rarely can change internal cultures much, only pacify (see US South for 120 or so years after Civil War, etc.)
So CoG do exist. A CoG is that from which the enemy draws all his strength. Can a CoG be targeted? Different thing entirely. CoG do exist. You sometimes cannot find them or use them, but CvCs identification or conceptualisation is extremely useful.

4) Clausewitzian trinity only works in monarchy-dictatorial systems, falls apart in anything less than total conflict. Even the Prussians and Napoleon never got the "single, decisive battle" they wanted.
Absolute Rubbish! If anyone really believes that, then they never read CvC. He would also seem to have fallen foul of not realising that CvC never talked about how. He talked about "why" in the broadest sense.
Hannibal never got his decisive battle either - but Wellington did! Read CvC. He explains it!

Will have to wait for the book. A number of counter-arguments were brought up in class, along the lines of the above, both historical challenges (cases it didn't work), and moral challenges (who's signing up to mass murder civilians?), as well as a sense the version of Clausewitz he challenges is a strawman constructed for that purpose.
I am waiting, but it seems to me that he is setting up CvC on a the basis of what people think he said, versus what he actually said and meant. If he is, then it's intellectually lazy, and misleading.
Moreover war is not about killing. I assuredly involves killing, indeed it is defined by it, but killing is merely one instrument, and war itself is entirely instrumental.

I have the feeling that CvC is like the Bible, you can interpret what you want out of him, which is kind of a supporting argument for Mr. Melton's thesis in a roundabout way. However, he sees a lot of sympathy for the Jominian formula of war.
Well where I am, we have entire groups of learned men, who just study the Torah and many other sacred texts - and argue all day and for many years. :eek:

I do not cling to CvC as a sacred text, but until I read and studied "On War" I really had very little idea as to what the aims and purpose of Warfare were.
CvC does need to be held to rigour and holding CvC to rigour is the best way to learn about what he wrote.

slapout9

10-12-2009, 12:30 PM

Do we act decisively to re-occupy the central government as one option not on the table in current discussions. And what would come next????

In the South it was called Reconstruction and because Lincoln still had the power to create Greenbacks it was not going to cost the American taxpayer one red cent.....just like he financed the Civil War. That was the greatest lesson of all that has been completely passed over by so called Historians and Ph'd types. In fact it was an Army Colonel that showed him how to do it and it was so successful that some say Lincoln was assassinated for it.

Bob's World

10-12-2009, 12:31 PM

slapout9

10-12-2009, 12:33 PM

Slap, I hear you on making war on the rich -- problem is that the poor get caught up in that and suffer even more while the rich tend to float out and survive. Sherman and Carl both were superior in their wars and their times. We just live in a different time.

I do agree that we are capable of doing our own thing and that we do better when we stop trying to copy others. Winston Churchill said "You can always rely on the Americans to do the right thing -- after they have tried all other options." What Winston missed is that we try the methods of others, find out they don't work for us and then finally cobble together an American way of doing it. We need to stop trying to imitate others. We are not they. They are not we. They are wee, we are not...

Ken, it is true that the poor suffer but they are going to suffer anyway.....but when the rich start to suffer all the sudden peace starts breaking out all over the place.

William F. Owen

10-12-2009, 12:39 PM

Because all wars are unique based upon the totality of the circumstances; and wars between states are a very different category than wars within states. The American Civil War was not an insurgency; it was a clear break along geographic, cultural, and political lines. It truly was a "War between the states" not a "war within the states." I add this, because many like to hold up our civil war as an example of the invalidation of the American principle of of the right to insurgency codified in our Declaration of Independence.
Was the US Civil War a "Hybrid War?" - Were any of the actions by Irregulars, part of an insurgency? Was is a "Complex War" or a simple War?

Kind of begs the question as to why we don't opt for a unitary model of war? :wry:

Bob's World

10-12-2009, 01:31 PM

Was the US Civil War a "Hybrid War?" - Were any of the actions by Irregulars, part of an insurgency? Was is a "Complex War" or a simple War?

Kind of begs the question as to why we don't opt for a unitary model of war? :wry:

And always have been. I just don't know how this whole "hybrid" fad helps anything, and here is why: As I look at warfare, the key to determining how to best resolve a conflict is to understand the purposes of the combatants first, then their tactics.

Tactics are something you must deal with, but the design of your operation must be shaped to address the opponents purpose for action. Certainly an insurgency and a state on state war can and will likely employ a mix of approaches to achieve their desired ends. This is human nature. But the combatants are both the protectors of ones political positions; and the means to get to ones political objectives. Understanding the political objectives and the role of the populace as the human terrain in which the conflict is taking place is critical.

So, for me, I toss "hybrid warfare" up onto the same shelf where you have (rightfully) tossed 4GW. Both are simply efforts to describe what we don't understand in terms that we do understand; and IMO, both are off track. War is constantly evolving and never changing (paradox) and is almost always hybrid in execution. Understanding the political perspective and objective of one's opponent gets you closer to determining how to best prevent them from getting to what they seek, and in turn disrupt or defeat the support to their own operation.

M-A Lagrange

10-12-2009, 02:36 PM

4) Clausewitzian trinity only works in monarchy-dictatorial systems, falls apart in anything less than total conflict. Even the Prussians and Napoleon never got the "single, decisive battle" they wanted.

Absolute Rubbish! If anyone really believes that, then they never read CvC. He would also seem to have fallen foul of not realising that CvC never talked about how. He talked about "why" in the broadest sense.
Hannibal never got his decisive battle either - but Wellington did! Read CvC. He explains it!

Do not want to add a cocorico here but Austerlitz was a decisive battle, at least for some times... Just like Waterloo. At least, Napoleon forced the British to put foot on the continent.
I am not that specialist of Clausewitz but he made the theory of the decisive battle almost at the same time Napoleon was conducting his wars.
You cannot deny the influence of Napoleon wars on Clausewitz work. The breaking point is clearly coming from Napoleon campaigns. At least the historicall context explains how there is a before and an after Napoleon just like there is a before and an after Clausewitz in the western/European understanding and conduct of war. (For both).
Little short as assumption. And this does not give a blank check to conduct mass casualties wars. Far from it.
As said Tom, does the guy have an idea of what is a 10% population losses? I believe in the first shock phase, so the stunning effect avoid any complication during the hold and stabilization phase.
Makes a lot of people! Just for that, the argument cannot stand.

Bob's World

10-12-2009, 02:41 PM

Also critical to take into account in such discussions is if one is discussing:

A. How to win a battle,

B. How to win a campaign,

C. How to win a war,

D. How to prevail in a nation's overall objective across a span of peace and wars.

I would offer that each is very different and must be considered uniquely as well. A common mistake seems to be not to differentiate at all, or to apply what might be logical to one to another where it may not apply as well.

Steve Blair

10-12-2009, 02:43 PM

Sorry, Cavguy, but your instructor lost me the exact second he refused to engage in a meaningful discussion of his ideas with you. That's what good educators are supposed to do. He also seems to ignore (as many do) the impact of our own army's organization on any attempt to absorb a German (or French) staff system. The great split between the Staff and Line prior to Root's modifications (and others that came about after the Spanish-American War) left deep scars, and I do think that it really hampered how we looked at and developed a staff. This is especially true when it's combined to the traditionally low opinion held by the body politic of a standing military.

And I agree with Bob...not all wars are the same. One of my side projects (that I might actually finish someday...) is an examination of officers who served successfully in the Civil War and then transitioned to fighting Indians. It's an interesting adaptation to look at.

Ron Humphrey

10-12-2009, 02:55 PM

Ken, it is true that the poor suffer but they are going to suffer anyway.....but when the rich start to suffer all the sudden peace starts breaking out all over the place.

Gotta be careful with that one. Quite often if things get rough the rich simply relocate and the poor get stuck not only suffering but having to figure out how to dig themselves out on their own (Sans large influx of fundage from aforementioned rich). It's a fairly delicate balance.

On a different note

Niel , I wonder what your esteemed professors opinion is of the CSI paper written by Paret and Moran
CVC- Two letters on Strategy?

Steve the Planner

10-12-2009, 03:11 PM

Slapout:

"In the South it was called Reconstruction and because Lincoln still had the power to create Greenbacks it was not going to cost the American taxpayer one red cent.....just like he financed the Civil War. That was the greatest lesson of all that has been completely passed over by so called Historians and Ph'd types. In fact it was an Army Colonel that showed him how to do it and it was so successful that some say Lincoln was assassinated for it."

The problem in Afghanistan arises out of the constitution which, arguably applies.

If the elections are, at the least, "challenged" to the extent that no clear winner is yet certifiable, then who sits at the head of Afghanistan's government?

As I understand it, past President Kharzai is likely to achieve, in the end, a fractious, but minimal victory, while his challengers can not must a majority.

On the table is the theory of a Unity Government, but putting that in practice is a whole different matter.

The UN, as I understand it, has the authority to decertify the election and move for "something else." Thus, the big portent of Eide and Galbraith.

The implicit suggestion, at present, is that (1) the present constitutional and national structure, whether as adopted or as applied, will not produce a positive result for Afghan's as a whole, nor further NATO/US objectives in stability; and (2) it may be time for a revisit to the structure, whether styled as a constitutional convention, national debate, loya jirga, or whatever.

What lessons, if any, have Afghans learned from the recent experience, and how would they propose to address it?

If, in order to answer that question, an Interim Government needs to be put in place, I believe the UN mandate provides for that radical surgery. Is it necessary?

Ron Humphrey

10-12-2009, 03:48 PM

to a lesson that hopefully would have been learned from our Iraq experience.

If one plans to hands the reigns over to a stable local govt you must have those reigns firmly in hand yourself in order to do so. We don't want to occupy and thats not necessarily a bad thing but you sure as heck have to own something to be able to give it away.

Probably way to much of an oversimplification but still...

Steve the Planner

10-12-2009, 05:41 PM

Ron:

Right.

In dumb-ass civilian terms, it might be termed a "gap" in the title chain.

Something about 'you can't convey what you don't own."

Steve

William F. Owen

10-12-2009, 05:45 PM

I am not that specialist of Clausewitz but he made the theory of the decisive battle almost at the same time Napoleon was conducting his wars.
You cannot deny the influence of Napoleon wars on Clausewitz work. The breaking point is clearly coming from Napoleon campaigns. At least the historicall context explains how there is a before and an after Napoleon just like there is a before and an after Clausewitz in the western/European understanding and conduct of war.
I am not a specialist in Clausewitz either. I merely read and studied him to the degree I believe is useful, and as a minimum to understanding what he actually said and did not say.

Clausewitz did not say talk about THE decisive battle. He talked about the need for Decisive battles that gained you benefit in terms of strategy.

He also made broad useful observations, such as only Major engagements can bring about Major success - so don't plan for small tactical actions to have major strategic payoffs! - that they might, does not mean you should plan for them to do so.

IMO, (and others) what he was cautioning people against was continually irrelevant tactical action that gained no strategic benefit. EG: Hannibal.

Yes, CvC was writing soon after the time of Napoleon but he was also strongly influenced by Roman and Greek military history, as well as a whole range of other European Wars and Rebellion against the Crown in the Americas.

slapout9

10-12-2009, 06:52 PM

STP, I don't think we can Re-occupy A'stan because we never occupied it in the first place, which is part of the problem. I don't understand this theory of starting a war with someone and then thinking that if you have an election right in the middle of the war that everything will be alright:confused::confused:

Now we have an illegitimate government that is receiving huge amounts of financial aid from the US while we do the fighting and the dying....WTF?

Also Sherman had an IED problem to, you know how he solved it? He had the civilians who would not tell him where the torpedo's(that is what they called land mines in the Civil War) were march down the road in front of his columns! The IED problem was solved real quick. Put that in an IO campaign for A'stan......I know we can't do that but we should......tie rich folks to the of front Humvee"s and search for IED's.....hey that sorta rhymes.:)

Also the first thing Sherman did was prepare a SPECIAL TAX MAP and his march to sea went right through the richest parts of Georgia where he collected his food and supplies and burned bridges,tore up rail roads and knocked down telegraphs. In short he made the rich folks poor and feel pain, he did not target civilians directly he targeted their support system more than anything. Victory because he new how to make a good Systems Map;)

MattC86

10-12-2009, 07:11 PM

Grant will likely always be my favorite US General. One of his greatest accomplishments that he receives little credit for is the strategy to target the will of the Southern populace as his main effort (to which he tasked Sherman in Georgia and the Carolinas; and ultimately Sheridan in the Shenandoah to execute), while he supervised Meade in the supporting, but critical effort of defeating Lee's Army and taking Richmond (in that order).

He, IMO, was the first leader to not only understand that merely killing soldiers or capturing capitals was enough in wars between nations, as it had been in the West for generations in wars between Kingdoms.

Pardon my interjection, but I was under the impression that this was not correct - Grant's initial attitude towards Sherman after the latter proposed the March to the Sea was one of trepidation; that Sherman should first destroy Johnston/Hood's army before heading on his swath of destruction, or even head for Mobile. Sherman gradually convinced Grant he could not only pull this off, but the objective Grant really wanted - destruction of the Confederate Army in the West - could be done by Gen. George Thomas' Army of the Cumberland at Chattanooga (as indeed happened).

I was similarly under the impression that Grant saw the destruction of Confederate armies as his goal, but that he came to see what Sherman was doing as the flip side of the same coin - that grinding Confederate armies to powder reinforced the helplessness civilians felt in the path of Sherman, and vice versa.

Aside from the torturous history lesson (my apologies if I am wrong), can I ask what is NOT Clausewitzian about Sherman's actions? Just as the Confederates targeted the Union will to continue, Sherman realized he had a golden opportunity to return the favor. His writing is littered with references to destroying the will of the enemy to resist. I feel like the calculated brutality this guy promotes is just another way of achieving victory in the competition of wills. . .he's being Clausewitzian without even realizing it.

Not to mention Sherman's March didn't kill 8-10% or whatever of the population - it burned and stole but did not often rape and murder. That was the intent. Sherman was also not one for pitched battles of annihilation as Grant was. So I don't know where this guy is getting his ideas or his facts, but the whole premise as Cavguy describes it seems absurd.

Matt

slapout9

10-12-2009, 07:15 PM

Matt86, you ain't wrong....you be jamming:D

MikeF

10-12-2009, 07:22 PM

Also Sherman had an IED problem to, you know how he solved it? He had the civilians who would not tell him where the torpedo's(that is what they called land mines in the Civil War) were march down the road in front of his columns! The IED problem was solved real quick. Put that in an IO campaign for A'stan......I know we can't do that but we should......tie rich folks to the of front Humvee"s and search for IED's.....hey that sorta rhymes.:)

Also the first thing Sherman did was prepare a SPECIAL TAX MAP and his march to sea went right through the richest parts of Georgia where he collected his food and supplies and burned bridges,tore up rail roads and knocked down telegraphs. In short he made the rich folks poor and feel pain, he did not target civilians directly he targeted their support system more than anything. Victory because he new how to make a good Systems Map;)

One of the quickest things you learn in a combat zone is how much emotions effect actions. War is personal, and it cannot be reduced to a simple mathematical equation or engineering problem.

Two examples.

1. The scene in Band of Brothers the day after Echo Company discovered the concentration camp. They declare martial law and force the adjacent neighbors to clean the camp and bury the bodies. Echo Company used shame as an instrument of resolve. The other option would be to kill ever person in that town as punishment. I'm sure it crossed their minds.

2. In May 2007, after a raid, we discovered the videos of public beheadings in our town. Not knowing exactly how to react, I decided to force all the village elders to watch the video with me standing over telling them how utterly wrong and inhumane it was. I chose to use shame. In that instance, it worked. There was a lot of crying sheiks that day.

v/r

Mike

Steve Blair

10-12-2009, 07:26 PM

Firn

10-12-2009, 07:47 PM

It is pretty hard to create only through Cavguy's post an sensible image of the critic of CvC offered by the lector.

His approval of Sherman and the description of his book seem to indicate that he is somehow irritated by the importance of the foreigner CvC in the military of the USA. The preview on Amazon really sounds like a personal rant, doesn't it?

In the aftermath of defeat in Vietnam, the American military cast about for answers--and, bizarrely, settled upon a view of warfare promulgated by a Prussian general in the 1830s, Carl von Clausewitz. This doctrine was utterly inappropriate to the wars the U.S. faced in Iraq and Afghanistan. It led the U.S. Army to abandon its time-honored methods of offensive war--which had guided America to success from the early Indian campaigns all the way through the Second World War--in favor of a military philosophy derived from the dynastic campaigns of Napoleon and Frederick the Great. It should come as no surprise, then, that the military's conceptualization of modern offensive war, as well as its execution, has failed in every real-life test of our day.

This book reveals the failings of the U.S. Army in its adoption of a postmodern “Full Spectrum Operations" doctrine, which codifies Clauswitzian thinking. Such an approach, the author contends, leaves the military without the doctrine, training base, or force structure necessary to win offensive wars in our time. Instead, the author suggests, the army should adopt a new doctrinal framework based on an analysis of the historical record and previously successful American methods of war. A clear and persuasive critique of current operative ideas about warfare, The Clausewitz Delusion lays out a new explanation of victory in war, based on an analysis of wartime casualties and post-conflict governance. It is a book of critical importance to policymakers, statesmen, and military strategists at every level.

Perhaps the digital ink is spent better elsewhere...

Firn

MattC86

10-12-2009, 08:07 PM

Granted Civil War history isn't my main field, but the answer isn't as simple as "Sherman had the idea and Grant resisted." And likewise the reverse isn't completely true.

Grant had learned the value, and practicality, of moving through the Southern countryside during the Vicksburg campaign. He also began to understand at that time that the Southern popular will would need to be defeated along with the field armies. But he also understood that Lee's ANV was a physical representation of that will, and that the Army of the Potomac would not likely close with and destroy that army without his physical presence. Actually, both Sherman and Grant were wary of the possibility of moving an entire army through the deep south, but over time both began to see the possibilities of that movement. Grant seems to have grasped the need to carry the war to the deep south first, but Sherman certainly came around quick enough. He was the one who was wary during the Vicksburg campaign of cutting loose from the supply lines and living off the county, but had clearly changed his tune when the Army of Tennessee cut loose through the deep south.

Both Sherman and Grant (and by extension Sheridan and many other senior Union leaders from the Western Theater) grasped the need to shatter Southern popular will and support for the cause. Such a realization seems to have come with slower speed and clarity to those Union commanders who spent most of their time fighting in Virginia.

Sherman's campaign certainly changed to a tune of punishment when they left Georgia and entered South Carolina.

I don't think I suggested (at least I hope I didn't) that Grant opposed it and Sherman won him over - only that he showed some resistance to the grand scale of what Sherman was planning. He worried if it was feasible with Hood maneuvering in Sherman's rear - remember, during the Siege of Vicksburg, he sent Sherman to Jackson to guard against Johnston's possible relief expedition.

No argument with any of what you said, though. I wonder if the phenomenon you notice is the result of minimal contact with the Southern population by officers and men fighting with the Army of the Potomac?

Getting back to the topic at hand, Firn is probably right, it seems a bit premature to judge the entire book and argument based on these snippets, but coming from Cavguy and the publisher's own description at Amazon, it does seem highly suspect.

Matt

Cavguy

10-12-2009, 08:35 PM

Firn

10-12-2009, 08:57 PM

My issue was the 5-18% number and the logical implication that successful pacification requires mass murder. Even if effective, it's not a COA that should be considered by the USA.

Niel

You have my respect for stressing that point during the lecture. Such a number may sound pretty understandable and agreeable on paper but as you said it will in practice be very bloody. Killing in the process of the pacification of Afghanistan up to 18% of the population or 8.600.000 humans doesn't seem to fit the purpose of the current mission.

Leaving that aside I guess we will have to wait for that book to see if it provides something useful. The perception so far is not a good one, but it might be overridden by the qualities of the book.

Firn

Ken White

10-12-2009, 09:20 PM

Granted Civil War history isn't my main field, but the answer isn't as simple as "Sherman had the idea and Grant resisted." And likewise the reverse isn't completely true.It was a growing pain sort of thing. Both were fair Generals, neither was great. Thomas and Buford were both better, just not in the right place at the right time.

Any General that says as Grant did "I propose to fight it out on this line if it take all summer" has some problems as a tactician, particularly considering it was said immediately after he got a really bloody nose with 17,000 casualties in The Wilderness and was in process of getting zapped again at Spotsylvania with another 18,000 casualties. His claim to fame is actually that he had more troops to throw away than did his opponents-- and he surely did that.

A strategist he was not. Good writer, though...

Schmedlap

10-12-2009, 10:26 PM

My issue was the 5-18% number and the logical implication that successful pacification requires mass murder. Even if effective, it's not a COA that should be considered by the USA.
Are you sure that is the logical implication? If it was, then okay, maybe he's crazy.

I suspect that he was looking at cases where that much of the population was killed - in large part because it was a total war - and he then drew a link between that beat down and the willingness to submit. If that was his thought process, then I don't think that the logical implication is a mass murder COA.

Umar Al-Mokhtār

10-12-2009, 11:22 PM

Seems you've been living in the deep South too long and have drank up all the Kool Aide. :D

Grant knew that he had to hit Lee again and again since the ANV was the CoG, not so much Richmond. So he hit him hard at the Wilderness. When the Federals broke off the attack Lee (and many Federal officers) was sure Grant would withdraw. He didn't, he moved to his left. This threw Lee off his game a bit but he rallied well to block Grant at Spotsylvania. So it went until U.S. stole a march on Bobby and crossed the James, but his Corps were slow in taking Petersburg and so the siege began. Grant lost about 55,000 (which were fewer men than the Federals had lost in the three previous years trying to do the same thing) to Lee's 33,000, the key being the Union casualties were a smaller % of overall forces. Since Sherman at the same time was “making Georgia howl” there could be no shifting of Confederate forces between the theaters. Also, when Early threatened Washington Grant failed to react as previous commanders had; which was to withdraw and rush north. He kept focused on Lee.

Grant formulated his strategy based on his greater manpower to make his flanking movements and keeping his supply lines secure. Lee was able to counter since he had the advantage of interior lines, but only because he was obliged to defend Richmond and his supply line to the southwest. Grant had considered going west of Richmond with the same strategy but it would have unacceptably lengthen his supply line. He also factored in the desire that one of his attacks might break through to Richmond. Both Grant and Lee knew that a prolonged siege (whether around Richmond or Petersburg) would end the war in favor of the North.

Agree that neither Grant nor Sherman was a “great captain” per say, but neither was Lee (he was too Virginia centric and at times overly aggressive for the resources available to the CSA). In the aggregate, when one totals Grant's losses from Beaumont to Appomattox he lost fewer men numerically (and effectively won the war in the western theater in 1863) than Lee incurred from Seven Pines to Appomattox. Grant used his obvious superiority in manpower and resources to defeat Lee, like that's a bad thing. Was he supposed to just sit back like all the other AotP commanders before him?

Ken White

10-12-2009, 11:49 PM

Seems you've been living in the deep South too long and have drank up all the Kool Aide. :DNah, your aim's off -- if you aimed...

I probably woulda fit for the Union. However, I don't drink Kool Aid; that's sugary stuff for all you kids...;)
Grant formulated his strategy based on his greater manpower to make his flanking movements and keeping his supply lines secure. Lee was able to counter since he had the advantage of interior lines, but only because he was obliged to defend Richmond and his supply line to the southwest...True -- Grant wasted him away and continually slipped to the SE. No great strategy but an admittedly effective one.
neither was Lee Nor did I say he was -- I cited Thomas and Buford, both Union. Only Jackson whom I did not mention comes close to being great for the South. He was better than any of the others save possibly Buford and both of them died too young. John Gordon and Forrest may have become great with more experience; they didn't get it so they don't make it to greatness (whatever that is)...
Grant used his obvious superiority in manpower and resources to defeat Lee, like that's a bad thing.I hope not, that's the American way; has been in every war we've won and the two we lost (both due to really bad Generals; one northerner, one southerner). In any event, I didn't say it was bad, just that it was what he did -- which you corroborate.
Was he supposed to just sit back like all the other AotP commanders before him?No, nor did I say he should have -- I just said he wasn't a particularly great General and named two northerners (one from Kentucky, one from Virgina ;) )who were better. I think you're picking a fight where none need exist -- that ain't good Generalship. :D

Umar Al-Mokhtār

10-13-2009, 12:36 AM

than to pick a fight with you...didn't you actually serve in the late unpleasantness? :D

Buford probably would have proven to be great, he was far and away the best cavalry commander on either side. Thomas was solid, and shrewd since he deftly avoided taking a major command. It would have been interesting how things would have played out if the roles of Thomas and Sherman had been reversed.

Other picks would be Reynolds and Cleburne who, like Buford, were also cut down before their time.

My aim is poor, at least that's what my wife says when she's cleaning up the head. :eek:

I too gave up Kool Aid quite some time ago having acquired a taste for Glenmorangie and Dalwhinnie. ;)

Ken White

10-13-2009, 03:16 AM

than to pick a fight with you...didn't you actually serve in the late unpleasantness? Alas no, then in my 61st reincarnation, I was advising Wu Wen Chen, late Warlord and ruler of Guiyang at the time. Pity, I could've had fun ragging G.A. Custer...:D
My aim is poor, at least that's what my wife says when she's cleaning up the head. Hmm. Sounds like yours and mine been communicatin' somehow... :wry:
I too gave up Kool Aid quite some time ago having acquired a taste for Glenmorangie and Dalwhinnie. Good stuff, I'm told, can't do Scotch. Results of a weekend foray in Oceanside in 1951 which entailed quantities of White Horse (I know, I know - but on a Corporal's pay back then, choice was limited... :() and did not end well; there was minor illness involved. Haven't much desire for it since.

Fortunately, there is bourbon. ;)

Tom Odom

10-13-2009, 05:45 AM

Ron:

Right.

In dumb-ass civilian terms, it might be termed a "gap" in the title chain.

Something about 'you can't convey what you don't own."

Steve

Except in the case of con men.

Elected or appointed, matters not a whit

Them that are transferred and them that accept

Are both screwed in equal parts

By the con men arranging the transfer

Tom

Rifleman

10-13-2009, 05:57 AM

One of my side projects (that I might actually finish someday...) is an examination of officers who served successfully in the Civil War and then transitioned to fighting Indians. It's an interesting adaptation to look at.

As you work on that project don't forget that the plains tribes were largely subjugated because the buffalo were eliminated. The buffalo gave them everything they needed: food, shelter, clothing, even a theology. When the buffalo was gone they got in line fast for blankets and beef.

It's enough to make a body think that the buffalo was one of them there Clauswitzian centers of gravity that I keep hearing about.

M-A Lagrange

10-13-2009, 07:34 AM

Clausewitz did not say talk about THE decisive battle. He talked about the need for Decisive battles that gained you benefit in terms of strategy.

Well, here we have a dialectic/translation problem. I was not talking about THE decisive battle but using the as in French where “the” would mean “a”.
Also, I believe this could be debated but I did not read CvC in German.
But I have to admit that benefits from Waterloo were longer term than Austerlitz on the political side. But the benefits from Austerlitz were larger at its time. (more countries involved, larger impact in European powers…).

Just to add some spices to the discussion. Definition of a decisive battle is quite loose with time. I’ll take the example of La Marne in 1914. It was merely a strategic decisive battle but was a tactical decisive battle as it was more a smart use of modern logistic technology and more or less did fix the front. But this was not the attempt or aim. (The objective was to protect Paris so the old dogma I have your capital = I won, would not happen).
But still it was a decisive battle.

Closer from us, I can see where such statement that “mass killings benefits” could come from.
I will take the example of last Israel operations. (No critics, no offense, no judgment, please. Take it as an intellectual exercise).
The 2006 summer war was a defeat and Israel needed to reaffirm its military supremacy. So they did conduct Castle Lead.
I have no idea of the ratio of population killed among Palestinian. But IDF maintained a 1/10 ratio if you melt civilian+armed population for the Palestinian. (Roughly 1 IDF for 10 Palestinian). And, as you said, Israel gained some time.

Was it a decisive battle? Personally I would not go that way. The Rand studies about Israel cycle of violence have shown that basically Israel is buying 11 month of peace between each round of terror/war.
On a regional scale? Well, that can be debate also since Iran has shown capacity to produce continental range weapons.
On the hostage scene? Yes most probably.

But does that really balance the bad image that Israel did built during the operation? Did that worst the lost of credit among the international opinion (even in West)? That is not that clear. Just for this I would say that the statement of killing plenty, even combatants, would be somehow fault. It just shows a theoretical understanding of war. Also, CvC did not write about stabilization and stabilization was much easier at his time. Well may be not in Spain.

In war among the people and with the increase of education of the population (civilian + military + international opinion) such assumption based on terror is almost an immediate political loss. So the benefits from an operation or war that kills many civilian (the figure should not be count in %) has more disadvantages than advantages.

Or the guy is just crazy.

William F. Owen

10-13-2009, 08:57 AM

Definition of a decisive battle is quite loose with time. I’ll take the example of La Marne in 1914. It was merely a strategic decisive battle but was a tactical decisive battle as it was more a smart use of modern logistic technology and more or less did fix the front. But this was not the attempt or aim. (The objective was to protect Paris so the old dogma I have your capital = I won, would not happen).
But still it was a decisive battle.
...so you might want to point that out on this thread here, because this is very relevant! - http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showthread.php?t=8647

I will take the example of last Israel operations. (No critics, no offense, no judgment, please. Take it as an intellectual exercise).
Good luck with that. Ever met an Israeli? :D

Joking aside, Israel has a very simple view of strategy. It is the use of force to maintain the state, at all and any cost. It does not have to be perfect or even good. It just has to work, and it does. No one expects "Peace" anytime soon. Relative security is good enough.
Economy growing, population growing, and 3 years since a serious war = all good.

The Israeli population (as opposed to political elite) also cares very little for what others think. The only condemnation that had any impact at all during Cast Lead was that from the Turkish Islamist Party!

Steve Blair

10-13-2009, 01:45 PM

As you work on that project don't forget that the plains tribes were largely subjugated because the buffalo were eliminated. The buffalo gave them everything they needed: food, shelter, clothing, even a theology. When the buffalo was gone they got in line fast for blankets and beef.

It's enough to make a body think that the buffalo was one of them there Clauswitzian centers of gravity that I keep hearing about.

Granted we're diverting from topic here, but I do understand that. But it also varies from tribe to tribe. The groups most impacted by the demise of the buffalo were the Plains tribes...the loss of buffalo didn't do squat to the social support systems of the Southwestern tribes (Navajo, Apache, Yavapai, and so on). And some of the tribes had their resistance broken before the buffalo were removed from the equation (the Comanche are a good example, as are the Kiowa).

I'll hush now....the Indian Wars are one of my main focal areas, so I could bore folks to death with tons of trivia.....

Fuchs

10-13-2009, 09:14 PM

Just to add some spices to the discussion. Definition of a decisive battle is quite loose with time. I’ll take the example of La Marne in 1914. It was merely a strategic decisive battle but was a tactical decisive battle as it was more a smart use of modern logistic technology and more or less did fix the front. But this was not the attempt or aim. (The objective was to protect Paris so the old dogma I have your capital = I won, would not happen).
But still it was a decisive battle.

Maybe it's been too many months that I read Clausewitz for the last time, but I'm sure that he wrote in German. So he wasn't using the word "decisive", and that eliminates my problems with the fuzzy definition.

The German words "Entscheidung" (decision) and ("entscheidend" (supposedly "decisive") may have evolved over 170 years, adding another potential problem.

Nevertheless, I can assure you that modern Germans would not use these words for battles like the Marne battle, except ex ante.
So despite I didn't read his book recently I'm quite confident that he wouldn't have called the battle of the Marne a Entscheidungsschlacht (ex post) - except maybe ex ante (then still only being potentially entscheidend).

The same applies to the Tannenberg battle (Eastern Prussia 1914), of course.

William F. Owen

10-14-2009, 06:07 AM

Nevertheless, I can assure you that modern Germans would not use these words for battles like the Marne battle, except ex ante.
I think it's ex-ante use if valid. The Battle of Marne stopped the Germans surrounding Paris, as they had in 1870 - in that sense it had decisive results.

In contrast, Verdun and the Somme were far less decisive - even though decision was sought.

I have always taken CvCs point to be that you should not seek battle unless you aim to do some serious damage to the enemy, and for that damage to contribute your setting forth of policy.

M-A Lagrange

10-14-2009, 06:23 AM

Maybe it's been too many months that I read Clausewitz for the last time, but I'm sure that he wrote in German. So he wasn't using the word "decisive", and that eliminates my problems with the fuzzy definition.

The German words "Entscheidung" (decision) and ("entscheidend" (supposedly "decisive") may have evolved over 170 years, adding another potential problem.

Nevertheless, I can assure you that modern Germans would not use these words for battles like the Marne battle, except ex ante.
So despite I didn't read his book recently I'm quite confident that he wouldn't have called the battle of the Marne a Entscheidungsschlacht (ex post) - except maybe ex ante (then still only being potentially entscheidend).

The same applies to the Tannenberg battle (Eastern Prussia 1914), of course.

Well, my german is little old as is my reading of CvC. And to had some complexity, I did read it in French not in English neither in German.
But my point was more that you cannot blame anyone for not having a/the decisive battle (as it goes with the comon understanding).
My example of Marne was more that what was a desperate move became a tactical victory with strategic unseen consequences. They used cars to transport troops for nearly the first time. And beat the germans in speed to rally troops. There was no plan no vision, nothing more. Let be franc. Marne is good luck.

The only decisive battle (entering in that definition of THE battle that CHANGES everything) I ever see is Stalingrad. There it is clear that it has been a strategical turn point of the whole affair. But once again, you start with a defeat and the desperate resistance of forces that have the only option of die or win.

CvC is the western guy who pointed very simple things that apply to almost every level in analysing, preparing, conducting war. The only one I see before is Sun Tzu. Makes few centuries difference. Being upset that this man is influencing all western reflection on war is misplaced. The real question to explain what happened to US since Corea is may be else where. And concerning Iraq and Afghanistan, it is certainly not in saying CvC is overused and let kill everybody that you will come with a smart answer to the question: where did it all go wrong?
In addition the whole idea of "humiliating" the ennemy... Well that is exactly why iraky and afghany are much upsed. Not talking about the whole arab world. So may be humiliating people is just good for training during classes. After, when you start to invade and geopardise the life of millions of people, may be it is not a such good idea. Let look at the issue in a smart way or at least a different way.

Firn

11-11-2009, 07:35 PM

CvC is the western guy who pointed very simple things that apply to almost every level in analysing, preparing, conducting war. The only one I see before is Sun Tzu. Makes few centuries difference. Being upset that this man is influencing all western reflection on war is misplaced. The real question to explain what happened to US since Corea is may be else where. And concerning Iraq and Afghanistan, it is certainly not in saying CvC is overused and let kill everybody that you will come with a smart answer to the question: where did it all go wrong?

In addition the whole idea of "humiliating" the ennemy... Well that is exactly why iraky and afghany are much upsed. Not talking about the whole arab world. So may be humiliating people is just good for training during classes. After, when you start to invade and geopardise the life of millions of people, may be it is not a such good idea. Let look at the issue in a smart way or at least a different way.

Note the discussion in this topic (http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showthread.php?t=6743&page=7).

IMHO one of the most important contribuitions of CvC is the exposure of the ambiguous nature of war. It can be seen and used as an instrument of the political forces but the unpredictable course of it can exert greatest influence on the same political forces and much more. In this sense the sheer presence of foreign troops on native soil can be reason enough to fight them. The troops, good instruments in the hand of a selfviewed good force are thus a big part of the problem by their simple existence. It might be a stupid emotional response, but it can be a very strong one, especially if reinforced by a radical system of beliefs.

This reminds me a bit on the words of a famous mountaineer. IIRC he was asked why so many humans try to climb the highest peaks despite the grave risks. His laconic answer? Because they are.

Firn

Tukhachevskii

11-12-2009, 10:29 AM

The only decisive battle (entering in that definition of THE battle that CHANGES everything) I ever see is Stalingrad. There it is clear that it has been a strategical turn point of the whole affair.

This interests me personally, which is not to say that the thread sent me to sleep, but purely because I remember having a discussion about the ost front at Uni where we had to think Clausewiztically (!). Was Stalingrad really a decisive battle? and by what critieria? Calling it the strategic turning point of the whole affair (?) confuses me somewhat. Do we mean by the whole affair Operation Blau (the offensive into the Causcaus to cut off Stalin's fuel lines of communication) or do we mean by the whole affair the entire eastern front campaign or even World War II in toto? Apologies if this query is idiotic (I am after all a lowly civilian:o) but at Uni I personally fought (verbally of course) for Operation Typhoon being the decisive battle (for the Soviets) in that it prevented the Werhmacht from achieving its primary strategic objective for the winter (i.e., Moscow), bought the Soviet side a respite in which to reinforce and soldify its defences and reorganise the armed forces. In other words, why not Kursk? Why not D-DAY which prevented the Wehrmacht from concentrating on the east and fight the dreaded two front war (three including Italy)?

Firn

11-13-2009, 07:47 PM

Well this is of course a difficult question.

Starting the war hoping to bring the rotten building of communism down with one mighty kick was of couse a major factor in the whole campaign. There were a great deal of other factors for the specific start for the specific campaign, real, immagined or perceived ones which ranged from territory to ressources and the fear of the Red threat. But I would not call the decision to start the war or the whole campaign the decisive battle, at least not when you closely follow CvC. In this regard he is more stringent.

If we are inclined to speculation we could include Dunkirk in the list of potential decisive battles. With so many british POW in German hands after such a crushing victory a diplomatic solution in the West might have been achievable. In the end every battle you listed brings us into the realm of speculation because every other outcome brings great uncertainty.

Firn

Elric

11-13-2009, 08:53 PM

Here's some more details from his lecture that were missing from the OP:

1) Rationale is that the "warrior" caste has to be humbled in the eyes of its people as being unable to protect them. If the people don't perceive military capitulation insurgency will continue.

What of the mass bombings of English and German cities in WWII?

3) Centers of Gravity don't exist. Only CoG that matters is perception of the populace that submits. External actors rarely can change internal cultures much, only pacify (see US South for 120 or so years after Civil War, etc.)

CoGs do not exist, yet the perception is a CoG... :confused: Been laying off the coffee again? Perception is reality, no matter the ground truth. Where the US falls down is monitoring and responding to the word on the street. Search for "Baghdad Mosquito" for an interesting approach to it. Dedicated HUMIT would be preferred, but who has enough teams in sector to do it

Elric

11-13-2009, 09:11 PM

1) Rationale is that the "warrior" caste has to be humbled in the eyes of its people as being unable to protect them. If the people don't perceive military capitulation insurgency will continue.

What of the mass bombings of English and German cities in WWII?

Is it so much military capitulation as the ability of the population to decide that the cause is not worth the effort? Its a mix of the "warrior caste" with the security apparatus. Think of the STASI and the East German Army. Without the threat of bayonets, the STASI didn't have anywhere the menace that they used to.

slapout9

11-13-2009, 09:59 PM

A Parameters article from 1994 by SWC Steve Metz on CvC's funeral.:eek:

http://www.carlisle.army.mil/USAWC/Parameters/1994/1994%2095%20review%20essay%20metz.pdf

slapout9

11-14-2009, 01:58 AM

Apologize I couldn't sketch the arguments in more detail. The presentation lasted an hour and I wasn't taking notes as I was processing what was being said. Some of it may or may not be in his forthcoming book.

I don't think the author is insincere or anyhow prejudiced, he sincerely believes the influence of CvC and the way it was implemented has reduced the effectiveness of the US Army. I am not enough of a CvC/Jomini student yet to really rule on what CvC meant or didn't mean and whether he adequately accounts for CvC's "intent".

My issue was the 5-18% number and the logical implication that successful pacification requires mass murder. Even if effective, it's not a COA that should be considered by the USA.

Niel

Cavguy do you have any class handouts or anything you can post from the class with references? I can't remember where I read it but doing WW2 there were supposedly calculations that we had to be prepared to inflict between 25% to 50% total causalities on Japan in order to get a total surrender, if that is correct the statistic may some merit to it. This is very CvC since he said the main aim is to DISARM the enemy.....if the enemy want wear unifroms but has guns and you intend to disarm them then you will have to kill a lot of so called civilians.

Cavguy

11-14-2009, 03:09 AM

William F. Owen

11-14-2009, 08:37 AM

In the aftermath of defeat in Vietnam, the American military cast about for answers--and, bizarrely, settled upon a view of warfare promulgated by a Prussian general in the 1830s, Carl von Clausewitz. This doctrine was utterly inappropriate to the wars the U.S. faced in Iraq and Afghanistan. It led the U.S. Army to abandon its time-honored methods of offensive war--which had guided America to success from the early Indian campaigns all the way through the Second World War--in favor of a military philosophy derived from the dynastic campaigns of Napoleon and Frederick the Great. It should come as no surprise, then, that the military's conceptualization of modern offensive war, as well as its execution, has failed in every real-life test of our day.

Well I'll certainly buy the book, but what is written above is pure garbage.

a.) The US did not "settled upon a view of warfare promulgated by a Prussian general in the 1830s, Carl von Clausewitz." after Vietnam. CvC wrote about WAR, very little on "WARFARE."

b.) War is very distinct from Warfare. The "Clausewitz Delusion" is almost certainly a product of not having understood Clausewitz. - that's the problem that has afflicted 99% of his critics.

c.) To attribute the US being poor at Warfare to CvC is an argument almost impossible to make, but I'll wait and see.

Firn

11-14-2009, 08:53 AM

Cavguy do you have any class handouts or anything you can post from the class with references? I can't remember where I read it but doing WW2 there were supposedly calculations that we had to be prepared to inflict between 25% to 50% total causalities on Japan in order to get a total surrender, if that is correct the statistic may some merit to it. This is very CvC since he said the main aim is to DISARM the enemy.....if the enemy want wear unifroms but has guns and you intend to disarm them then you will have to kill a lot of so called civilians.

Well if we look at both WWI and WWII we see that the death of civilians both can or might not play an important part in the surrender of the enemy. In WWI we had huge internal unrest in all four continental empires - war doesn't stop the political processes, far from it. To a bigger and a smaller degree they decided in concert with other factors the war. Civilian casualities caused by the enemy direct actions were rather small, certainly under 1% for the central empires. However the revolutions and unrests sparked a very bloody civil war in Russia and was followed by the Armenian Genocide.

But the Central Powers asked for peace because they knew that given the increasing inbalance of ressources in the mid or long term their military power would not be sufficient to avoid the destruction of their ability to defend themselves.

In WWII the Sovietunion lost over the duration of the war almost 10% of their civilian population but refused to give up. Given the huge ressources the ability to wage war was intact at every point and was even increasing. Nazi Germany refused to give up until the leader of the regime which held the society in an iron grip shot himself, even if most of the territory was overun, the cities bombed into ruins and the military situation was already hopeless two years earlier. The civilian casualities were great but even percentage wise far smaller than the Soviet ones. France even capitulated with comparable tiny civilian casualities, as did Poland.

So we can see that things depend on huge amount of factors and are impossible to predict. Frankly if the author argues with so high and fixed percentages than he seems to be very naive or not honest. Now I'm almost ready to buy the book the get proven otherwise.

Firn

slapout9

11-14-2009, 03:35 PM

Now I'm almost ready to buy the book the get proven otherwise.

Firn

Probably the best answer:wry:

Steve Blair

11-16-2009, 02:49 PM

It led the U.S. Army to abandon its time-honored methods of offensive war--which had guided America to success from the early Indian campaigns all the way through the Second World War

This statement alone almost made me spew coffee through my nose. I wasn't aware that "making it up as we go" qualified as a method of offensive war.:wry:

Tom Odom

11-17-2009, 07:21 AM

This statement alone almost made me spew coffee through my nose. I wasn't aware that "making it up as we go" qualified as a method of offensive war.:wry:

Sure...it's called extemporaneous warfare

it's built on the assumption that if you are guessing what to do next, so is the enemy

kinda like Alfred E. Neumann meets Carl von C...:D

John

12-15-2009, 07:00 PM

Have to disagree--Clausewitz' trinity is the government/leadership, the military, and the people. In an insurgency, the Clausewitzian trinity collapses--the people become the military, or at least a subset of the people do. In conducting counter-insurgency, the leadership of the state tries to impose its will on the people (or, again, a subset of them) by means of the military. This sets the whole trinitarian construct on its head, I think. In the normal way of Clausewitzian war, I submit the leadership uses the military as a means of executing the will of the people. It may be the case that leadership may need to take extra measures to garner the support of the people for military action, but I do not think that suppression of the will of one's own people by military means is really part of the continuation of politics by other means.
WM. Interesting, thought provoking comments. However, I would question the Taliban's technique of suppressing the will of the people as, in fact, an end to a political means....arguably a religious end. I agree with your ideas of the trinity, and contend they need to be tweeked for insurgent context. Obviously religious objectives create ambiguity.

IntelTrooper

12-15-2009, 07:13 PM

Fuchs

12-15-2009, 07:18 PM

Yes, knowing Bill Lind, I can attest he has read Clausewitz, yet he and I have very different understandings of what CvC wrote. 4GW flows from Van Creveld's "non-trinitarian War" thinking - so I find it hard to see how a 4GW thinker would regard Clausewitz in a good light.
Why, if you had deep understanding, or think highly of CvC would you construct 4GW? CvC deals with almost every aspect of the relevant arguments. If someone wants to tell me, that 4GW is "CvC for dummies" I'll think again.

CvC is a pool for interpretations, almost as inexhaustible as Master Tzu.
That adds considerably to a problem: The translation.

I am a German and still not sure that I can understand Carl Philipp Gottlieb von Clausewitz's language because words and phrases can change their meaning and emphasis over the course of almost two centuries.

It's even worse; a German text is normally expected to be usually 25% longer than an English text of the same content. My translations of German to English are the opposite; about 25% longer English than German because it's very difficult to meet the meaning exactly and to eliminate the potential for misunderstandings. This can go up to +40% for short texts. (And even then I do only THINK, not KNOW that I wrote a good translation.)

Conclusion:
Everyone who reads "Vom Kriege" in English, French or whatever-is-not-German should not assume that he could potentially understand him through that translation by more than about 90%.

It's probably more close to 30-40% for Master Tzu's treatise on military affairs.

William F. Owen

12-16-2009, 05:22 AM

CvC is a pool for interpretations, almost as inexhaustible as Master Tzu.
That adds considerably to a problem: The translation.

The translation is an issue if you take certain phrases or words in isolation. I submit it becomes far less of an issue when you consider the totality of the arguments he puts forth, and the remain coherent and valid when subject to scrutiny - see the works of HR Smith and Bridget Hauser for example.

Bob's World

12-16-2009, 06:00 AM

Sadly the only possible explanation is that he never read Clausewitz, or of he did failed to understand it. The 4GW guys have never read Clausewitz either.

Almost 99% of Clausewitz critics have simply never read him, or tried to understand what he says, in an overall context. Thus they takes quotes out of context.

Sadly, 99% of Clausewitz proponents have simply never read him either.

Its just so damn hard to muddle ones way through his ramblings, and also to sort out what is an early thought on a topic, and what is his final assessment.

Is there any good, highly abridged with insightful commentary (both pro and con) version of CvC? Such a product would go a long way to clearing the air, and be far more helpful than tossing a 5 lb tome to a LT and asking him to read and understand what it ultimately means.

Bob's World

12-16-2009, 06:09 AM

I recently studied Clausewitz more closely, especially the chapters which are not very well known. Here is the chapter on "Volksbewaffnung" or "Arming the Nation". This chapter has to been seen as part of the strategic defence integrated in his overall concept of war. Given that the Prussian court and a great part of the establishment feared that arming the people could result in anti-royalist revolutions and Clauswitz pressed for such a strategy one should not be surprise that this influences the way he presents this topic. It didn't certainly prevent Lenin and Mao from learning.

The chapter is here (http://www.clausewitz.com/CWZHOME/VomKriege2/BK6ch26.html)

Given the political background, now wonder he starts like that.

He continues and describes how warfare changed forever with the inclusion of the popular masses:

Then he broadens it and explains why the people's war is a special case:

Sic, keep in mind the various guerilla wars as in Spain, Napoleonic Russia, the Sovietunion in WWII, China during and after the WWII and Afghanistan. But so far it can still be still be seen in the prism of the industrial wars (WWI, WWII) to come. But as it is part of the book on defense, it increasingly focuses on the effects of the resistance of the agitated people against an invader.

A very important part comes than:

To which the politcal context - fear of popular revolution, similar the French one - influenced the last sentence is unknown. (As said before, CvC's idea of an militia was considered dangerous by Prussia's ruling class.) It is a very interesting statement and especially interesting when used to analyse the situation in Afghanistan. To which extent the safe tribal areas in Pakistan and the flow of ressources and money substitute the "regular army" is quite a question. Note also that Allies play a very important part in the strategic defense according to other Chapters.

Interestingly Mao warned the guerilla leaders in Latinamerica to accept his specific strategy, which relied to a great deal on the huge and difficult terrain of China and the support of the large rural majority as dogma.

While he limits the power of the unsupported "guerilla war" he then up with this.

Very hard not to think about Afghanistan, or China in WWII, isn't it?

... or Afghanistan

What follows shows that the writer has experienced and studied guerilla war very carefully.

Surly on of the most interesting descriptions written on the topic. Take away "National Levies and armed peasantry" and use "Insurgency" and it becomes rather "modern".

I will continue later to comment it.

What he is talking about goes far more to what is commonly called "The American Way of War." Europe for centuries had been fighting wars between Kingdoms, where victory or defeat was in either capturing a King, his capital, or his purse by killing expensive soldiers or sinking expensive ships. Then came the American and French Revolutions, and Napoleon really capitalized on what I call wars by/between nations. Now capturing a King, his capital, or his purse may win it for you, but only if you had also defeated the will of a national populace. This changed warfare in a major way, Napoleon capitalized on it to make France the dominant NATION on the continent. Later, in the American Civil War, I believe Grant was the first General to understand strategcially that in a war between nations it was critical to target and defeat the national will of ones opponent.

There are related phenomena in Insurgency, but I don't believe he was talking to insurgency. But then I freely admit, I am one of the 99% who have never endured an extensive study of CvC.

William F. Owen

12-16-2009, 10:30 AM

Sadly, 99% of Clausewitz proponents have simply never read him either.
Maybe true, but they are generally less prone to attributing things to him, which he never said.

Its just so damn hard to muddle ones way through his ramblings, and also to sort out what is an early thought on a topic, and what is his final assessment.
Really? I know folks get easily put off, but I persevered because I knew it was important. Thank G*d I did, because from this, all else flows. :)
To my mind, the real problem is not actually understanding what he writes, but junking the baggage that stops most folks understanding it - eg: the hold overs from the abysmally low quality of modern military thought.

bIs there any good, highly abridged with insightful commentary (both pro and con) version of CvC? Such a product would go a long way to clearing the air, and be far more helpful than tossing a 5 lb tome to a LT and asking him to read and understand what it ultimately means.
Sure there are! Many. Some better than others, but here's a few.

Smith (http://www.amazon.com/Clausewitz-Study-Military-Political-Ideas/dp/1403935874/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1260958530&sr=1-1)
Samida (http://www.amazon.com/Decoding-Clausewitz-Approach-Modern-Studies/dp/0700616160/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1260958653&sr=1-6)
Echevarria (http://www.amazon.com/Clausewitz-Contemporary-War-Antulio-Echevarria/dp/0199231915/ref=sr_1_13?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1260958759&sr=1-13)
Heuser (http://www.amazon.com/Reading-Clausewitz-Beatrice-Heuser/dp/071266484X/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1260958842&sr=1-5)
...and that's the short list!
I would also strongly recommend anything by Colin S. Gray as being one of the most useful demonstrators of CvC in practical terms and also a very good critic as to the things CvC simply never mentioned or just assumed.
Having that, I would argue that is actually a strength as well as a flaw - how's that for duality!!

Firn

12-16-2009, 10:35 AM

Some corrections :)

a) France was arguably already the most prominent military power in Europe before the French Revolution

b) "The American Way of War" is in my humble optinion a misnomer. There are plenty of examples even before America was rediscovered of the concept of a nation. Switzerland may be the most famous one.

c) What changed with the French revolution was the scale of the recruitment united with a new fevor for to new form of government of the state and a more widespread sense of nation. Note that already in the medieval period quickly raised militias could prove to be an enthusiastic and steady force in defense of their homeland, and sometimes beyond it's borders. See the Battle of the Golden Spurs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Golden_Spurs) or the one of Sempach (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Sempach). Not only in such instances the will of the populance played a very great role. But as said before the scale and depth of it's importance was more present in the Napoleonic wars.

d) From the Peninsular War (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peninsular_War) to the Invasion of Russia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleon%27s_invasion_of_Russia) Europe witnessed many insurgencies and many instances of guerilla warfare. The Freikorps and the Tyrolean Uprisings were major events in the German-speaking areas. The influence of all of them can be seen in many parts of his work.

I already made most of my arguments in the post above. CvC discusses the concept of militias, popular uprising, their place in the overall concept of war and the strategy and tactics used in the small war (Kleinkrieg, Le petite guerre, Guerilla) only in the book of the defense. This is hardly surprising when you consider the political climate of his state.

While I have not enough time to answer in depth it seems to me that the employment of IEDs does handily fit CvC's conception as well as the general strategy of some of the insurgents in Afghanistan.

Just take a closer look at him. ;)

Firn

William F. Owen

12-16-2009, 10:58 AM

Europe for centuries had been fighting wars between Kingdoms, where victory or defeat was in either capturing a King, his capital, or his purse by killing expensive soldiers or sinking expensive ships.
That's not true. Wars were concluded for exactly the ways CvC describes wars being concluded.

This changed warfare in a major way, Napoleon capitalized on it to make France the dominant NATION on the continent.
Changed Warfare or War?

Later, in the American Civil War, I believe Grant was the first General to understand strategcially that in a war between nations it was critical to target and defeat the national will of ones opponent.
So he managed to do what Hannibal had tried to do and failed to do to Rome - which had no King, by the way - and citizen based Army. Grant was doing nothing new. He was treading a well worn road.

There are related phenomena in Insurgency, but I don't believe he was talking to insurgency. Why did he need to? How are so-called "Insurgencies" different from Rebellions? Why differentiate when it comes to War. (not warfare!) It's all about the same thing.

But then I freely admit, I am one of the 99% who have never endured an extensive study of CvC. The evidence supports your assertion as being correct. :wry:

M-A Lagrange

12-16-2009, 12:20 PM

a) France was arguably already the most prominent military power in Europe before the French Revolution

France was the most populus country in Europe before the revolution and after. Napoleon used to say: A night of Paris will cover my losses... That does play a large role into the "game". Especially at that time.

Originally Posted by Bob's World
Europe for centuries had been fighting wars between Kingdoms, where victory or defeat was in either capturing a King, his capital, or his purse by killing expensive soldiers or sinking expensive ships.

That's not true. Wars were concluded for exactly the ways CvC describes wars being concluded.

For once I agree with Wilf. What Napoleon changed or introduced (with the Tsar of Russia if I am not mistaking) is the Westpalian Consensus.
After defeat borders would remain and countries still exist despite being conquered. Before, kings could be killed or alive, it was their kingdoms which died by being integrated into another country. Poland is a good example of that. There was a king of Poland without country and even less kingdom.

I can see where Bob is coming from. The independance war in America and the opposition between France and UK. Louis 16 heritated from the past glory and power from Louis 15 and specially Louis 14.
In somehow, Louis 16 was in advance, he delocalised war from Europe to America and was looking into reducing UK power by a war of economical exhaustion. (And it's France he brought financially to her knees)
But still, he was looking to impose by force a peace at his profite to his ennemy. Just like CvC stated.

Firn

12-16-2009, 12:43 PM

Perhaps I will take once a bit more time to analyze (in very rough form) the current conflict on the basis of CvC. Nothing fancy, nothing revolutionary, nothing which hasn't been done before. But it always helps to clear up one's mind.

Firn

12-16-2009, 01:22 PM

WM. Interesting, thought provoking comments. However, I would question the Taliban's technique of suppressing the will of the people as, in fact, an end to a political means....arguably a religious end. I agree with your ideas of the trinity, and contend they need to be tweeked for insurgent context. Obviously religious objectives create ambiguity.
John,
I was going to respond that at some level religious motivations actually are political ones but the next post after yours by Intel Trooper made that point. We could probably tussle a while about what we mean by religion and religious, but I think I'll let Marc T chime in on that first, if he is of a mind to do so.

Instead, I'll just suggest a couple of interesting struggles between church authority and state authority for consideration that religious struggles can really be political struggles in disguise:
Consider Bishop Ambrose of Milan threatening to excommunicate Roman/Byzantine Emperor Theodosius I in connection with the effort for suppressing Arianism, or
Hildebrand of Sovana (AKA Pope Gregory VII) actual excommunicating (twice) Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV and Henry's response by installing the "anti-Pope" Clement III. This last initiated what we could easily call a "civil war" in the Catholic Church.

If we choose to define politics (as found in Clausewitz) as the process of conducting inter-state relations, then insurgency may well fall outside the pale of politics so defined. I say this because an insurgency usually is a matter of intra-state relations (returning to my point that an insurgency is really a struggle between two different parties for control of at least one of the three parts of Clausewitz' trinity). But at some point, an insurgent party may garner enough support that it may have its own trinity within the geographical boundaries by which we normal refer to nations as political entities. At that point, we might consider the struggle to be inter-state with the application of CvC now appropriate.

William F. Owen

12-16-2009, 03:09 PM

If we choose to define politics (as found in Clausewitz) as the process of conducting inter-state relations, then insurgency may well fall outside the pale of politics so defined. I say this because an insurgency usually is a matter of intra-state relations (returning to my point that an insurgency is really a struggle between two different parties for control of at least one of the three parts of Clausewitz' trinity). But at some point, an insurgent party may garner enough support that it may have its own trinity within the geographical boundaries by which we normal refer to nations as political entities. At that point, we might consider the struggle to be inter-state with the application of CvC now appropriate.
For emphasis.
CvC does not differentiate between Politics, religion or even "power". His analysis even stays good for the Mafia or any criminal gang that seeks to compete as a political, religious or any other form of entity that influences the conduct of a society. He talks about war between societies/political groups, not just nations. He was very aware of all the types of actors we see today.

12-16-2009, 07:22 PM

For emphasis.
CvC does not differentiate between Politics, religion or even "power". His analysis even stays good for the Mafia or any criminal gang that seeks to compete as a political, religious or any other form of entity that influences the conduct of a society. He talks about war between societies/political groups, not just nations. He was very aware of all the types of actors we see today.

Wilf,
I was not suggesting tht CvC differentiates between politics and religion. I agree that we may well find them in the same family as ways of understanding political action.
So a theological struggle for power across two elements (Arians and Athanasians for example) that may conjoin to form a community (Catholics) is war, but a struggle within the community (the electoral process for replacing a Catholic Pope, e.g. ) probably is not. A struggle between the Gambino family and the Genovese family over who drives garbage trucks in the South Bronx is a war. A struggle between Pete and Junior Gotti for leadership within the Gambino family is a little tougher to classify I think.

slapout9

12-16-2009, 07:42 PM

A struggle between Pete and Junior Gotti for leadership within the Gambino family is a little tougher to classify I think.

Not really it is just on a micro level as CvC said it all goes back to The Original Motive for the War. As I have said CvC would be a pretty good Cop. However I think he also created the Run On Sentence as my English Teacher used to say, which can make him hard to follow sometimes. He had a poor understanding of what periods are for.:wry:

12-16-2009, 08:34 PM

Not really it is just on a micro level as CvC said it all goes back to The Original Motive for the War. As I have said CvC would be a pretty good Cop. However I think he also created the Run On Sentence as my English Teacher used to say, which can make him hard to follow sometimes. He had a poor understanding of what periods are for.:wry:

Maybe so, but defining something as a war by depending on a description of original motives, which is part and parcel of the definition of war versus other means of conducting politics, seems just a little bit too circular for my logic. (And that is a criticism of CvC which would get us way outside this thread I suspect.)

slapout9

12-16-2009, 09:07 PM

Maybe so, but defining something as a war by depending on a description of original motives, which is part and parcel of the definition of war versus other means of conducting politics, seems just a little bit too circular for my logic. (And that is a criticism of CvC which would get us way outside this thread I suspect.)

So long as the element of force/violence is used as opposed to other political means I would say you are in the war framework of CvC again just on a micro scale.

Bob's World

12-17-2009, 05:00 AM

So long as the element of force/violence is used as opposed to other political means I would say you are in the war framework of CvC again just on a micro scale.

I just can't get on board with those who focus on how the opposition chooses to act out as the primary means of determing what one must do to resolve the problem.

To me, it is far more instructive to understand why an opponent is acting out, and design my counter to address his purpose for action rather than his choice of tactics.

For example, MLK or Ghandi could well have opted for violent rather than non-violent methods to address the purpose for their operations. Similarly AQ could have and still could, adopt non-violent tactics to address its purpose. The tactics chosen are important, as the shape the activities employed. But it is the underlying purpose that must be understood to shape how those activities are designed and employed so as to actually affect the root causes of opposition rather than simply flogging away at the symptoms.

Often, in fact nearly always, in insurgency, the failures giving rise to the purpose that is the causation for the insurgent movement lie on the part of the government, and not the populace writ large, the disaffected segment of the populace, nor the outside actor conducting UW to incite and enable the insurgency. Thus the tendency to flog at the symptoms; it allows the F'd up government to hold itself harmless and sustain its victim status while deploying the military to put a WWF beat down on the "symptom", i.e. that segment of the populace that dared to stand up and cry "foul." This, IMO, is why most COIN efforts are so long and drawn out, and why most insurgencies, like weeds in your yard, are merely suppressed for a time and rarely resolved through military action.

To merely apply CvCs thoughts on war and warfare to such internal expressions of dissatisfaction with poor governance by ones own populace is far too common. I just don't see where it is very effective. And many a faded empire speaks to that fact, that was disassembled one COIN "victory" at a time.

Bill Moore

12-17-2009, 07:33 AM

Posted by Bob's World
To merely apply CvCs thoughts on war and warfare to such internal expressions of dissatisfaction with poor governance by ones own populace is far too common. I just don't see where it is very effective. And many a faded empire speaks to that fact, that was disassembled one COIN "victory" at a time.

To simply and blindly embrace anyone's thoughts on anything crosses the line between intellectual reasoning and theology. Clausewitz was a genius in his time and much of what he wrote continues to resonate true today, but he didn't write about our times or our wars. His writings are insufficient to solve the security problems are faced with now. There are no decisive battles, no centers of gravity that can be defeated in battle, etc. instead it is political warfare at the grass roots level, war/conflict based on infiltration and subversion. CvC wrote about that on page?? I know I saw it (or I believe I saw it), since his devoted followers tell me he wrote about everything relevant to conflict, you simply have to believe. Like all good Taliban, I mean CvC followers, we'll burn any books, attack any pundits that dare criticize our lord.

On the other hand, perhaps, just perhaps most people who win (even that means something new now) conflicts in the world today don't read, or if they did, they don't follow CvC's philosophy on war:confused: Just maybe they embrace other ideologies that are counter to CvCs, and yet somehow manage to do well against our seasoned officers who embrace CvC theology?

What happens if a CvC follower all the sudden rejects CvC? Is there a CvC hell for former CvC followers? Maybe it is being forced to reside in a library full of writings on asymmetric warfare, 4th GW, revolutionary warfare, and theories on the employment of special operations. The Taliban, I mean CvC devotees are opposed to all forms of modernization and learning. The Koran, I mean "On War" is the only truth.

Bob's World

12-17-2009, 01:17 PM

You had to go and kick the hornet's nest...

slapout9

12-17-2009, 02:51 PM

For example, MLK or Ghandi could well have opted for violent rather than non-violent methods to address the purpose for their operations. Similarly AQ could have and still could, adopt non-violent tactics to address its purpose. The tactics chosen are important, as the shape the activities employed. But it is the underlying purpose that must be understood to shape how those activities are designed and employed so as to actually affect the root causes of opposition rather than simply flogging away at the symptoms.

CvC's fundamental definition of war is wrong IMO it isn't just the use of Force to obtain the objective but The use of Force or Fraud (Subversion)to obtain your objective. That is where CvC breaks down in trying to apply it to Modern Warfare/UW.

Firn

12-17-2009, 05:33 PM

I think that there are quite a few fallacies in the last posts, but I wonder how much sense it makes to discuss them. It seems that some positions are quite entrenched, perhaps including mine, and this makes an open discussion quite difficult, especially if a constructed strawman is attacked.

I think that arguments like the following do little to help the debate, and I might have erred in the same way.

On the other hand, perhaps, just perhaps most people who win (even that means something new now) conflicts in the world today don't read, or if they did, they don't follow CvC's philosophy on war Just maybe they embrace other ideologies that are counter to CvCs, and yet somehow manage to do well against our seasoned officers who embrace CvC theology

First it should be clear that war is, but not only a battle of wits and wisdom. If one side has the greatly stronger advantages over the other wits and genius can only go so far. While the coalition in Afghanistan has so many advantages in training and technology the enemies have their own in time, commitment and ressources due to particular circumstances (toss in demograhics, geopolitical situation, culture, religion, politics).

Lenin, Mao and part of the Vietnamese leadership studied and lauded him. It worked very well for them and helped them to win, aided by the circumstances, by shaping their strategy. That it was not their only important influence is obvious. There is much fertile ground for scholarship to work on in both cases. Actually a quick google gave this results:

Clausewitz: Eastern and
Western Approaches to War (http://www.airpower.au.af.mil/airchronicles/aureview/1986/mar-apr/summers.html)

Vietnam, Mao and Clausewitz (http://www.carlisle.army.mil/USAWC/parameters/1977/staudenmaier.pdf)

The sharpest sword: Compellence, Clausewitz, and Counterinsurgency
(http://handle.dtic.mil/100.2/ADA476995)

Anyway it seems naive to hinge victory only to a good education in strategy, or in a reading CvC. It seems equally naive to for some examples do not take into account the very same influence.

While the leaders of enemies in Afghanistan might not read CvC (although I'm not that sure about that concerning a few) they can draw on rather large basin of information and experience, with the operations against the Soviets being most likely the biggest one.

Secondly, if you have read the chapter by CvC above and have the main points of him in mind and toss some (seemingly not so well views) you understand why by trial and many errors and blunderings the enemy is sadly on the right strategic route.

The third, by far the most important, from the great number of cases which it embraces, is the wearying out the enemy. We choose this expression not only to explain our meaning in few words but because it represents the thing exactly, and is not so figurative as may at first appear. The idea of wearying out in a struggle amounts in reality to a gradual exhaustion of the physical powers and of the will produced through the long continuance of exertion.

This wearying out is of course mostly directed against the coalition forces and is a sine qua non to win over the country again. Of course this only part of the overall strategy, which might be not have been spelled out for a paper. Other than that they try to first sustain themselves both by levying contributions and using foreign money and remote inhabitated areas and inflict upon their enemy trying to do him most harm. The latter is of course more political, as CvC said, and is all about (political) control (or power) over the population. Give the chapter 2 of book 1 further a look.

Besides these two means there are three other peculiar ways of directly increasing the waste of the enemy's force. The first is invasion, that is the occupation of the enemy's territory, not with a view to keeping it, but in order to levy contributions there, or to devastate it. The immediate object is here neither the conquest of the enemy's territory nor the defeat of his armed force, but merely to do him damage in a general way. The second way is to select for the object of our enterprises those points at which we can do the enemy most harm. Nothing is easier to conceive than two different directions in which our force may be employed, the first of which is to be preferred if our object is to defeat the enemy's army, while the other is more advantageous if the defeat of the enemy is out of the question. According to the usual mode of speaking we should say that the first is more military, the other more political.

We see then that there are many ways to the aim in war; that the complete subjugation of the enemy is not essential in every case, that the destruction of the enemy's military force, the conquest of enemy's provinces, the mere occupation of them, the mere invasion of them—enterprises which are aimed directly at political objects—lastly a passive expectation of the enemy's blow, are all means which, each in itself, may be used to force the enemy's will just according as the peculiar circumstances of the case lead us to expect more from the one or the other. We could still add to these a whole category of shorter methods of gaining the end, which might be called arguments ad hominem. What branch of human affairs is there in which these sparks of individual spirit have not made their appearance, flying over all formal considerations? And least of all can they fail to appear in war, where the personal character of the combatants plays such an important part, both in the cabinet and in the field. We limit ourselves to pointing this out, as it would be pedantry to attempt to reduce such influences into classes. Including these, we may say that the number of possible ways of reaching the aim rises to infinity.

To avoid under-estimating these different short roads to the aim, either estimating them only as rare exceptions, or holding the difference which they cause in the conduct of war as insignificant, we must bear in mind the diversity of political objects which may cause a war,—measure at a glance the distance which there is between a death struggle for political existence, and a war which a forced or tottering alliance makes a matter of disagreeable duty. Between the two, gradations innumerable occur in reality. If we reject one of these gradations in theory, we might with equal right reject the whole, which would be tantamount to shutting the real world completely out of sight.

As I said before the understanding of the whole makes all the difference and so it does in this case. Thus I also might give up this struggle because just in Afghanistan it is difficult to win over the people, especially considering the low level of (digital) force and political influence at my disposal. Ultimately only the can make the decisive steps ;)

Firn

slapout9

12-17-2009, 06:22 PM

Steve Blair

12-17-2009, 06:39 PM

It's an interesting post, but it also misses the point that any method has its limitations. Bashing history (or academics) is a favorite pastime for some folks (and I'm not saying that Zen is doing that), but it misses the same point. The trick is to come up with a blended approach. Systems analysis is an interesting component, but I personally don't like relying on the "one method to rule them all" idea.

PhilR

12-17-2009, 07:41 PM

Outstanding post from Zenpundit on the weakness of the historic analysis method. Which goes to the very heart of this thread,few facts,many assumptions and opinions.

http://zenpundit.com/

If CvC came back from the grave he would be laughing at a lot of people. I will stick with Systems Analysis.:)

I think that most historians (good ones, at least) would be the first to acknowledge that what they produce is not some absolute "truth", but an interpretation of events based on the sources available. That is why history is part of the liberal arts.

I'm struck by your reference to "systems analysis" because, as far as i can discern, systems analysis, when applied to the human dimension in conflict (which is what really matters) relies on what I would consider as "history." Cause and effect, and other relationships, unless observed in real time, need to reference to the past to make any sense. Our ideas of how people with react to anything that is done to them (outside of direct physical effect), is all guesswork. We derive what we think will happen based on what has happened in similar situations. This can be applied to models or other operations research. Unless it applies to just physical issues, what I see as systems analysis of conflict, is really just translating history into standardized, if not quantitative, form.

I agree that Clausewitz would be laughing because, if you read Book Two of On War he pushes something called “critical analysis” of historical events as the best way, outside of actual experience, to learn about conflict. Jon Sumida, in his recent book Decoding Clausewitz (2008) provides a better explanation than I can in this short space (you can get a good idea from his recent article in Army History "The Clausewitz Problem" pg 17 Fall 2009. Its 8 mb; you have download the whole magazine: http://www.history.army.mil/armyhistory/AH73(W).pdf)).

Building off of some of Robert Jones’ points, I think there is something to be said about the difference between Clausewitz’s contemporary conception of People’s War, and what we are wrestling with in Insurgency. I believe that when Clausewitz described the “trinity” of emotion, chance and reason, he was thinking of how all three of those variables existed within each opponent. Thus, in effect, each opponent, with its own unique balance of the trinity, was attempting to bend the will of the other (through violence or threat of violence). I think this applies in an insurgency—each side, Gov and its supporters vs. Insurgents, and their supporters, reflects a certain balance of emotion, chance and reason.

In Clausewitz’s day, these variables were defined by the state: thus the equations of emotion=people, chance=military, and reason=political leadership/government. I think Clausewitz equated “People’s War” with a rebalancing of these elements based on using guerilla or irregular methods against an attacker—but the idea remained that the people, the military and the government were tied together in common cause against an external foe.

Today, however, we are thinking in terms of two rival political leaderships: insurgent and government, and two rival military forces: irregular and regular, with the people reduced to being the “objective” or the “terrain” being fought over. I am struck that we no longer can conceive of a people opposing us. Somehow, either insurgents or other political and military entities rise to oppose our actions—not as an expression of popular will, but in spite of it. Thus we feel if we can just shield (protect) the people from the depredations of the insurgents, the “popular will” will naturally fall our way. There’s a sense, dangerous in my mind, that, if given a fair chance, we will always get support. I don’t think that is a safe assumption. There are areas where we will go and governments we may seek to support, where the people will oppose us, regardless of how secure we can make them.

Phil Ridderhof USMC

slapout9

12-17-2009, 10:43 PM

I'm struck by your reference to "systems analysis" because, as far as i can discern, systems analysis, when applied to the human dimension in conflict (which is what really matters) relies on what I would consider as "history." Cause and effect, and other relationships, unless observed in real time, need to reference to the past to make any sense. Our ideas of how people with react to anything that is done to them (outside of direct physical effect), is all guesswork. We derive what we think will happen based on what has happened in similar situations. This can be applied to models or other operations research. Unless it applies to just physical issues, what I see as systems analysis of conflict, is really just translating history into standardized, if not quantitative, form.

Phil Ridderhof USMC

Hi Phil,

1-I highlighted part of your response because that is the whole point of systems analysis. And eventually SBW (Systems Based Warfare) Stay in the predictable physical realm or it is all a chance. Sherman was a master at it, he focused the physical processing parts of the human support system in order to affect the physical human population. By denying them the physical resources of survival he eventually affected there human mental process to the point where they changed there mind about fighting, if they didn't change their mind, over time they would be so physically weakened they would no longer be relevant.

2-I had already downloaded the history magazine because of the Pershing missile article. I crawled all over that thing as a kid and personally saw much of what happened in the article and yes it was one of the best war systems ever made. Pershing 1 had more to do with us surviving the Cuban Missile Crisis then most folks will ever know.

3-I will read the CvC article and let you know what I think. Check your PM when you get a chance.

Bob's World

12-18-2009, 02:09 AM

.

Today, however, we are thinking in terms of two rival political leaderships: insurgent and government, and two rival military forces: irregular and regular, with the people reduced to being the “objective” or the “terrain” being fought over. I am struck that we no longer can conceive of a people opposing us. Somehow, either insurgents or other political and military entities rise to oppose our actions—not as an expression of popular will, but in spite of it. Thus we feel if we can just shield (protect) the people from the depredations of the insurgents, the “popular will” will naturally fall our way. There’s a sense, dangerous in my mind, that, if given a fair chance, we will always get support. I don’t think that is a safe assumption. There are areas where we will go and governments we may seek to support, where the people will oppose us, regardless of how secure we can make them.

Phil Ridderhof USMC

The first being that the outside party is never actually conducting COIN themselves, that COIN and Insurgency are internal business, and much more a family dispute over governance than they are warfare, regardless of how violent that squabble may become (you can't truely hate someone you don't love, so family squabbles can be the worst kind).

So as an insurgent emerges from the populace to compete with the current government for the support of the same, it very much is a tug of war, with the support of the populace being the ultimate prize, and also the COG. A shared COG to be competed for, rather than respective friendly and enemy COGs to be either defeated or defended ala CvC. This is why I say that insurgency really isn't warfare regardless of how violent, and that to apply rules/principles of warfare rather than understanding and addressing root causes and employing that understanding in ones competition for the support of the populace is likely to lead to a tragic, hard to reach, and temporary in duration, solution.

As an outside party to such a competition, one is either trying to gain inroads with a land and people to serve your own national (or if a non-state actor like AQ, organizational) interests, you are conducting what US doctrine describes as "unconventional warfare." If, on the other hand, you already have a stake in this land/populace through the current government, you are likely to come in on their side in an attempt to sustain that status quo. In US doctrine we call this 'foreign internal defense'. To assume that you as the outsider are conducting COIN is the fastest way to get yourself into all kinds of inappropriate roles and develop no end to crazy mission creep. Just not a good idea, and yet, according to our NEW COIN doctirne, that is what we are doing. Bad bit of doctrine, IMHO.

So, while CvC is good knowledge (Scientia) to have, I always believe that understanding (Intelectus) trumps knowledge on just about everything except a standardized test. This is no standardized test.

Bob's World

12-18-2009, 02:48 AM

OK, hopefully this is readable. The text hits some points I believe to be important, but the chart is how I see insurgency in relation to peace in every nation.

Most of us are fortunate to live in states that are happily bumping around somewhere down in the "Peace" bubble of phase 0 pre-insurgency. As the government becomes more out of touch with its populace, or the governance becomes "poor", the populace will trend up the curved line to the right. Now, an insurgent leader can artificially prevent it from trending up as well as right by choosing a non-violent approach. Also, a government can suppress violence as well and be horribly "poor". But once those artificial constraints are removed (If Dr. King had be replaced by a Black Panther-type leader; or the example of Tito and the former Yugoslavia), the populace will pop up to its natural state of violence on the curve above.

Important to always understand that the insurgent will flow back and forth between phases throughout his campaign, and even by region; also that he can win in any phase.

Equally important, is that in this model the role of the military is not to "defeat" the insurgent, nor to "create effective governmental services". No, the military is callled in as the populace moves up the curve thru the nexus of acceptable violence into phase I insurgency. Kitson would probably call this the transition from Subversion to Insurgency. That's fine, so long as one understands that they are merely two stages of the same thing, with the same root causes that must be addressed. So the military mission is not to achieve Nirvana, but to merely apply what force and governance assistance necessary to move the populace back down the curve into phase 0. This may require a bit of a nudge straight down, but not all the way to the floor, and only so far as necessary to allow one to begin pushing it to the left, and bringing in more foreign civil and HN capacity to move it left as well.

Many historic COIN "victories" merely crush the insurgent straight down. Removing the capacity for violence without addressing the root causes of poor governance. I call this "counterinsurgent" rather than "counterinsurgency" operations. Once that artifical constraint, usually a military boot, is removed from the populaces neck, they ALWAYS go right back to their natural state.

Bob's World

12-18-2009, 02:52 AM

Ok, too small, hope this is better:

jmm99

12-18-2009, 03:38 AM

As to this:

from BW
As an outside party to such a competition, one is either trying to gain inroads with a land and people to serve your own national (or if a non-state actor like AQ, organizational) interests, you are conducting what US doctrine describes as "unconventional warfare." If, on the other hand, you already have a stake in this land/populace through the current government, you are likely to come in on their side in an attempt to sustain that status quo. In US doctrine we call this 'foreign internal defense'. To assume that you as the outsider are conducting COIN is the fastest way to get yourself into all kinds of inappropriate roles and develop no end to crazy mission creep. Just not a good idea, and yet, according to our NEW COIN doctirne, that is what we are doing. Bad bit of doctrine, IMHO.

the non-italicised text includes two, more-limited (in terms of force size) military operations - traditional SF missions. Both are pretty well-defined in legal and military doctrines.

The italicised text refers to "COIN", but is part of a larger picture where the Assisting Nation takes a substantial combatant role on behalf of the Host Nation. That could be against a threat solely internal to the HN (e.g., pure "COIN"); a threat external to the HN (e.g., the Korean War, although it did have some minor Com "insurgencies" in the South); or threats both internal and external (e.g., Vietnam).

Regardless of the specific threat, introduction of substantial combatant forces by the AN changes its role into that of a "Power" in an "armed conflict", which may be "of an international character" or "not of an international character" (see, Common Articles 2 and 3 of the GCs). In more classical terms, the AN may be consided a co-belligerent or a military ally (depending on the formality and intent of the AN-HN relationship - briefly see Wiki: Co-belligerence (http://wapedia.mobi/en/Co-belligerence)).

Most of these rather badly-defined "armed conflicts" (which are certainly subject to mission creep) are further muddied by the presence of "irregular combatants". The status of "irregular combatants" in US legal doctrine (and military doctrine, for that matter) is also not well defined. E.g., the contradictions in how the Gitmo detainees should be handled.

Like it or not, these badly-defined "armed conflicts" involve a substantial political element. I'd say it goes too far to say:

from BW
So as an insurgent emerges from the populace to compete with the current government for the support of the same, it very much is a tug of war, with the support of the populace being the ultimate prize, and also the COG. A shared COG to be competed for, rather than respective friendly and enemy COGs to be either defeated or defended ala CvC. This is why I say that insurgency really isn't warfare regardless of how violent, and that to apply rules/principles of warfare rather than understanding and addressing root causes and employing that understanding in ones competition for the support of the populace is likely to lead to a tragic, hard to reach, and temporary in duration, solution.

since they are clearly "armed conflicts"; but the political elements (including subversion and infiltration) permeate them.

It is an interesting academic point as to whether or not CvC dealt with these situations, or what CvC would say of them if he were posting here. That being said, it is more important for the US to assess its future role in military operations that go beyond the traditional limits of UW and FID, but which are short of conventional nation-state vs nation-state warfare.

A good starting framework is from Bill Moore, Be flexible, be realistic (http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showpost.php?p=88370&postcount=5). We need some national policy parameters on when and how we become engaged in these "unconventional" armed conflicts.

We also need sound legal doctrine and military doctrine on irregular combatants - both those against us and those on our side. That would be the subject matter for another thread.

PS: As I typed this, BW added his chart - so again, my chart (says the same things more generally):

996

Great minds, etc. - or more simply, two nutty lawyers. :D

Regards to all

Mike

Bob's World

12-18-2009, 04:39 AM

Mike,

All good thoughts. I do think one of the critical distinctions is identifying if the conflict is internal to the state, or between states (and one's role as an intervening party does not affect the answer to that analysis).

Fact is, that if your son gets angry and frustrated and punches you in the nose, you would be a total fool if you respsonded in the same way if a guy down at the corner bar gets angry and frustrated and punches you in the nose. Conflict within the family must be resolved differently than conflict between families. Even if in both cases you had to act out physically to stop the initial violence.

And, BTW, a father in that situation who blames the entire episode on his son, and does nothing to understand and address his own failures that helped bring them to the point, deserves the lousy results he is sure to reap. Same goes for governments.

Similarly, if that father is smaller, weaker, less intelligent than that son, and he goes and gets his big strong friend from down the street to come over and kick his son's ass for him, he pretty much deserves what he gets as well, and may well wonder why that "friend" starts taking over his house in general, and why is son may fear the friend, but despises him more than ever. Again, same goes for governments.

slapout9

12-18-2009, 06:25 AM

Fact is, that if your son gets angry and frustrated and punches you in the nose, you would be a total fool if you respsonded in the same way if a guy down at the corner bar gets angry and frustrated and punches you in the nose. Conflict within the family must be resolved differently than conflict between families. Even if in both cases you had to act out physically to stop the initial violence.

BW,since you brought up the family Men in A'stan we got some real winners over there. They beat their women,rape their kids and screw their goats and cows and we are going to protect them from the Taliban and AQ? We should arm the women and kids and tell em to establish justice. Put cows and sheep in the barn until it's over. Been talking to some LE vets from there and those men need some Snoop Dog Fatherhood classes more than anything.

jmm99

12-18-2009, 06:28 AM

Your family parables would seem valid for cases closer to the left region of both of our charts - where there is a chance at "family reconciliation", or at least "family stabilization".

As the situation gets less familial (moving further right on the charts), we get into more of each side considering the other as a Cuckoo bird invading the nest (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuckoo#Brood_parasitism). As in nature (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_arms_race), that is likely to lead to an arms race among Brood Parasites (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brood_parasite). I can't recall that discussion in CvC. ;)

I expect that Mao-Chiang and Giap-Diem fit more in the Cuckoo Bird category - whatever "brotherly love" that existed between those couples disappeared early in the game.

Best

Mike

Bill Moore

12-18-2009, 07:23 AM

posted by Bob,

The first being that the outside party is never actually conducting COIN themselves, that COIN and Insurgency are internal business, and much more a family dispute over governance than they are warfare

I have to disagree, and I think this particular stream of thought confuses COIN and FID. In Iraq and Afghanistan we may have been outsiders, but we were also the occupying power/government, so the insurgency was directed at us, and now we have governments that are to varying degrees recognized as a combination of legitimate and puppet governments. If we over throw a regime and occupy a country, then IMO your argument that we can't conduct COIN falls flat. We weren't invited in by either government, we came in and stood up the governments.

As for COIN not being warfare, I disagree, you're making two arguments that IMO don't ring true. First you're arguing that if there is a common center of gravity (the populace), then it can't be warfare? First, the populace is not necessarily a COG, but rather a means. The populace is more of an objective than a COG, and you can have warfare over a common objective such as land. Your second argument appears to be that non-state actors can't conduct warfare in their own backyard? An insurgency is clearly political warfare, the use of violence to influence the political system. Let's not forget that non-state actors like AQ, the Catholic Church, and multinationals and State actors can support insurgencies as a form of proxy warfare. The AQ in Afghanistan is not exactly the home team, so while the Hatfields and McCoy's squables exist, that is not the full picture.

Equally important, is that in this model the role of the military is not to "defeat" the insurgent, nor to "create effective governmental services". No, the military is callled in as the populace moves up the curve thru the nexus of acceptable violence into phase I insurgency. Kitson would probably call this the transition from Subversion to Insurgency.

I would argue that when we talk about transitions, we're thinking conventionally and assuming sequenced phases. Subversion doesn't transition, it is constant and much like armed action can support the narrative, it can also support the subversive effort. Not all subversion is violence free (regardless of what the book states). What is the role of the military? One of its roles is to clearly put pressure on the fielded guerrillas and provide security to the populace (maybe to protect them, or in the case where they just won't like the counterinsurgent to oppress them) to allow the political process to unfold. I think you would agree that if there is no political process, then the insurgency won't be defeated, but if the military is skilled enough they may be able to suppress it.

Posted by Jmm,
they are clearly "armed conflicts"; but the political elements (including subversion and infiltration) permeate them.

We also need sound legal doctrine and military doctrine on irregular combatants - both those against us and those on our side. That would be the subject matter for another thread.

We're thinking a like, and we don't have the doctrine or body of law to deal with these challenges. It is a huge shortfall, and while we still win every battle, we may not be winning the political fight at the grass roots level. If we allow the military leadership to frame the problem as a military problem, then they'll think success on the battlefield should equate to overall success, thus are understandably frustrated when that isn't the case. We don't do subversion and infiltration, we only do armed warfare, so the bad actors have a lot freedom of movement to maneuver against our efforts in subtle, yet very effective ways.

Addition:

I wanted to add I like your chart as far as it goes, but I would caution that a political struggle doesn't always reside within the rule of law, nor does political warfare need to always be violent, it may just be setting the stage for violence in the future (gradually radicalizing segments of the population for example).

Bob's World

12-18-2009, 07:27 AM

Focus on the populace, not the leaders. No matter how extreme the opposing leaders may be, you are still competing for the support of your own populace, and that is family. Sometimes certain members just need to be divorced or excommunicated. But it's still family.

Or, just apply CvC and treat insurgency like war and use the military to kill enough of the populace to gain their obedience and support. This is the COA most often applied by governments, and I just don't see that it ever produces more than a temporary lull in the fighting, and a temporary extention of their flawed reign of power.

I realize I may be totally F'd up on this, but I don't think that I am and am open to good arguments and historical examples; recognizing that all historical examples must be tailored for the modern information age of today that renders many TTPs used to "separate the insurgent from the populace" largely obsolete. Greater burden today for governments to actually govern, this is the price of an empowered populace.

12-18-2009, 03:39 PM

I think I have to agree witjh Bill Moore's post (http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showpost.php?p=89343&postcount=169), especially in regards to the issue of complexity. The bottom line, as Bill Moore pointed out, is that this isn't easy and it isn't a one size fits all solution. An appeal to CvC as "THE" answer is just another effort to find that silver bullet that does not exist.

JMM cited a couple of 20th Century examples of "mixed bag" efforts. Despite being enjoined by Zenpundit to eschew the historical method, I'd like to suggest that we look at the American Revolution for another example of those complexities. That struggle was actually several struggles between a number of entities with a number of different goals. In some cases the colonists were the good guys; in others, the bad guys. The French and Spanish, as well Native Americans from nations that included the Oneida and Tuscaroroa tribes of the Iroquois Federation and the Catawbas of the Carolinas, may be viewed as an intervening force supporting the insurrection. Forces deployed by George III from various German principalities like Hesse-Kassel, Anhalt-Zerbst, Brunswick-Wolfenbuttel, and Ansbach-Bayreuth, not to mention members of the remaining tribes of the Iroquois Confederacy and the Cherokees in the South, may be considered COIN assistance to the forces of England trying to quell the insurrection. The loyalties of colonists themselves were fairly divided. Check out the events in what is now Westchester County, NY or the backwoods of South Carolina for some horrendous tales of inhumane treatment by civilian adherents to both sides of the conflict.

MikeF

12-18-2009, 03:41 PM

I have to disagree, and I think this particular stream of thought confuses COIN and FID. In Iraq and Afghanistan we may have been outsiders, but we were also the occupying power/government, so the insurgency was directed at us, and now we have governments that are to varying degrees recognized as a combination of legitimate and puppet governments. If we over throw a regime and occupy a country, then IMO your argument that we can't conduct COIN falls flat. We weren't invited in by either government, we came in and stood up the governments.

We've discussed insurgency as a domestic violence incident in another thread (can't remember which one), but I do like the analogy. In the case of Iraq and A'stan, we came in as the police trying to break up the fight. However, we did a poor job of occupying/governing, and that's a big deal. IF we had properly planned/conducted PH IV operations, then we might not have ended up with such degree of messes. It's like the crazy sisters antagonizing the angry wife realized that we weren't going to intervene, and they burned the house down to spite the husband:D.

MikeF

12-18-2009, 03:44 PM

slapout9

12-18-2009, 04:24 PM

Aren't violent family disputes equally complex? This is an important assumption for me. It drives my hypothesis that I hope to turn into a dissertation one day that the entire social contract can be found at the family level.

Mike

Yes, they are and CvC talks about emotion,chance and reason.That's a classic case of a Bar fight:D that the Police respond to or a Domestic dispute or basically any crime. All three elements are there from the micro level (people) to macro level (organization,country,etc).

slapout9

12-18-2009, 04:38 PM

Hi Phil,

3-I will read the CvC article and let you know what I think. Check your PM when you get a chance.

PhilR, I read ,actually re-read the article last night and he makes some good points, especially his method that critical analysis should start with Verifiable Historic Fact. In the case of CvC what are the facts? We know his book On War was never completely finished, We know his Wife left a warning note with the manuscript saying it may be nothing but "A Great Mass". We know there are some problems with translation(s) of the manusacript.

So my conclusions are:
1-There is NO book On War, there is an unedited manuscript.

2-That On War should be retitled "Thoughts On War" by CvC. They were his written expressions of his unfinished thinking about War! As to his final theory we will never truly know.

3-That doesn't mean that there is not great value in studying his "Thoughts On War" and discussing them.

This is my analysis of the greatest crime since Jack The Ripper.......the crime of the book that was never a book.:D:D:D

Firn

12-18-2009, 04:43 PM

I agree that Clausewitz would be laughing because, if you read Book Two of On War he pushes something called “critical analysis” of historical events as the best way, outside of actual experience, to learn about conflict. Jon Sumida, in his recent book Decoding Clausewitz (2008) provides a better explanation than I can in this short space (you can get a good idea from his recent article in Army History "The Clausewitz Problem" pg 17 Fall 2009. Its 8 mb; you have download the whole magazine: http://www.history.army.mil/armyhistory/AH73(W).pdf)).

Today, however, we are thinking in terms of two rival political leaderships: insurgent and government, and two rival military forces: irregular and regular, with the people reduced to being the “objective” or the “terrain” being fought over. I am struck that we no longer can conceive of a people opposing us. Somehow, either insurgents or other political and military entities rise to oppose our actions—not as an expression of popular will, but in spite of it. Thus we feel if we can just shield (protect) the people from the depredations of the insurgents, the “popular will” will naturally fall our way. There’s a sense, dangerous in my mind, that, if given a fair chance, we will always get support. I don’t think that is a safe assumption. There are areas where we will go and governments we may seek to support, where the people will oppose us, regardless of how secure we can make them.

Phil Ridderhof USMC

First thanks for that link. The author gives a good rough overview of the CvC views, and includes also the so often overread concept of the people's war. He also points people with little time to the most influential chapters, but rightly says that all should be read to understand the context better.

I like your thought about the changed view on the nature of the people. Of course both can be objective and oppostion at the same time, it largely depends on the situation you are in. Perhaps the Western nations, especially the USA have a too high opinion of the attractivness of their goals and ways and thus have a hard time to accept that a fair share of a foreign population opposes their presences or policies not matter how "good" they may be or at least seem to be to us.

Firn

jmm99

12-18-2009, 05:56 PM

As to this:

from Bill Moore
I wanted to add I like your chart as far as it goes, but I would caution that a political struggle doesn't always reside within the rule of law, nor does political warfare need to always be violent, it may just be setting the stage for violence in the future (gradually radicalizing segments of the population for example).

Agreed.

So, an updated chart adding a Transition Zone, where both military doctrine and legal doctrine have to be more complex.

997

Polarbear and I have been kicking around some of the issues caused by transitions in this zone for about a year (since just before the Iraq SOFA).

To make any sense of this, military doctrine has to lay out sound operational principles for the interface between the military and political efforts. The military/political operational considerations would then generally drive the legal doctrine governing the military/political interface. That is one way to go.

The other way is to have theoretical legal doctrine drive the military/political operational considerations. In that case, IMO you have the SJA from Hell. I'd prefer the SJA from Heaven. ;)

The Transition Zone very much involves the military, political and legal principles applied to irregular combatants.

Regards

Mike

MikeF

12-18-2009, 06:04 PM

I wanted to add I like your chart as far as it goes, but I would caution that a political struggle doesn't always reside within the rule of law, nor does political warfare need to always be violent, it may just be setting the stage for violence in the future (gradually radicalizing segments of the population for example).

Bill,

I would categorize these cases (Mike's Transition Zones) as Phase Zero of Mao's Three Phase Protracted War. Bob's World summarized it that there are always low-level insurgencies in democratic nation-states. Back to the family dispute, it's the constantly nagging mother-in-law. In the bar, it's the guy with short man's syndrome who grows big and tries to antagonize after a few beers:D.

jmm99

12-18-2009, 06:23 PM

As to this:

from MikeF
I would categorize these cases (Mike's Transition Zones) as Phase Zero of Mao's Three Phase Protracted War.

No. The Transition Zone is not linear (that is, does not apply to only one of the phases, whether Mao's or Bob's). It applies whenever the Political Struggle and Military Struggle co-exist.

As correctly stated:

from Bill Moore
I would argue that when we talk about transitions, we're thinking conventionally and assuming sequenced phases. Subversion doesn't transition, it is constant and much like armed action can support the narrative, it can also support the subversive effort. Not all subversion is violence free (regardless of what the book states). What is the role of the military? One of its roles is to clearly put pressure on the fielded guerrillas and provide security to the populace (maybe to protect them, or in the case where they just won't like the counterinsurgent to oppress them) to allow the political process to unfold. I think you would agree that if there is no political process, then the insurgency won't be defeated, but if the military is skilled enough they may be able to suppress it.

Subversion and infiltration are just two examples of the Transition Zone continuum.

There is a more linear transition zone (e.g., between "Phase 0" and "Phase 1") in my chart. That is the vertical blue line starting off the Armed Conflict Spectrum. Both operationally and legally, there is a grey area between "no armed conflict" and "armed conflict".

Hope this begins to clear up the complex concepts inherent in transitions, which are not necessarily linear.

Note also that my chart is based on a simple Euclidian rectangle and straight lines. Reality could be non-Euclidian with all sorts of curves, etc. I'm trying to present some basic concepts.

Regards

Mike

IntelTrooper

12-18-2009, 06:23 PM

12-18-2009, 07:28 PM

WM,

Aren't violent family disputes equally complex? This is an important assumption for me. It drives my hypothesis that I hope to turn into a dissertation one day that the entire social contract can be found at the family level.

Mike

I think Aristotle and Plato, original writers on political theory would agree with you. To perhaps oversimplify too much, economics in their parlance was really about how one 's family got along and politics was largely just an expansion of economics in their view.

PhilR

12-19-2009, 04:49 AM

The first being that the outside party is never actually conducting COIN themselves, that COIN and Insurgency are internal business, and much more a family dispute over governance than they are warfare, regardless of how violent that squabble may become (you can't truely hate someone you don't love, so family squabbles can be the worst kind).

So as an insurgent emerges from the populace to compete with the current government for the support of the same, it very much is a tug of war, with the support of the populace being the ultimate prize, and also the COG. A shared COG to be competed for, rather than respective friendly and enemy COGs to be either defeated or defended ala CvC. This is why I say that insurgency really isn't warfare regardless of how violent, and that to apply rules/principles of warfare rather than understanding and addressing root causes and employing that understanding in ones competition for the support of the populace is likely to lead to a tragic, hard to reach, and temporary in duration, solution.

As an outside party to such a competition, one is either trying to gain inroads with a land and people to serve your own national (or if a non-state actor like AQ, organizational) interests, you are conducting what US doctrine describes as "unconventional warfare." If, on the other hand, you already have a stake in this land/populace through the current government, you are likely to come in on their side in an attempt to sustain that status quo. In US doctrine we call this 'foreign internal defense'. To assume that you as the outsider are conducting COIN is the fastest way to get yourself into all kinds of inappropriate roles and develop no end to crazy mission creep. Just not a good idea, and yet, according to our NEW COIN doctirne, that is what we are doing. Bad bit of doctrine, IMHO.

So, while CvC is good knowledge (Scientia) to have, I always believe that understanding (Intelectus) trumps knowledge on just about everything except a standardized test. This is no standardized test.

There are parts here I agree with and parts I don’t agree with. To start with the last first, I don’t think that Clausewitz would ever assert that reading his book gives an understanding of any conflict. However, I think it does provide a good lens through which to view that conflict and help gain understanding. Not everything in On War is still directly relevant. However, I think that enough is too still prompt useful discussion, analysis, and synthesis. I’ll just admit that each time I re-read parts of On War, I come away with new considerations on how it a specific conflict may be working out and what its character may be. (And to Slapout’s previous point about On War not being complete, part of Sumida’s argument in Decoding Clausewitz is that we have misread the order and dates of the various notes he left and that it was, in fact, a nearly complete and whole work. And just to be clear, I like a lot of what Sumida has written, but I’m not as convinced as he is that he has THE definitive interpretation. For anyone interested, I’d recommend Peter Paret’s biographical Clausewitz and the State—and you will be surprised how much of his life and thought was caught up in “irregular” conflict).

More to the point of the above comments on the difference between COIN as an internal struggle and the different “chemistry” when it involves outsiders—such as us in Afghanistan—I think that is a critical difference. Thinking back on my Clausewitz, we mostly think of Insurgents as being on the strategic offensive because the government represents the “status quo.” I would offer that when outsiders are involved the insurgents are on the strategic defensive. They have a negative aim. They do not have provide positive rule or economic benefits. They do not need to defeat or destroy the government or our security forces in the field. They just need to deny us enough success so that we go home. They will not be ultimately successful in replacing the existing government until the external forces are gone. The insurgency meets Clausewitz’s definition for a defense—it is using time in order to position itself for a counterstroke. In effect, the insurgency has a negative aim. They don’t have to “play to win” like the government and its allies—they just need to play to “not lose.”

This gets to successful insurgent endgame. I’d submit that most successful insurgencies end with the insurgent forces acting very much like the security forces they are facing—taking them on openly in the field, or else the threat and exhaustion results in security forces either melting away or changing sides enmasse. This is in some sense a validation of Mao’s progression of stages. For an insurgency to become what it was fighting against, the legitimate governing authority, then it will start to take on those attributes (and those vulnerabilities?).

Looking to Afghanistan specifically, I’d say that the approaches we are seeing that recommend basing our strategy on local initiatives and tribes (One Tribe at a Time, etc.), are a form of fighting an insurgency with an insurgency. While this is attractive, in effect, we would also not be struggling to defeat the Insurgent, but just to provide a rival insurgent force that would never allow them to win. I think that the tribal approaches will just result in a steady state of chaos. If we remove our security umbrella from such a solution—a patchwork of loosely held together areas—then they will be vulnerable to being picked off, one by one, in fairly conventional manner (which is how I believe the Taliban came to power in the first place). Thus while I think the “bottom up”, or tribal, or federal, approach is also an endstate that will require us to maintain a security guarantee for a long while.

Phil Ridderhof USMC

Bob's World

12-19-2009, 10:06 AM

More to the point of the above comments on the difference between COIN as an internal struggle and the different “chemistry” when it involves outsiders—such as us in Afghanistan—I think that is a critical difference. Thinking back on my Clausewitz, we mostly think of Insurgents as being on the strategic offensive because the government represents the “status quo.” I would offer that when outsiders are involved the insurgents are on the strategic defensive. They have a negative aim. They do not have provide positive rule or economic benefits. They do not need to defeat or destroy the government or our security forces in the field. They just need to deny us enough success so that we go home. They will not be ultimately successful in replacing the existing government until the external forces are gone. The insurgency meets Clausewitz’s definition for a defense—it is using time in order to position itself for a counterstroke. In effect, the insurgency has a negative aim. They don’t have to “play to win” like the government and its allies—they just need to play to “not lose.”

Point 1: What you are describing here is not the insurgent vs. the Counterinsurgent; but rather the insurgent vs. the FID force. This would essentially be a branch operations for the insurgent. His goal is to win the tug of war with the COIN force for support of the populace, and ultimate governance of the same. Then in comes this external party to support the government (I.e., COIN force) just as he is starting to have success. So now he must implement this branch plan to either defeat, or simply outlast, the FID force so that he can get back to the business of winning the tug of war. Ironically, an overly aggressive FID force (like the US tends to be) actually highlights to the local populace and the world the weakness of the COIN force and also tends to rob them of their legitimacy in the eyes of the populace as they tend to look like puppets of the FID force.
This gets to successful insurgent endgame. I’d submit that most successful insurgencies end with the insurgent forces acting very much like the security forces they are facing—taking them on openly in the field, or else the threat and exhaustion results in security forces either melting away or changing sides enmasse. This is in some sense a validation of Mao’s progression of stages. For an insurgency to become what it was fighting against, the legitimate governing authority, then it will start to take on those attributes (and those vulnerabilities?).

Point 2: Mao's model, that I borrowed to shape the phases on my model, was definitely designed originally with the belief as you presribe above that one must work their way to phase three and win the conventional fight to prevail. History shows us that "perfect" Maoist insurgency is rare, but the Vietnamese and Chinese held to the model and did build to conventional capacity to end thier respective conflicts successfully. Key is that the insurgent can win, or lose, in any phase, and can flow back and forth for years in route to that end.

Looking to Afghanistan specifically, I’d say that the approaches we are seeing that recommend basing our strategy on local initiatives and tribes (One Tribe at a Time, etc.), are a form of fighting an insurgency with an insurgency. While this is attractive, in effect, we would also not be struggling to defeat the Insurgent, but just to provide a rival insurgent force that would never allow them to win. I think that the tribal approaches will just result in a steady state of chaos. If we remove our security umbrella from such a solution—a patchwork of loosely held together areas—then they will be vulnerable to being picked off, one by one, in fairly conventional manner (which is how I believe the Taliban came to power in the first place). Thus while I think the “bottom up”, or tribal, or federal, approach is also an endstate that will require us to maintain a security guarantee for a long while.

Point 3: I believe you are too focused on "government" (formal constitutional organized, centrally controlled, etc) with "governance." As Westerners my opinion is that we are just too sanitized if you will, on this point. When a state rejects our Western constructs of Westphalian-based government we quickly label them a "failed" or "failing state" This is really, sadly, Western bias at its worst. The fact is that many regions of the world have little cultural and historical connection to Western forms of governance other than the fact that a bunch of white guys forced them to adopt it at gunpoint in the name of Civilization and Colonization. Now when they reject our "gift" of Westphalian constructs we label them as failures becasue our system doesn't snap in well with other forms of governance. In Afhanistan the informal system of Governance has far greater history of acceptance and functionality than the Westphalian, centralized program we are trying to implement out of Kabul. IMO we are far more likely to create chaos trying to force a centralized system than we are by recognizing and supporting they system they already have. The key is to connect the two in such a fashion as to allow this country to hold to what works, while moving forward with new tools that ideally overcome the downsides of that historic system.
Phil Ridderhof USMC

Hopefully this helps

Firn

12-19-2009, 10:45 AM

FID is defined as "Participation by civilian and military agencies of a government in any of the action programs taken by another government or other designated organization to free and protect its society from subversion, lawlessness, and insurgency."

Counterinsurgency is defined as “military, paramilitary, political, economic, psychological, and civic actions taken by a government to defeat insurgency.”

(both taken from JP 1-02 DoD Dictionary of Military and associated terms)

I'm not too happy about the definition of FID, as it has a political slant (to free and to protect) which leaves out too much. Perhaps it just a way to paint a policy in a positive colour and it sounds nicer than a more wide definition. While to helps to have a coined term to address a specific situation we should not forget that there can be many shades in the circumstances while supporting a ally (state, entity, nation, insurgent) against a foe (other state, nation, ethnic (religious, cultural) group, insurgent). We have many levels of interacting politics and differing motives, purposes and wills. The danger in creating a strict concept coupled by a specific term is that it can narrow down the vision. But if it is understood rightly as a part of the whole it can be helpful.

I will continue later...

Firn

Bob's World

12-19-2009, 11:17 AM

I'm not too happy about the definition of FID, as it has a political slant (to free and to protect) which leaves out too much. Perhaps it just a way to paint a policy in a positive colour and it sounds nicer than a more wide definition. While to helps to have a coined term to address a specific situation we should not forget that there can be many shades in the circumstances while supporting a ally (state, entity, nation, insurgent) against a foe (other state, nation, ethnic (religious, cultural) group, insurgent). We have many levels of interacting politics and differing motives, purposes and wills. The danger in creating a strict concept coupled by a specific term is that it can narrow down the vision. But if it is understood rightly as a part of the whole it can be helpful.

I will continue later...

Firn

I won't argue that "FID" is a perfect construct as currently defined and employed, only that it is the best we have. We can add "IDAD" to it and it gets better. When we start adding new concepts like "SFA" and "IW" to patch gaps and bridge seams, it just starts to turn into a crazy quilt.

I told my senior leadership, that when it came to the defining and discussing of these critical concepts we were like property owners who each own 100 acres of land, but that because of a bad survey are uncertain as to exactly where the porperty line is. So, instead of enjoying the 99.99 acres we each own free and clear of any debate, we instead mortgage the same to the hilt to hire lawyers and argue over the 18" of dirt in between that we can't agree on. Sillyness.

So, I have decided to not engage in those type of Reindeer games, and instead focus on broad constructs that are more helpful.

An element of a state that acts out illegally to change or overthrow the sitting government, or break a piece of the state off as a new state is conducting insurgency. Tune up the words as you wish.

The sitting government opposing this illegal action is conducting COIN.

An outside party, state or non-state, who acts to aid the insurgent in his efforts is conducting Unconventional Warfare.

An outside party, state or non-state, who acts to aid the sitting government is conducting FID.

What do you call any actions between these two outside parties? Well, for 60-odd years between the Soviets and the West we called it a "Cold War." For the past 8-odd years between AQ and the West we call it a "Global War on Terrorism."

The key to understanding is not the nuances of the dozens of essentially similar definitions, but instead to understand these 4 primary roles in insurgency, and who is in which role, and how to best enable or frustrate their efforts depending on your interests in the whole thing.

Just how I look at it. I've participated in many of the debates over the 18" of proverbial dirt between these definitions with the best of them, and I'm done. It's just not that helpful.

MikeF

12-19-2009, 07:46 PM

I think Aristotle and Plato, original writers on political theory would agree with you. To perhaps oversimplify too much, economics in their parlance was really about how one 's family got along and politics was largely just an expansion of economics in their view.

What do those guys know? They thought the world was flat and the sun revolved around the earth:D. Thanks for the reply. I'll have to brush up on my classics reading.

On a serious note, I'm really enjoying the point/counter-point by PhilR and Bob's World. Please keep it up. It's very insightful.

Mike

slapout9

12-19-2009, 07:54 PM

The key to understanding is not the nuances of the dozens of essentially similar definitions, but instead to understand these 4 primary roles in insurgency, and who is in which role, and how to best enable or frustrate their efforts depending on your interests in the whole thing.

Now that is Strategy!

PhilR

12-19-2009, 11:08 PM

In reply to Bob's World:

Point 1: What you are describing here is not the insurgent vs. the Counterinsurgent; but rather the insurgent vs. the FID force. This would essentially be a branch operations for the insurgent. His goal is to win the tug of war with the COIN force for support of the populace, and ultimate governance of the same. Then in comes this external party to support the government (I.e., COIN force) just as he is starting to have success. So now he must implement this branch plan to either defeat, or simply outlast, the FID force so that he can get back to the business of winning the tug of war. Ironically, an overly aggressive FID force (like the US tends to be) actually highlights to the local populace and the world the weakness of the COIN force and also tends to rob them of their legitimacy in the eyes of the populace as they tend to look like puppets of the FID force.

I agree. While fighting the FID force is ultimately a branch, it is a necessary branch. The insurgent has to get the FID force out of the picture. This does not necessarily mean directly taking it on or defeating it--there are many methods to get a foreign power out of a counterinsurgency. Exhaustion is one. Ultimate lack of confidence in the host government is another. I don't think a FID force can necessarily provide success for the present authority, but it can prevent total failure while it is engaged. I also agree that the more load the FID force takes on, the more chance the host government will look ineffective in comparison. There is a paradox there.

Point 2: Mao's model, that I borrowed to shape the phases on my model, was definitely designed originally with the belief as you presribe above that one must work their way to phase three and win the conventional fight to prevail. History shows us that "perfect" Maoist insurgency is rare, but the Vietnamese and Chinese held to the model and did build to conventional capacity to end thier respective conflicts successfully. Key is that the insurgent can win, or lose, in any phase, and can flow back and forth for years in route to that end.

I agree here also. If the insurgent can win or lose in any phase, then the government can also win or lose in any phase. I think it’s important to highlight that the "cost" of winning for an insurgent is to then bear the same burdens as the existing government. In the end, the insurgents' goal is to become the legitimate authority. In that regard, they then are subject to the same vulnerabilities as the government. If both we and the Taliban take a tribal approach, then are we really competing governing entities fighting one another? It is insurgency or civil war along tribal lines?

Point 3: I believe you are too focused on "government" (formal constitutional organized, centrally controlled, etc) with "governance." As Westerners my opinion is that we are just too sanitized if you will, on this point. When a state rejects our Western constructs of Westphalian-based government we quickly label them a "failed" or "failing state" This is really, sadly, Western bias at its worst. The fact is that many regions of the world have little cultural and historical connection to Western forms of governance other than the fact that a bunch of white guys forced them to adopt it at gunpoint in the name of Civilization and Colonization. Now when they reject our "gift" of Westphalian constructs we label them as failures becasue our system doesn't snap in well with other forms of governance. In Afhanistan the informal system of Governance has far greater history of acceptance and functionality than the Westphalian, centralized program we are trying to implement out of Kabul. IMO we are far more likely to create chaos trying to force a centralized system than we are by recognizing and supporting they system they already have. The key is to connect the two in such a fashion as to allow this country to hold to what works, while moving forward with new tools that ideally overcome the downsides of that historic system.

I agree to a point. I was probably too strong in my verbiage of extended chaos. I agree that it is better for governance to develop that has the best chance of success in that society and culture. If that is to be the case, it is the fundamental starting point for the counterinsurgents' efforts. If they are trying to enact a government that will not work, then they will inevitably fail. I am curious of this means that if the Taliban propose to rule Afghanistan as a centralized state, then they are also ultimately doomed to failure? Is there a certain strength to a repressive regime that our preferred COIN approach does not allow for?

In this vein, I have a different concept of "Westphalian." It is not so much the internal make up of the state (centralized vs, decentralized, government vs. tribal, etc.), but the idea of sovereignty. What we are primarily interested in is that there is a responsible authority in Afghanistan who can prevent it from being a haven for transnational bad actors. If that can be accomplished with a loose federation of tribes, then so be it. Once again, that political endstate needs to be at the forefront of our strategy to engage.

I will state that I believe that a loose type of governance is good in a vacuum, but it also tempts outside actors (state and non-state) to involve themselves in internal power struggles--and make it more likely that these struggles become violent. I still think that it will require an external security guarantee to prevent a resurgent Taliban or other outside intervention.

Bob's World

12-20-2009, 02:07 AM

There are no easy answers, and certainly implementing any of those is harder still.

One of my beef's with COIN is that it tends to enable the policy types to sit back and wring their hands over how much it costs, how long it will take, how many causualites will be incurred, etc for the military to SOLVE the problem so that they can get back to policy work again. IMHO this is completely, negligently, backwards thinking. All the military can do when it goes out to conduct FID to assist the COIN forces of a foreign ally are to help shape conditions that allow the polciy types to identify, address and repair the failures of local/national governance in the COIN force that created the condtions that are the ripe soil that insurgency grows in (and we all know what fertalizes those seeds, the blood of all swept up in the second order effects of those govenrmental failures), moving the bubble down the curve on my chart from ph 1/2 down toward ph 0, to shape conditions so that the policy guys can actually solve the insurgency.

Right now there should be a giant pair of vice grips on Mr. Karzai's nether regions, with the collective providers of surge forces demanding that he hold a Loya Jirga to address poor governance in Afghanistan. Then, and here is the hard part, those same external policy types need to STFU and allow self-determination to take place, and accept what the people, the leaders, the culture, and the process of Afghanistan comes up with. We must relinquish our efforts to control the outcome if we want to craft an enduring solution for the Afghan populace. Then simply recognize and work with whoever ends up in power. This is populace-centric COIN. Its a strategic concept (One paper here on SWJ, and another in World Politics Review for those interested). Still wrestling with the tactics of 'population-centric COIN". It seems to mean many things to many people.

Firn

12-20-2009, 09:32 AM

There are no easy answers, and certainly implementing any of those is harder still.

One of my beef's with COIN is that it tends to enable the policy types to sit back and wring their hands over how much it costs, how long it will take, how many causualites will be incurred, etc for the military to SOLVE the problem so that they can get back to policy work again. IMHO this is completely, negligently, backwards thinking. All the military can do when it goes out to conduct FID to assist the COIN forces of a foreign ally are to help shape conditions that allow the polciy types to identify, address and repair the failures of local/national governance in the COIN force that created the condtions that are the ripe soil that insurgency grows in (and we all know what fertalizes those seeds, the blood of all swept up in the second order effects of those govenrmental failures), moving the bubble down the curve on my chart from ph 1/2 down toward ph 0, to shape conditions so that the policy guys can actually solve the insurgency.

So for the (Afghan) government fighting the insurgency is the continuation of politik (polity, politics, policy) with the addition/intermixture of other means? A continuation of polity, poltitics and policy which ougth to detract the (fertile) soil on which the insurgency grows and the led out the water in which it lives, coupled with the (direct) fight against it? Efforts supported by Western nations to fulfill their political goals. Goals which have been questioned at home and worldwide for some time now. The (strategic, economical, ..) costs and risks of which should match the importance of the goals relative to the purpose of the same states.

Firn

I will address the specifics of the other raised (and interesting) points later.

jmm99

12-20-2009, 07:43 PM

Bob's World

12-21-2009, 02:02 AM

Part of this discussion is losing me. So, a couple of serious questions:

1. Who are these "policy types" who can "identify, address and repair the failures of local/national governance" ?

2. Have the "policy guys" (whoever they are) actually solved any insurgency; if so, where and when ?

Sorry to be dull, but I need some context to understand this.

Mike

when has a military operation ever resolved an insurgency.

By policy types I mean the national governmental leadership. Karazai, for example, has the insurgency in Afghanistan to either win or lose, the military forces in that country can merely set the conditions..

Similar for the larger GWOT it is incumbent upon the national govenmental leadership of the US to address and change our policy approach to the governemnts and populaces of the middle east to win or lose that event. Bin laden is a SYMPTOM of a much larger problem, a man for his times, if you will. The military can go out and attack that symptiom, but if the larger policy issue is not addressed new men will emerge to pick up that bright burning torch.

Ken White

12-21-2009, 02:50 AM

when has a military operation ever resolved an insurgency.However, we can't use those methods nowadays...:D

Sigh.:(

Bob's World

12-21-2009, 04:17 AM

Yes, though the days when "self-determination" meant the choice between submit and live or resist and die are long behind us (not to say that when the current veneer of civilization is adequately disrupted they won't be back, I suspect they will, and in many corners of the world are); we tend to take this muddy ground of relying on the military for decisive effect, when under our current legal constructs decisive effect can no longer be produced by the military. We stand with a foot in each camp, so to speak, in terms of how we understand and address these instances of popular discontent with governance within a state.

My recommendation is that the onus be clearly, and completely sat upon the lap of civil leadership. That it is the failures of civil government that allows the populace to move up the curve out of phase 0 "peace" into phase 1 "insurgency"; and that the role of the military is to bring in additional capacity to assist the civil govenrment establish a degree of security while the assess and address their inadequacies; and that once the military has helped get the populace back to the phase 0 box (a mix of reducing violence and improving governance required) its job is largely done.

Until civil governments embrace that a populace is like a yard, and that governance much like gardening, requires constant attention, with an eye both to the immediate and long-term care required, to keep it vibrant and healty and orderly. If you just cut the grass once a month and call it good, you will reap what you sow...

The depletion of soil and the growth of weeds are as natural as the emergence of insurgency. To simply attack the symptoms of ones failures is IMO negligence.

Bill Moore

12-21-2009, 06:24 AM

My recommendation is that the onus be clearly, and completely sat upon the lap of civil leadership. That it is the failures of civil government that allows the populace to move up the curve out of phase 0 "peace" into phase 1 "insurgency"; and that the role of the military is to bring in additional capacity to assist the civil govenrment establish a degree of security while the assess and address their inadequacies; and that once the military has helped get the populace back to the phase 0 box (a mix of reducing violence and improving governance required) its job is largely done.

Your logic isn't incorrect, but it is illogical based on the following context,

We're either there because we invaded (OIF and OEF-A), and that should never be confused with FID where we were invited in by the HN government, or we're there because the HN has invited us to help (often at our urging).

In the first case your arguments don't ring true, and in the second case we're there to help because we believe it is in our national interest, and at the same time we know the problem must be resolved politically, yet we normally know (even if we don't admit it) that the HN government isn't capable or willing to that. We're trying to sail a ship that won't float.

You asked where the military solution has worked, and I can name two places right off the top of my head where the military ruthlessly supressed an insurgency, Iraq and Syria. Probably a couple in Eastern Europe also. Where has the political situation worked?

when under our current legal constructs decisive effect can no longer be produced by the military. We stand with a foot in each camp, so to speak, in terms of how we understand and address these instances of popular discontent with governance within a state.

Is this a balanced approach, or simply dysfunctional?

Until civil governments embrace that a populace is like a yard

I don't disagree, but is our strategy to maintain the status quo until the government gets it? The problem with this strategy is we're defaulting to a dysfunctional entity to solve the problems we volunteered to take on.

Bob's World

12-21-2009, 08:21 AM

I will never argue that a purely military option cannot effectively suppress an insurgency. Merely that it cannot not resolve one. It is not the decisive element of COIN.

As to our recent incursions into the governance of others, Afghanistan and Iraq. True in both cases we usurped the legitimate authorities of both countries to take them out of power in favor of forms of governance more palletable to the Government of the United States. (One can argue from whence those two governments drew their legitimacy, but I would merely counter that making such arguments to justify replacing those questionable sources of legitimacy with ones own, is an argument that could be made in the days immediately following the 9/11 attacks, but not today).

But then we immediately took the position that we were invaders, but as liberators and not occupiers, and that govenrance was in the hands of those respective nations. This immediately puts us back into the FID role, regardless of how embryonic and incapbable those fledgling governments may well be. To see it any other way is to discount the legitimacy and sovereignty of those very governments and admit that the porpaganda against the US is correct and that they are in fact puppet regimes. BL, we can't have it both ways.

No one said this is easy. So long as we choose to set out to implement control-based policies born of the Cold War, we will find ourselves in these sticky, conflicted messes. Which brings me right back to the national leadership and policy types. The onus must be placed on them to change the strategy within our own capitals, before we set out to force others to change the strategies within theirs.

Which brings us back to good old Carl. COIN is a symptom of civil governance within a state gone bad, it is politics, it is conflict, but it is not war. It is internal discontent expressed by a populace to its own government in the only manner available when legitimate means of expression are either missing or inadequate to the task.

Afghanistan has a means of legitimate recourse (i.e., the results are recognized and accepted by the populace); it is called a Loya Jirga. What scares people about the Loya Jirga is that it cannot not be controlled by either the Preident nor the constitution of Afghanistan (thus why the legitimacy is so powerful), so in the end it appears we value control over stability. My strategic 2 pennies worth is that the US Populace should DEMAND that the US President push Mr. Karzai very hard to conduct a Loya Jirga as the quid pro quo for providing additional forces to support his COIN effort here.

William F. Owen

12-21-2009, 08:34 AM

I will never argue that a purely military option cannot effectively suppress an insurgency. Merely that it cannot not resolve one. It is not the decisive element of COIN.

Really? That again calls into question the idea of qualifying something as "COIN." - Insurgents can try to take over legitimate governments. Insurgents/Irregular forces, do not always have a legitimate case. Algeria in the 1990's and Sierra Leone being good examples - and many others. War is politics. Why assume the Government or existing power structure is always at fault?
Military action can and does force "insurgents" to seek non-violent means. That is the aim, as it is in almost any conflict of that type.

Bob's World

12-21-2009, 10:56 AM

Really? That again calls into question the idea of qualifying something as "COIN." - Insurgents can try to take over legitimate governments. Insurgents/Irregular forces, do not always have a legitimate case. Algeria in the 1990's and Sierra Leone being good examples - and many others. War is politics. Why assume the Government or existing power structure is always at fault?
Military action can and does force "insurgents" to seek non-violent means. That is the aim, as it is in almost any conflict of that type.

That the military can only set conditions and is not the decisive component of COIN. Algeria is much like the Philippines, in that Western governments have declared it "won" several times following a military suppression of the insurgent; to my way of thinking neither will ever be resolved until the governemnts of those countries create mechanisms to extend good governance to the entire populace equitably, and with a surity of redress when it inevitably drifts, so that that those same populaces can apply course corrections short of once again taking up arms.

Reasonable minds can differ. I just personally choose not to buy into the idea that calling in the military every 20-odd years to beat down the complaining sector of the populace as either effective or good governance.

William F. Owen

12-21-2009, 12:24 PM

to my way of thinking neither will ever be resolved until the governemnts of those countries create mechanisms to extend good governance to the entire populace equitably, and with a surity of redress when it inevitably drifts, so that that those same populaces can apply course corrections short of once again taking up arms.

So let us say the Klu Klux Klan or Neo-Nazis start an insurgency in the Southern US with the stated aim of re-introducing segregation. Should those stated aims be considered?

Let us say you have an ethnically mixed community, where the stronger element seek to ethnically cleanse the minority by violent means. Should their grievances be considered?

Bob! Why assume that the root cause of insurgency is always the fault of the government? There are many many grievances against governments that do not call for the legitimate use of violence.

Again, my simple proposition is that the use of military means should make seeking violent resolution the most costly and least attractive option to those seeking change. You never get total peace. That's not the aim. You merely want a state where their violence does not present a threat to your authority of policy.

Bob's World

12-21-2009, 01:11 PM

In America everybody has equal voice, equal freedom of speech, equal right to vote.

If some radical, niche organization takes up arms against the government, with little or no popuular support, it is not an insurgency. These things happen time to time, they create a ripple, and are quickly resolved.

Just as all violence is not warfare, similarly all violence wrought by a citizenry against its governemnt is not insurgency.

This goes to my persistent drumbeat that one must first seek to understand the purpose for an orgnization's violent acts, and address them as defined by that purpose, and not by the simple fact that they opt to employ violent means.

In your final paragraph you define quite nicely the lower left corner of my provided chart that I encircle and term "peace." Its messy, its a work in constant progress requiring constant maintenance by the governing body, and it, while often violent, is generally within what is the acceptable norm for that particular society. And as I describe, I see the military's role being to come in as extra capacity (not unlike our MSCA for natural disasters in the states) to assist the civil authorities in bringing it back within their span of control, and allowing them time to assess and fix their failures.

I hold strongly to the belief that populaces cannot fail governments, that it is only governments that can fail the populace. This is a cornerstone upon which America was built, and I see no reason to pry it out of our national foundation and toss it aside simply because at times it becomes "inconvenient" and forces some hard self-analysis as we look in the mirror to shave in the morning.

Besides, when one prys away at the foundation of a structure, it is only a matter of time before the entire thing tumbles down as well.

Fuchs

12-21-2009, 01:32 PM

William F. Owen

12-21-2009, 01:34 PM

If some radical, niche organization takes up arms against the government, with little or no popuular support, it is not an insurgency. These things happen time to time, they create a ripple, and are quickly resolved.
OK, so the Southern Secessionists in the Civil War had a point? Lincoln failed them?

Just as all violence is not warfare, similarly all violence wrought by a citizenry against its governemnt is not insurgency.
Agreed. Warfare has to involve the promotion of a political aim, by violence and has to be of scale where it can reasonably effect policy.

This goes to my persistent drumbeat that one must first seek to understand the purpose for an orgnization's violent acts, and address them as defined by that purpose, and not by the simple fact that they opt to employ violent means.
Why should I seek to make peace with or in anyway ameliorate the agendas of those I dislike to the point of violence? Once they use violence against me, why should I listen?

Besides, when one prys away at the foundation of a structure, it is only a matter of time before the entire thing tumbles down as well. - so don't build badly! :D

Bob's World

12-21-2009, 03:00 PM

Keep in mind that many (all) roads lead to Rome.

The emergence of a smart & charismatic politician, an effective domestic intelligence service, an enlargement of the police, a change in economic structure and military action can all lead to the end of an insurgency.

I find fascinating those who give so little credit to the free will of people, nor attention to history so as to believe that if conditions of good governance exist among a populace, that a dynamic leader can come along with his magic flute of ideology and lead them to their doom... :-)

I spent a lot of time thinking about this. I had to, becuase a huge segment of the US Government still subscribes to a believe that "Ideology" is the COG for AQ. Really. CR, sure, but COG? I just can't get there.

I see poor governance as "Causation" (see chart for two-part definition), that dry tinder of conditions among a populace; and that things like ideology and dynamic leadership are "motivaiton" that when applied to the dry tender of poor governance causation will burst into insurgency; but when applied to a satisfied, well governed populace have little to no significant effect.

I realize I am not in a majority position on this, but I am comfortable with that .

Bob's World

12-21-2009, 03:15 PM

OK, so the Southern Secessionists in the Civil War had a point? Lincoln failed them?

Agreed. Warfare has to involve the promotion of a political aim, by violence and has to be of scale where it can reasonably effect policy.

Why should I seek to make peace with or in anyway ameliorate the agendas of those I dislike to the point of violence? Once they use violence against me, why should I listen?
- so don't build badly! :D

1. OF COURSE Southern Seccessionists had a point! Would their point have destroyed America and led to a Europe-like cluster of small countries in North America? Certainly. They felt that States rights were being inappropriately curtailed by National rights, and voted as states to succeed from the Union. This wasn't insurgency, it was divorce. This was not the failure of a single man, it was, however a failure to appreciate the dire consequences of forcing a significant, and geographically united, segement of ones populace to adopt a course that they saw so counter to both their rights as citizens and to their livlihoods. Growing pains of a young nation experimenting with new forms of popular government.

2. As to your next to last point, I never said you should make peace with those who act illegally to oppose the government in insurgency. I simply said that it isn't war (in a Clauswitzian sense), and that if a true insurgency it is happening for a reason that you must deal with as the COIN government with every bit as much dilligence as you deal with the illegal actors. I would just caution constraint, becuase governments who employ organized violence against their own populaces too freely or injustly (as perceived by the populace, not as rationalized by the government) are on a slippery slope.

3. Your last point is a shot at the US Declaration of Independence. I don't need to remind you what happened to the last Brit to take that document lightly...

PhilR

12-21-2009, 03:55 PM

2. As to your last point, I never said you should make peace with those who act illegally to oppose the government in insurgency. I simply said that it isn't war (in a Clauswitzian sense), and that if a true insurgency it is happening for a reason that you must deal with as the COIN government with every bit as much dilligence as you deal with the illegal actors. I would just caution constraint, becuase governments who employ organized violence against their own populaces too freely or injustly (as perceived by the populace, not as rationalized by the government) are on a slippery slope.

I still haven't read anything in this thread that suppports the assertion that Clausewitz isn't relevant. If you choose to think that On War only provides insight when two established states fight each other with militaries, then I think you are overlooking alot.

Clausewitz talks about the use of violence in the pursuit of policy and the primacy of that policy. He discusses the need for policymakers to understand the strengths and limitations of the forces the use in violance and the peculiar nature of violent conflict itself. Once one side chooses a violent option, things happen that may alter the nature of the policy goals or the route to obtaining them.

I'm not making the case that he has all the answers, but I think he prompts most of the correct questions.

Phil Ridderhof

Ken White

12-21-2009, 04:15 PM

I hold strongly to the belief that populaces cannot fail governments, that it is only governments that can fail the populace.How do you explain the facts that:

1. The US voting populace continually elects venal and easily corrupted persons to Congress, a Congress that consistently fails the populace in an effort to buy votes to keep itself in power and thus provides us poor governance partly in an effort to provide, as you suggest to an extent, surety of everything to everyone. That's a patent impossibility. That is a significant failure of the people to the government under which they live.

2. Your premise that States must "create mechanisms to extend good governance to the entire populace equitably, and with a surity of redress when it inevitably drifts, so that that those same populaces can apply course corrections short of once again taking up arms."would allow a determined minority to effectively mug a government into giving them special treatment which will invariably create other minorities not receiving such treatment and thus create a cycle of unrest which would likely eventually result in the taking up of arms.

I, as always, admire your idealism but poor governance is not the root of all insurgencies. Most? Yes but not all.

It is not possible to treat an entire populace equitably because all are not equal in effort they'll expend or in ability and more importantly, in desires and/or needs. They never will be. Even immutable geography can intrude, as can the weather. Nor is it possible to provide surety of redress for the same reasons...

People are the problem. It's really a shame all will not play by your rules. :wry:

Bill Moore

12-21-2009, 05:22 PM

Posted by Wilf,

So let us say the Klu Klux Klan or Neo-Nazis start an insurgency in the Southern US with the stated aim of re-introducing segregation. Should those stated aims be considered?

Let us say you have an ethnically mixed community, where the stronger element seek to ethnically cleanse the minority by violent means. Should their grievances be considered?

Bob! Why assume that the root cause of insurgency is always the fault of the government? There are many many grievances against governments that do not call for the legitimate use of violence.

Excellent points, which highlights that not all ideas are acceptable, if they are you don't have government, you have anarchy. I suspect less than 50% of the insurgencies are truly justified by a "bad" government.

But then we immediately took the position that we were invaders, but as liberators and not occupiers, and that govenrance was in the hands of those respective nations.

How many communist insurgent groups had "liberation" in their name? National Liberation Fronts were everywhere at the height of the Cold War. Some folks thought they were liberators, and others oppressors. The same rings true today for our activities in CENTCOM, and we're fighting those who see us as oppressors (hard for us to grasp based on our values), but as Wilf pointed out on an earlier post every side thinks they have the moral high ground.

Surferbeetle

12-21-2009, 05:30 PM

I still haven't read anything in this thread that suppports the assertion that Clausewitz isn't relevant.

Phil/Sir,

There are some of us who equate the years of relentless attempts to indoctrinate us with a CvC-uber-alles viewpoint as symptomatic of a systemic inability by DOD as a whole to truly see, understand, and formulate cost effective solutions to what is before us. The rhetorical question...if CvC is so great why are we still fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan? My answer is that a monotheistic belief in CvC and that one great final Fulda Gap battle still clouds a significant part our collective sight.

Clausewitz talks about the use of violence in the pursuit of policy and the primacy of that policy. He discusses the need for policymakers to understand the strengths and limitations of the forces the use in violance and the peculiar nature of violent conflict itself. Once one side chooses a violent option, things happen that may alter the nature of the policy goals or the route to obtaining them.

Ich lese Deutsch, spreche Deutsch, habe in Deutschland gewohnt, und I question the ability of translations, and not just ones from German, to fully capture the multidimensional interactions and influences (often time dependent) which create the written word. There is always a loss coefficient as well as an error coefficient associated with any translation.

I'm not making the case that he has all the answers, but I think he prompts most of the correct questions.

Agreed, with my caveat that if this were my sentence I would change most to some...:wry: no one man or woman has a lock on this complex world.

Best,

Steve

MikeF

12-21-2009, 06:11 PM

1. OF COURSE Southern Seccessionists had a point! Would their point have destroyed America and led to a Europe-like cluster of small countries in North America? Certainly. They felt that States rights were being inappropriately curtailed by National rights, and voted as states to succeed from the Union. This wasn't insurgency, it was divorce. This was not the failure of a single man, it was, however a failure to appreciate the dire consequences of forcing a significant, and geographically united, segement of ones populace to adopt a course that they saw so counter to both their rights as citizens and to their livlihoods. Growing pains of a young nation experimenting with new forms of popular government. emphasis added mine

Col Jones,

To the last statement, isn't that a bit pre-determined/pre-destined or are you just suggesting that 'growing pains' are something all young nations go through?

Interestingly enough, I was considering the Civil War this weekend while y'all discussed it. I was trying to consider what CvC would have recommended to Lincoln when the first states secceeded from the Union. Both CvC and Machiavelli would probably have recommended to intervene quickly with military force to squash the dissenters. Instead, Lincoln gave the South the time to grow (organize, equip, mobilize, and capitalize on popular support) into a formidable opponent. If he intervened early militarily, then he probably could have stopped or at least postponed the bloody Civil War. However, the political issues of states rights, slavery, race, and equality would still persist. To a degree, these issues persisted violently well into the 1960's, and they are still around today.

In any case, multiple issues remained. These issues were not simply government, governance, ideology, grievance, or economics. Instead, they were a combination of all parts coupled with escalated emotions to stir the pot. Ken would sum this up as we're humans, and he's right. But, Ken's answer is like me trying to answer any question with METT-TC :eek:.

Thoughts?

And before everyone gets to busy, just wanted to wish the SWC a Merry Christmas.

Mike

tequila

12-21-2009, 06:23 PM

Instead, Lincoln gave the South the time to grow (organize, equip, mobilize, and capitalize on popular support) into a formidable opponent.

Remember that at the time, the U.S. Army was incapable of doing this. Much of its officer corps was in the process of resigning and going South, and the southern states had arguably as much firepower as the U.S. Army at the time.

Lincoln also had to contend with very strong political forces in the North that would have likely revolted against any preemptive military action to crush secessionism by force. Only when the South Carolinians opened fire on Fort Sumter did Northern opinion galvanize against secession.

Steve Blair

12-21-2009, 06:44 PM

Remember that at the time, the U.S. Army was incapable of doing this. Much of its officer corps was in the process of resigning and going South, and the southern states had arguably as much firepower as the U.S. Army at the time.

Lincoln also had to contend with very strong political forces in the North that would have likely revolted against any preemptive military action to crush secessionism by force. Only when the South Carolinians opened fire on Fort Sumter did Northern opinion galvanize against secession.

Always worth remembering as well that the minuscule Regular Army was scattered throughout the western section of the country in a number of 2-3 company posts (or tied down doing what might be considered COIN duty along the Kansas-Missouri border). And in line with the resignation theme, there was some concern as to just how many officers would answer the call and what they might do if they didn't. The outgoing Secretary of War did little to conceal his pro-Southern leanings, and the commander of the department containing Texas surrendered without any resistance at all...turning over all his arms and equipment in the process.

Firn

12-21-2009, 07:51 PM

The rhetorical question...if CvC is so great why are we still fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan? My answer is that a monotheistic belief in CvC and that one great final Fulda Gap battle still clouds a significant part our collective sight.

My answer is even the wisest of heads would have found it terribly difficult to steer Afghanistan toward a state fitting the (differing) political intention(s) of members of the coalition with so meager ressources and so great challanges. As a matter of fact "rebuilding" was the buzzword of 2002 and onwards, as the Taliban were widly considered to be beaten. At least that was the impression in West and that impression greatly influenced the amount of ressources at the disposal of the commanders. One can wonder how important that rebuilding really was for the politicians in power. Maybe they were just happy to have done a "great job" at hammering the Taliban and AQ - a very understandable political goal. Maybe they were buMaybe some had grander projects for their (military) might than to use it for rebuilding...

Lauding and blaming a single imagined factor (in this case CvC) for success or defeat seems a bit simplistic, to say the least. Especially as CvC did consider leadership an important element, but one of a great many. Overall I think that I'm mostly of the same opinon as PhilR.

Firn

P.S: Interesting views on the motivations of Lincoln and on the circumstances leading to the war.

To me it seems that the states in the South had a stronger motivation to fight as many felt their way of life and perhaps their very existence threated by the policy changes of Lincoln. Their rapid (military) mobilization of the population could have surprised the latter and given the dubious and far-flung nature of the Army and the not too great interest in the North he might have ruled out a quick intervention.

Surferbeetle

12-21-2009, 08:58 PM

Lauding and blaming a single imagined factor (in this case CvC) for success or defeat seems a bit simplistic, to say the least.

Firn,

Either his work has relevance or it does not, we can't have it both ways. In my view CvC cannot be discarded, but his approach, in isolation, is not enough to accomplish the mission.

My answer is even the wisest of heads would have found it terribly difficult to steer Afghanistan toward a state fitting the (differing) political intention(s) of members of the coalition with so meager ressources and so great challanges.

One could say that this is the crux of the argument; what is the appropriate mix of centralization and decentralization needed to solve the problem. One possible answer is that all roads lead to a trained cadre of CvC devotees massed upon a FOB somewhere who orchestrate devastating moves and countermoves. Another possible answer consists of various small teams, (familiar with the works of Mao, Che, their Islamic counterparts, and others) who live and work among the populace. I would say from tactical and operational experience in the field that neither group can survive/thrive without the other and that our attempt to destroy wanna-be (counterfactual) Carthaginians requires unity of effort and a non-school solution (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fabian_strategy).

Best,

Steve

PhilR

12-21-2009, 10:06 PM

Surferbeetle,
We are all prisoners of our experience, both in operations and in learning. By your comments, it’s apparent that we have been exposed to Clausewitz’s writings in a different manner and have developed different perspectives.

-I’ll repeat that I don’t think that On War provides THE answer, or even many answers. I think that, in its relevant parts (and some of it is still mired in the 19th century), it provides a good description of likely relationships, characteristics to consider and a method with which to thoroughly examine history and contemplate operations. It’s not the book to take into operations with you. However, it’s a book to help you think about operations as you examine them in history or hindsight, then apply that gained knowledge to inform judgment in the future.

-I agree with you on the dangers of translation. I understand that what I’m reading and how I’m interpreting it may be a misreading of German and not what he meant. Frankly, that doesn’t matter to me. If trying to pursue “what Clausewitz meant” helps me consider the issues and from a different perspective and adds to the critical thinking process, then I welcome it. However, I guess I’m just too post-modern to feel that I am enslaved to his "intent." The book is a springboard.

-If any writing from the 19th century influenced US tactical doctrine in the Cold War, it is Jomini, with Lines of Operation, Decisive Points, etc. The main piece of On War deployed in this way is the Center of Gravity (COG). I think that it’s been hashed over and argued about ad infinitum. I think that’s a good thing if it helps build a better common understanding of a problem and its facets. However, I rarely have the patience to sit through COG discussions in planning when they become rote exercises of breaking down into Critical Requirements, Critical Capabilities, Critical Vulnerabilities, etc. as a means to fill in a matrix.

-I personally saw a lot of Clausewitz’s influence in Mao’s writings (whether by design or happenstance).

-I’ve been arguing Clausewitz in this forum because that is the stated subject of the thread. Its not the be all, end all. However, I’ll admit that if you agree with what he writes, you will find yourself disagreeing with other theorists who are more sure of the universality of their specific conclusions and statements on conflict.
s/f
Phil Ridderhof

Bob's World

12-22-2009, 01:52 AM

For the record, I think CvC is a valuable resource; so long as one takes into account what type of conflict one is dealing with when applying his theories. That is why I initiated this thread in the first place, because I had stumbled across a paper written by a CGSC student years ago that I felt took a worthy stab at doing that.

Ken mentions that people do stupid things when it comes to selecting their governance. Amen to that. But People are human. The faults of the masses does not somehow aquit leaders for their failures. Leadership failures are natural too. As is insurgency. These are all natural conditions of people living together collectively. That is why a study of human dynamics is every bit as helpful to understanding insurgency as a study of warfare is.

Bill mentions that invaders often cloak themselves as liberators, and that to the "liberated" populace that is a rather moot point. Exactly. Damn hard stunt to pull of to invade a country, create a new government there, and then have that populace thank you and recognize the legitimacy of that government as coming from them, and not you. All the same, that does not make us the COIN force, it just makes the job of the COIN force harder, and certainly makes our job as the FID force harder. All the more reason to avoid such situations all together where possible.

Good thoughts all.

Dayuhan

12-22-2009, 02:20 AM

I hold strongly to the belief that populaces cannot fail governments, that it is only governments that can fail the populace.

True enough, but the assumption of "a government" and "a populace" does not always hold together. Populaces are rarely uniform; they may in some cases be bitterly divided - particularly in countries where post-colonial borders have lumped traditional antagonists into a single "nation". One segment of a populace may find a government completely acceptable while another may find it utterly unacceptable. An insurgency does not of necessity consist of "a populace" fighting "a government"; it's as likely to result from one segment of a populace fighting another, while a government either takes sides (generally aggravating the problem) or looks on helplessly.

Any perception of populace-based warfare that assumes a monolithic populace will often be inconsistent with reality.

Bob's World

12-22-2009, 03:59 AM

True enough, but the assumption of "a government" and "a populace" does not always hold together. Populaces are rarely uniform; they may in some cases be bitterly divided - particularly in countries where post-colonial borders have lumped traditional antagonists into a single "nation". One segment of a populace may find a government completely acceptable while another may find it utterly unacceptable. An insurgency does not of necessity consist of "a populace" fighting "a government"; it's as likely to result from one segment of a populace fighting another, while a government either takes sides (generally aggravating the problem) or looks on helplessly.

Any perception of populace-based warfare that assumes a monolithic populace will often be inconsistent with reality.

"The populace" is a bit of a blanket term, but you are absolutely correct that assessment and engagement must be made and tailored respectively village by village, valley by valley, city by city, provence by provence, etc. No one size fits all.

But the fact that the populace is a mosaic of perspectives and issues does not change the dynamic between the governned and those who govern, it simply goes to the complexity of the challenge, and why good local governance is so important, and why good representation of local issues is so valuable to a central government, and why local representatives of the central government should be of, by and for the local communities they serve.

Be it the King of England granting Governorships to his political supporters and sending them to the Colonies to "represent" the populaces there; or be it Mr. Karzai doing the same in Afghanistan; the effects are both similar and predictable.

I developed a tool to help focus FID efforts in support of extending good governance in a more focused and effective way that is linked to a form of COG analysis that I think has some merit, and a version of it has been employed over the past couple of years on the ground with some success according to the commander employing it. I have posted a version of it before, but will repost the original model again here.

Bob's World

12-22-2009, 04:11 AM

A key point for any COG analysis for insurgency is to first appreciate this one point:

COIN: In insurgency the insurgent and the counterinsurgent share the same COG. Therefore a COG is not something to be either defeated nor defended, but rather something that one must compete for the support of.

(I developed a similar process for focusing CT efforts, but that is another story altogether.)

Oh and I realize nothing sparks a good debate better than COG, so I will simply say that I attempted to stay true to the principles espoused by CvC; I took into account the good work of Dr. Strange and modified it to make more useful sense to me; and read, but largely ignored the highly dogmatic approach currently captured in US Joint Pub Doctrine as being for the most part unhelpful.

My belief is that neither random acts of charity, nor massive programs of governmental effectiveness are partiularly helpful (acceptable, suitable, feasible) in a COIN / FID effort. That a focused approach is required that is rooted in grass roots assessments.

Bill Moore

12-22-2009, 06:51 AM

Posted by Dayuhan,
True enough, but the assumption of "a government" and "a populace" does not always hold together. Populaces are rarely uniform; they may in some cases be bitterly divided - particularly in countries where post-colonial borders have lumped traditional antagonists into a single "nation". One segment of a populace may find a government completely acceptable while another may find it utterly unacceptable. An insurgency does not of necessity consist of "a populace" fighting "a government"; it's as likely to result from one segment of a populace fighting another, while a government either takes sides (generally aggravating the problem) or looks on helplessly.

Any perception of populace-based warfare that assumes a monolithic populace will often be inconsistent with reality.

No truer words have been written. I think we in the West tend to oversimplify our world into a bi-polar world (them and us), or in some cases a tri-polar world (we're helping them against them) while fully knowing that isn't the reality, yet we still make decisions based on our simplistic view that fits nicely in models and on power point slides.

I don't buy the argument that all insurgencies are due to government failure. There are certainly cases where this is true, but there are also many other examples where it isn't. There are (and have been) wars amongst people based upon hate and greed that have little or nothing to do with the government or governments that reign over this hostile human terrain. These conflicts emerge regardless of how well the government runs its courts, picks up the trash and provides ample drinking water. In many cases the government will be unable to do anything but apply military force to stop the violence (or to choose a side and join in the killing as Serbia and others have done). To simply assume the populace is the COG can be misleading, because in many, if not most, cases there is no monolithic population to win over.

The norm is we pick a side, and that often involves picking a partner or partners (coalition). Most recently we have picked Karzai (a lame horse if there ever was one) in Afghanistan and the Shi'a and Kurds in Iraq. A segment of the population is now oppressed and dishonored, scared, and many times displaced, they are not liberated, their grievances are not addressed, so in fact we have set the conditions for continued conflict.

Ethnic wars, class wars, street gangs fighting for the same drug market, or foreign sponsored violence within another's borders, etc., demonstrate that violence is not always tied to ineffective governance. This is also true with insurgencies, but they are always tied in various forms to competing agendas. As Thucydides wrote, war is driven by fear, honor, and interest. This still seems to ring true today.

The populace can only be a COG if you pursue a population centric approach. Very easy to say, very hard to do in a foreign culture where we push our values upon a culture that doesn't accept them. For us to be effective at population centric approaches we need to learn to be morally flexible, which is just as important as being culturally aware. It doesn't really matter if you understand a tribal method for enforcing local laws, if you disagree with their due process and attempt to change it.

We'll continue to harp the population centric approach and talk to one another about it until we think we're pro's at it, but all this time we'll refuse to really listen to the locals (the population) to see what they're telling us. We'll them we're too busy working on models to determine what they need. Go back to your village, and once we figure it out we'll come riding into town on our white horses to save the day. It is the American way of war. You're slide simply supports that.

Perhaps an acceptable outcome in Afghanistan is within grasp if we would just listen to the Afghan people and not the Karzai government, but I suspect Iraq will be another matter altogether, as border nations can and likely will provide sufficient bad influence to keep fanning the flames of instability.

Dayuhan

12-22-2009, 07:07 AM

As complex as this diagram is, it seems to leave out some key problems. Most prominently, I don't see any recognition of the presence of the host nation government, national and local, and where it stands in the process of converting concepts to interagency tasks. Whose agencies are we talking about? Who controls them, and what influence can they reasonably be expected to wield?

When we look for irritants that lead some to oppose the status quo, even to the extent of initiating or supporting insurgency, we also have to recognize that there are likely to be others that have a powerful stake in sustaining that same status quo. Those others may in some cases be attached to a government we support, parroting our rhetoric in our presence and pursuing their own agendas in our absence.

The situations we are dealing with are anything but simple: there are national and local governments, often working in quite different directions. There are armies, police forces, independent militias, different insurgent groups; in each case the any given subset of these institutions is likely to have its allegiance determined by expedience. Cutting across all of these there will be clan or tribal affiliations and business/financial connections. All through this there are agendas, institutional, personal, and often radically opposed to one another, being pursued by people and groups who are willing to use violence, or to try and manipulate a foreign power (often us) to get what they want. As an intervening power we have our own agenda, and compelling as it may seem to us, it's likely that nobody else in the picture gives a damn about it, and that anyone who seems to be right on the page with us is probably working us to their own advantage.

It gets sloppy, to say the least.

Bob's World

12-22-2009, 08:15 AM

"How" the things one does to extend good govnernance to the populace is essential, but that belongs to the executor. What one does requires a degee of management that I feel is currently lacking or misguided in a age where the majority position falling out of Iraq-based experience is to focus on "effectiveness" of governance to solve insurgency.

This is just a tool, some will see utility in it, others won't. For those who get fidgitty when someone deviates from doctrine, here are the key areas where I intentionally ignored the doctrinal approach and why:

1. No friendly vs enemey COGs to be defended and attacked. Instead a recogniation that in true COIN it is a competition to gain the support of a single (though complex, and multi-faceted) populace COG.

2. Doctrine has action officers cook up a random list of CRs that they think are related to the Critical Capbabilities of the COG. I find this illogical. I pick a COG because of the Crtiical Capabilities that come from that COG; but to defeat a COG I must go after its inputs, not its outputs; so my approach is to focus CRs on what the INPUTS are to the COG; or in this case, what are the elements of governance that a government can employ to support its populace. Also for CRs, instead of allowing every task force staff to dream up their own random list, I recommend that you pick one general, acceptable construct. I Chose PMESII for it's wide acceptance and applicability, recognizing that focus comes later in the process, and that CRs merely set the framework.

3. Next, the doctrinal approach comes up with a completely different list of factors from CRs when developing CVs. If all your task forces were on a separate page at CR, they are definitely in separate worlds by the time they all generate their own ideas on what CVs are. IMO this aspect of COG doctrine is why so many dismiss it as an interesting, but largely unhelpful, intellectual process that gives Majors and LTCs something to debate about (for when they get bored debating the definitions of COIN, UW, etc...) So, to me, as I am trying to build a tool to refine my targeting, I see that a CV is a CR that is also vulnerable; so it is a subset of CRs. Each TF should be developing their own lists of CVs from the CR list for each definable populace area in their AOR. Some elements may be common to all, some will be unique. The key is to assess and think about it.

4. The next level of refinement is the HVT. This is where for each of your targeted communities you refine your list of CVs by felshing out specific categories within each of the broad PMESII categories. At this point you will begin to get a pretty good idea as to what type and amounts of funding you will need, and who might be the best providers to do the type of work required.

5. HVIs are the final refinement. This is the list of specific projects. At this point that platoon leader on the ground, or that USAID worker, etc should be able to show how their project maps all the way from HVI-HVT-CV-CR-COG as part of a comprehensive, yet focused scheme of engagement. Assessments must continuously refine this list and prioritize communities and projects for maximum effect.

Its a process. If it helps, use it, if not don't worry about it. If you employ some variant of this and it helps or doesn't, I'd love to hear about it as I continue to refine my thoughts on such things.

Dayuhan

12-22-2009, 11:29 AM

5. HVIs are the final refinement. This is the list of specific projects. At this point that platoon leader on the ground, or that USAID worker, etc should be able to show how their project maps all the way from HVI-HVT-CV-CR-COG as part of a comprehensive, yet focused scheme of engagement. Assessments must continuously refine this list and prioritize communities and projects for maximum effect.

Its a process. If it helps, use it, if not don't worry about it. If you employ some variant of this and it helps or doesn't, I'd love to hear about it as I continue to refine my thoughts on such things.

Again, though, where is the host nation government in this process? Is it just US Military, USAID, US Agencies involved?

If the key problem is, say, the lack of a road or a bridge or an irrigation system, it might be possible to address this with a project funded by AID and protected by the military, driven purely by US involvement. Rarely is it so simple. What if your driver of conflict is, for example, conflict over land between a migrant and an indigenous population? Or central government support for a regional governor that a segment of the population considers to be irretrievably hostile to their interests? Or a government's desire to extract resources that a portion of the population regards as theirs? Or a perception that government is taking sides in a longstanding clan or tribal dispute? Or... obviously this could go on and on, but the point is simple: more often than not the problems driving insurgency are not things that one set of Americans can draw up a list of and whistle in a group of American agencies to neatly solve. More often than not elements of host country government will be neck deep in the problem; they may not be at all sympathetic with the solutions we may propose. There may be a number of actors on the ground with conflicting agendas. Some of them may have agendas quite conrary to ours. The idea that "we" - by definition outsiders and not direct parties to the insurgency - can simply walk into a situation, identify "the problem", and develop a program among our agencies to solve it seems to leave out some realities that are almost always present in these situations.

Bob's World

12-22-2009, 12:36 PM

Again, though, where is the host nation government in this process? Is it just US Military, USAID, US Agencies involved?

If the key problem is, say, the lack of a road or a bridge or an irrigation system, it might be possible to address this with a project funded by AID and protected by the military, driven purely by US involvement. Rarely is it so simple. What if your driver of conflict is, for example, conflict over land between a migrant and an indigenous population? Or central government support for a regional governor that a segment of the population considers to be irretrievably hostile to their interests? Or a government's desire to extract resources that a portion of the population regards as theirs? Or a perception that government is taking sides in a longstanding clan or tribal dispute? Or... obviously this could go on and on, but the point is simple: more often than not the problems driving insurgency are not things that one set of Americans can draw up a list of and whistle in a group of American agencies to neatly solve. More often than not elements of host country government will be neck deep in the problem; they may not be at all sympathetic with the solutions we may propose. There may be a number of actors on the ground with conflicting agendas. Some of them may have agendas quite conrary to ours. The idea that "we" - by definition outsiders and not direct parties to the insurgency - can simply walk into a situation, identify "the problem", and develop a program among our agencies to solve it seems to leave out some realities that are almost always present in these situations.

HN must be out front. Sorry not to state something so obvious. In fact, best if the HN is doing this all by itself, all the time, and never requiring any outside assistance what so ever.

Which goes to my points that COIN is no more and no less than the continuous process of governance by the HN for its own populace. And only when it loses touch with its duties to its populace does it find itself facing an insurgency. Outside parties come to such troubled states either to protect their interests there (FID) or to create interests there (UW). It is a continuous process in every country, everywhere, everyday. We only notice when it goes kinetic and somehow involves us.

This is why I caution severely any (and this is most) who think they are doing COIN when they go to another's country. To take such a perspective on your role is to set yourself on a course of inappropriate actions and mission creep. And I don't see the fact that one invaded and removed the existing government as an excuse unless you also annexed the country and claimed it as your own and intend to keep it as such. Otherwise, you are back in the FID role again and need to work diligently to not take on too much of the role of the sovereign, nor to create too much of a perception that the new government draws its legitmacy more from you the invader than from the populace of that land. Tricky business all around.

12-22-2009, 06:39 PM

I think I understand Bob's World's position about the onus being in the government to provide for its citizens. However, this requirement applies only under certain of the many mythologies that explain the formation of nation states, to my mind most prominently in the social contract myth, like those of Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Jean Jacques Rousseau, so prevalent in the Western world.

Other possible explanations for the origin and function for government exist. One might check out Clifford Geertz' Negara for example. Or the Chinese Legalist position of Han Fei Tzu(not to mention the neo-Confucianism of Chuang Tzu or Lao-Tzu's Taoism) [apologies for not using the latest and greatest transliterations of Chinese names].

And, the Western myths aren't univocal. Revolution against a bad instantiation of the great Leviathan/government is not allowable according to Hobbes, but is according to Locke and, arguably, is required in Rousseau's version.

I see paternalism at work here: telling people what is good for them and then trying to force them to do it. Maybe a better course of action might be generated by first figuring out what the people whose lives we are trying to improve really want to improve those lives. Perhaps that would be a better way to proceed than ramming some external conception of good governance down their throats.

Bob's World

12-23-2009, 02:05 AM

I've never recommended paternalism, or controlling of the populace by government, but always that government exists to serve the populace, and that when they are weak in that role discontent will build, particualrly when it manifests in a building sense of injustice or disrespect among a significant (not by size necessarily) segment of the society, who also perceives that they have no legitimate recourse.

Most governments need to take a 12-step program when faced with such blowback from their populace, and step one is to say "Hello, my name is the government of X, and I have a problem." Way to easy to rationalize your problems and blame those around you as you go down in flames...

Dayuhan

12-24-2009, 06:05 AM

HN must be out front. Sorry not to state something so obvious. In fact, best if the HN is doing this all by itself, all the time, and never requiring any outside assistance what so ever.

Which goes to my points that COIN is no more and no less than the continuous process of governance by the HN for its own populace.

Having this same discussion on another thread, I guess that's not too unusual.

It may be obvious that the HN government must be out front, but it seems equally obvious to me that if the HN government had the will and capacity to be there, there wouldn't be any need for our presence. If we're in the picture, the HN government probably lacks that will and capacity in the first place.

This is why I caution severely any (and this is most) who think they are doing COIN when they go to another's country. To take such a perspective on your role is to set yourself on a course of inappropriate actions and mission creep. And I don't see the fact that one invaded and removed the existing government as an excuse unless you also annexed the country and claimed it as your own and intend to keep it as such. Otherwise, you are back in the FID role again and need to work diligently to not take on too much of the role of the sovereign, nor to create too much of a perception that the new government draws its legitmacy more from you the invader than from the populace of that land. Tricky business all around.

A very tricky business. In our current case, the perception that the host government draws its legitimacy and existence from us is already there. We choose between trying to take on responsibility ourselves, and possibly undermining the government we wish to succeed, or passing responsibility to a government that often has neither the will nor the capacity to use that responsibility to achieve what we believe to be the necessary goals. It's a thin line to walk and in some cases there may be little or no space between those poles.

Bob's World

12-24-2009, 06:38 AM

Having this same discussion on another thread, I guess that's not too unusual.

It may be obvious that the HN government must be out front, but it seems equally obvious to me that if the HN government had the will and capacity to be there, there wouldn't be any need for our presence. If we're in the picture, the HN government probably lacks that will and capacity in the first place.

A very tricky business. In our current case, the perception that the host government draws its legitimacy and existence from us is already there. We choose between trying to take on responsibility ourselves, and possibly undermining the government we wish to succeed, or passing responsibility to a government that often has neither the will nor the capacity to use that responsibility to achieve what we believe to be the necessary goals. It's a thin line to walk and in some cases there may be little or no space between those poles.

As a LT in West Germany, at the end of a 6-week Graf-Hohenfels rotation there would be long lines of tanks and APCs across the motorpool, waiting to get on the washrack so that they could be cleaned and loaded onto the train back to Mannheim.

The warning was always "never cut between the vehicles, either go around, or go over, but never between." Everyone understood the dangers of getting between two such dangerous forces, yet most also rationalized that getting crushed was something that happened to others who weren't nearly as capable of crafty about executing such a maneuver as they were.

Yet every so often another soldier would be crushed or cut in half giving it a go. The benfits were obvious, and the odds low, thought the consequences high.

Nations intervening in the insurgencies of others is very similar in many respects. And I am sure all are quite surprised when the find themselves suddenly, and often fatally, trapped by the decision.

Dayuhan

12-25-2009, 02:10 AM

Nations intervening in the insurgencies of others is very similar in many respects. And I am sure all are quite surprised when the find themselves suddenly, and often fatally, trapped by the decision.

This is certainly true, as we learned (one hopes) in the cold war. It's worth noting, though, that our current engagements in Iraq and Afghanistan do not really fall into this category. In neither case did we intervene in the insurgency of another. These were cases where we intervened to remove governments that we found distasteful. In both cases the removal was relatively straightforward; the difficulty came in the aftermath.

Removing a government creates a vacuum, and nature abhors a vacuum, in politics as much as in physics. We built our interventions around the assumption that once national governments acceptable to us and the international community were installed, the vacuum would be filled. That assumption proved overly optimistic. In my view what we see in Iraq and Afghanistan is less insurgency than continued armed competition over the right to fill the vacuum left by the removal of the previous governments. We may have declared that vacuum filled by the installation of the governments that now exist, but that declaration has not halted the competition.

Bob's World

12-25-2009, 05:06 AM

These things take time to sort out. I actually was thinking about my poor governance definition when I woke up this morning (I know, sadly this is in fact what I was thinking about as I rolled out of the rack at about 0430 to hit the gym on a Christmas morning...)

I decided to modify the first part of my test. I am keeping "disrespect" and "injustice" as major causal factors of insurgency, but am dropping one I was never really satisfied with of "outrage" and replacing it with "illigitimacy." When a populace feels that it is being disrespected by its governance, receiving injustice from its governance, or that its governance is illigitimate; AND they feel they have no legitimate means of recourse to address the problem; then you have "poor governance" and causation for insurgency.

This is much better.

So, going to Iraq and Afghanistan; our invasions may have done much to address issues in those countries prior in regards to injustice and disrespect; but, and this is the big but, how does one overcome the perceptions of illigitimacy that are the natural side product of any externally driven change of governance?? In the near term, not much.

This is why I think the key to success in Afghanistan lies in the Loya Jirga. While any government enabled by the coalition will lack legitimacy; and any government formed by western-style voting coupled with Afghan-style manipulation will lack legitimacy; the Loya Jirga is well recognized across the populace as legitimate. We must tap into this source of legitimacy to really have a chance to free the government here from the stench of Western illigitimacy.

The issue becomes one of control. Western policy is rooted in exerting control of outcomes (or not recognizing outcomes that are outside that control and contrary to Western desires). This is the catch-22. We cannot enable the legitimacy requried to strike at the roots of the insurgency without first relinquishing control of both the process and the outcomes.

Do we have the moral balls to do the right thing? I don't know. I fear that we don't, but I hope that we do.

slapout9

12-25-2009, 05:31 AM

Bill Moore

12-25-2009, 06:00 AM

Bob,

Merry Christmas!

I have been dwelling on the political-military nexux of conflict also, and I'm finding it difficult to identify any motivations for violence that I can't tie to what Thucydides identified as the motivation for war (or conflict): fear, honor, and interest

Ethnic hatred is usually fear, but can touch interests and honor

Economic viability is interest

Disrespect is honor

If a government can address their constituents fears, maintain their honor and look after their varied interests I would call that legitimacy and suspect there would be relative peace. This is not easy, or even possible when there are numerous warring groups with conflicting interests, pride and fear abounds. In this case, the government can't address the issue (I guess you could call it root causes) and it will likely boil over into violence.

I think our challenge is identifying ways to establish relative stability without depending on government legitimacy, but to that will require substantial changes in the international and our system on how we respond (to include forms of what will look like colonialism, redrawing borders, and in extreme cases warring against select populations when it is determined that they are hopefully hostile and it they're a danger to high value national interests).

I'm sure there is a better way to put it, but legitimacy is a complex condition that is constantly shifting and Thucydides seems to me to have captured a lot of it. If he is right, then are situations where we will have to fight, and hoping to obtain peace through digging wells, building schools, etc. will remain a pipe dream.

Bob's World

12-25-2009, 07:24 AM

John

01-16-2010, 09:28 PM

Late reply, I have been out of the net. Concur with your comments. However, I submit that careful analysis must be conducted to ensure that we do not misconstrue aims and objectives between political and ideological based insurgencies.

Food for thought perhaps or you may leave you famished.

jmm99

01-16-2010, 09:59 PM

Hi John & welcome,

As to this:

However, I submit that careful analysis must be conducted to ensure that we do not misconstrue aims and objectives between political and ideological based insurgencies.

What is your distinction between a politically-based insugency and an ideologically-based insugency ?

Yes, by all means keep the diet you feed me simple - a couple of examples of each would suffice.

Oh, and, another question: Do you feel that distinction is important to the practitioner at the basic local tactical level; and, if so, why ?

Regards

Mike

William F. Owen

01-17-2010, 06:12 AM

What is your distinction between a politically-based insugency and an ideologically-based insugency ?

Jmm99, Concur. Isn't politics born of ideology? Wars can only be caused by politics. There are simply no other causes. What the politics is about may differ, but ALL War is ALWAYS political.

John

01-17-2010, 06:35 AM

Mike -

Thanks for the comments. Up front...I continue to wrestle with the distinction. Here are a couple of ideological based insurgent group ideas.... arguably religion could enter the discussion. I say the Ku Klux Klan, under the auspices of racism perhaps, but also ideological. Additionally, al Qaeda, depending on distinction, is ideological. Honestly, I believe the distinction, in the context of al Qaeda, is subtle if we agree that their strategic endstate is restoration of the Caliphate. Here is my thought, if one labels AQ, in a broader context as terrorists, than one could argue they are waging a war against governments to expand their ideology. Yet, that ideology is established to restore a political model.

I do believe a distinction must be made if it provides the practitioner a context for interaction with the local populace. Additionally, the distinction allows tactical units to differentiate between who they are "fighting": hardcore insurgents, criminal factions, accidental insurgents, etc.

What say you? I am always eager to explore ideas.

Best
John

Surferbeetle

01-17-2010, 06:46 AM

Brother Wilf,

You know my thoughts on CvC (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_von_Clausewitz#Principal_ideas), IMHO he focuses exclusively upon only one variable of a multivariate equation, and so I question your CvC inspired assertion that we can reduce the causative reasons for war to just a political variable. In my experience and studies Security and Economics variables are inseparably interrelated with Politics/Governance variables.

Whooptie...let's look further than just my opinion or yours and see if a holistic approach to war is quantifiable/politics can be disaggregated from the data set that describes war.

Political Instability Task Force (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_Instability_Task_Force)

Political Instability Task Force (formerly known as State Failure Task Force) was a U.S. government-sponsored research project to build a database on major domestic political conflicts leading to state failures.

The project was begun as an unclassified study that was commissioned to a group of academics (particularly active was the Center for Global Policy at George Mason University) by the Central Intelligence Agency's Directorate of Intelligence in response to a request from senior U.S. policy makers in 1994. A similar project (Project Camelot) generated much controversy in the 1960s.

The task force repeated this analysis for global and regional data sets and produced fairly consistent findings. The three statistically significant variables most often associated with political upheavals were:
* regime type,
* international trade and
* infant mortality.

Steve

William F. Owen

01-17-2010, 06:51 AM

I do believe a distinction must be made if it provides the practitioner a context for interaction with the local populace. Additionally, the distinction allows tactical units to differentiate between who they are "fighting": hardcore insurgents, criminal factions, accidental insurgents, etc.

What say you? I am always eager to explore ideas.

OK, so why the distinction? How does that distinction help you set forth the policy? I submit that the difference makes no differences when it comes to actions.

There is no such thing as an "accidental guerrilla" - it's an misnomer based on poor understanding and a worse description. They are fighting for a political purpose. They have a political aim that = "you go away and leave us alone." You may not have intended to upset them, but you did. That does not make their actions "accidental," or the fact that they oppose you "accidental". Replace "accidental guerilla" with "Stupid Policy" and we can have sensible discussions.

Yes, your response should be in line with the policy, but your policy can never usefully distinguish between "ideology" and "politics" - eg: go talk to a Right Wing Christian Republican, or a very Left Wing Democrat.

....and the Klu Klux Klan have political objectives, as did Malcolm-X.

William F. Owen

01-17-2010, 07:03 AM

Surferbeetle

01-17-2010, 07:35 AM

Brother Beetle,

What is politics? Generally, every political armed group in the world conforms to a CvC trinity of People, Leadership and Armed Force. - so yes,
"Security and Economics variables are inseparably interrelated with Politics/Governance variables" - I agree. It's all politics.
Security is a political condition, just as much as a "social condition." Economies require governments of similar bodies. When those governments fail, so does all else and alternate policies flow in to fill the vacuum.

I think we may be in agreement.

Brother Wilf,

As always, I greatly appreciate the clarifying discussions on CvC and war.

I believe that we are in agreement with respect to the nature of war = man's inhumanity to man. From where I stand and try to describe War it seems to me that it is composed of many different types of warfare methods. I hope that we are in agreement that TTP are types of warfare and infinitely variable, i.e. Conventional, COIN, Financial, Nuclear, Chemical, Biological, etc.

Wikipedia gives us the following definition for Politics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics)

Politics is a process by which groups of people make decisions. The term is generally applied to behavior within civil governments, but politics has been observed in all human group interactions, including corporate, academic and religious institutions. It consists of "social relations involving authority or power"[1] and refers to the regulation of a political unit,[2] and to the methods and tactics used to formulate and apply policy.[3]

However when solving a multivariate equation such as war = politics + economics + security = 1 + 1 + 1 we can not assume that war = politics. In this simple example politics = war - economics - security....

In summary, a politician does not equal a loaf of bread/cake (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let_them_eat_cake), a secure city block, or a war...

Regards,

Steve

William F. Owen

01-17-2010, 10:55 AM

I hope that we are in agreement that TTP are types of warfare and infinitely variable, i.e. Conventional, COIN, Financial, Nuclear, Chemical, Biological, etc.

Abso-F**king-lutely! What might work in irregular warfare might fail in regular and vice versa. Context, context and context.

However when solving a multivariate equation such as war = politics + economics + security = 1 + 1 + 1 we can not assume that war = politics.
Agreed, but I would merely submit that ALL WARs are the result of political policies, be they being promoted, contested or failing. "I want your land/food/water/women/hamster grazing rights, for my me and my people" or "I want you to worship my G*d," is a statement of policy.

jmm99

01-17-2010, 09:43 PM

and your answer to my "recon probe". Taking its two parts separately:

from John
Up front...I continue to wrestle with the distinction. Here are a couple of ideological based insurgent group ideas.... arguably religion could enter the discussion. I say the Ku Klux Klan, under the auspices of racism perhaps, but also ideological. Additionally, al Qaeda, depending on distinction, is ideological. Honestly, I believe the distinction, in the context of al Qaeda, is subtle if we agree that their strategic endstate is restoration of the Caliphate. Here is my thought, if one labels AQ, in a broader context as terrorists, than one could argue they are waging a war against governments to expand their ideology. Yet, that ideology is established to restore a political model.

The 20th Century Klan was very political - e.g., in the 1920s, it heavily influenced a few state goverments and many local governments; in the 50-60s, some local governments; and we have David Duke (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Duke), the new face of the Klan.

As to AQ, it is very much political cuz, in its Salafist ideology, religion and politics are intertwined, and AQ is very religious (to the extreme of dogmatic rigidity). The political struggle and the military struggle are all part of its campaigns based on a "common Jihad" (defensive jihad and offensive jihad - the "Lesser Jihad"), and the more personalized struggle (the non-violent "Greater Jihad"). This follows (but more violently) the 1939 construct of Maududi - presented by JMM in simplistic form, You're moving in the right direction (http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showpost.php?p=91203&postcount=36), and agreed as to their substance by COL Jones, To me these points are important and true (http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showpost.php?p=91207&postcount=38). Without getting into it, Bob and I also agree about the problems caused by over-obsession and over-reaction to AQ.

In general, I see problems in trying to separate insurgencies into political and ideological. A primary reason is that the ideology of the leadership may not be reflected in the "Cause" which is the subject matter of the insugency's "Narrative", as explained here, Distinguishing "Causes" from "causes" (http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showpost.php?p=91233&postcount=22); and also COL Jones, Agreed as to what a cause is (http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showpost.php?p=91253&postcount=26), and Marct, (untitled) (http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showpost.php?p=91288&postcount=31).

-----------------------------
You have briefly met Wilf and Surferbeetle (aka Commandant Steve of the ad hoc SWC Civil Affairs Team, an engineer who dabbled in biochem; I, a biochem who dabbled in engineering, and later a lawyer - a label shared with COL Jones who went on to better things).

Having gone back and forth with both of them, publically and privately, I'd say there is much truth in Wif's comment:

I think we may be in agreement.

and we certainly are in the same boat. The differences come from who should be pulling the oars, starboard and port - and how to describe the oars.

As to all of our "oar descriptions", we sometimes "lack rigour" (a Wilfimism) in our terminology and so we have to work toward at least "working definitions" (fully explained by Marct, IIRC, somewhere at SWC).

As to the starboard and port issues, most all recognize that wars involve a political struggle and military struggle (political effort and military effort in less Maoist terms), in greater or lesser degrees depending on the armed conflict.

From Wilf's standpoint, the military effort and the political effort should be very separate (in who), but co-ordinated (in how and what) - e.g., the British experience, Malaya, etc., following Callwell and Kitson naming just two.

Because of US doctrine and (frankly) capabilities, Steve the Surfer and JMM see both the political and military efforts as involving the military (following a modified Mao-Giap approach - see John McCuen's, The Art of Counter-Revolutionary War, reprint available from Hailer Publishing).

Which brings us to the practitioner at the tactical level.

----------------------------
I'm going to split this into parts

end part 1

jmm99

01-17-2010, 10:19 PM

I'd say that extensive knowledge of the "causes" of the insugency, the "ideology" of the insurgent leadership, and the "ultimate political causes" deciding on the armed conflict, are generally not important to the local level practioner. The "Causes" stated in the competing revolutionary and counter-revolutionary "Narratives" are important - and, fortunately, can be determined much more easily than questions of "Causation" - see Marct, (untitled) (http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showpost.php?p=91288&postcount=31). How important depends on what the local practioner is doing.

Let's leave aside the practioner in the GPF, and such things as SFA; and instead focus on the areas of Special Operations Warfare, which AQ also employs as a flip side of the coin (not a pun cuz we are dealing more with a generalized concept of unconventional warfare and counter-unconventional warfare, not necessarily counter-insurgency).

Here are the areas, from Robert Martinage, Special Operations Forces: Future Challenges and Opportunities (http://www.csbaonline.org/4Publications/PubLibrary/R.20081117.Special_Operation_/R.20081117.Special_Operation_.pdf) (CSBA 17 Nov 2008), Chapter 1. A Primer on Special Operations Forces, pp.28-30 (pdf) (simply cuz he sums each area with doctrinal refs, so JMM doesn't have to re-invent the wheel). Brief comments re: AQ after the quotes.

The Department of Defense defines special operations as “operations conducted in hostile, denied, or politically sensitive environments to achieve military, diplomatic, informational, and/or economic objectives employing military capabilities for which there is no broad conventional force requirement.”[13] They differ from conventional operations in the “degree of physical and political risk, operational techniques, mode of employment, independence from friendly support, and dependence on detailed operational intelligence and indigenous assets.”[14]

13. Joint Publication 1-02, “Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms,” as amended through May 30, 2008, p. 516. Hereafter sometimes cited as Joint Pub 1-02.

14. Joint Pub 1-02, p. 517.

Since AQ is a near-global pariah, its operations must of necessity occur in "hostile, denied, or politically sensitive environments".

More specifically, SOF are currently organized, trained, and equipped to conduct nine core tasks.

> Civil Affairs (CA): CA missions create a link between the commander and the local population or government by providing key social and governmental services when the local government cannot; by keeping civilians safely away from combat operations; by establishing programs to build trust between the US military forces and the local population; and by supporting information operations.[15]

15. Joint Publication 3-57.1: Joint Doctrine for Civil Affairs, p. II-2. Hereafter sometimes cited as Joint Pub 3-57.1

It is well to remember that UBL was primarily a civil affairs officer (engineer) vs the SovComs in Astan.

> Counterproliferation (CP): CP missions are offensive actions to“locate, seize, destroy, render safe, capture or recover weapons of mass destruction (WMD).”[16] Counterproliferation includes actions taken to prevent the development or proliferation of WMD.

16. Joint Pub 3-57.1., p. II-10.

AQ, so far mostly unsuccessfully, has a tasked mission to obtain WMD.

> Counterterrorism (CT): CT missions are offensive actions to “prevent, deter, preempt and respond to terrorism.”[17] They include intelligence operations; attacks against terrorist networks and infrastructures; hostage rescue; recovery of sensitive material from terrorist organizations; and non-kinetic activities such as information and psychological operations designed to decrease the influence of terrorist groups and their ideologies.

17. Joint Pub 1-02, p. 131.

Terrorism is a state of mind, in which I don't indulge. But my term, Transnational Violent Non-State Actors (TVNSA), simply does not have the ring of "(expletive) terrorist ba$tards" (my friend Todd) or "criminal scum" (my friend Ted). So, counter-AQ and AQ are the two sides of this coin currently - with room for more pond scum to be added. ;)

> Direct Action (DA ): DA missions are short-duration strikes and other small-scale offensive actions to seize, destroy, capture, exploit, recover, or damage designated targets of strategic or operational significance, employing specialized military capabilities. Direct action differs from conventional raids by the value of the target, the politically sensitive or hostile nature of the environment, and the need for highly discriminatory applications of force.[18]

18. Joint Pub 3-57.1, p. II-4. See also Joint Pub 1-02, p. 161.

AQ's direct actions include 9/11.

> Foreign Internal Defense (FID ): FID missions build the capacity of partner nations to provide for their own internal security. SOF’s primary contribution to FID is to organize, train, advise and assist host-nation (HN) military and paramilitary forces. It includes SOF support to any programs taken by another government to free and protect its society from subversion, lawlessness, and insurgency.[19]

19. Joint Pub 1-02, p. 214 .

AQ does it (not for nations, but for groups) - see UW.

> Information Operations (IO): The integrated employment of the core capabilities of electronic warfare, computer network operations, psychological operations, military deception, and operations security to influence, disrupt, corrupt or usurp adversarial human and automated decision-making while protecting the joint force’s information capabilities.[20]

20. Joint Pub 1-02, p. 261.

> Psychological Operations (PSYO PS): Planned operations to convey selected information to foreign governments, organizations, groups, and individuals in order to influence their emotions, motives, objective reasoning, and ultimately their behavior. The purpose of psychological operations is to induce or reinforce foreign attitudes and behavior that are favorable to US interests. Typically, this is achieved through the dissemination of information by dedicated PSYOP units.[21]

21. Joint Pub 1-02, p. 44 ; and Joint Pub 3-57.1, p. II-11.

AQ does this well.

> Special Reconnaissance (SR): Reconnaissance and surveillance actions conducted to collect or verify information of strategic or operational significance, employing military capabilities and tactics, techniques, and procedures not normally found in conventional forces.[22]

22. Joint Pub 1-02, p. 512; and Joint Pub 3-57.1, p. II-6.

AQ also does this.

> Unconventional Warfare (UW): UW operations are conducted by, with, or through irregular forces in support of a resistance movement, an insurgency, or conventional military operations. Unconventional warfare encompasses a broad spectrum of military and paramilitary operations, including: guerrilla warfare, subversion, sabotage, intelligence activities, and unconventional assisted recovery. While unconventional warfare is traditionally considered to be aimed at the destabilization or overthrow of a state, it can also be conducted against non-state actors such as transnational terrorist groups. In that application, irregular forces can be controlled by US forces directly in permissive or semi-permissive environments, and indirectly in hostile or politically sensitive areas.[23]

23. Field Manual 3-05.130, Army Special Operations Forces Unconventional Warfare; and Joint Pub 1-02, p. 572.

Since most everything that AQ does takes place in denied areas, AQ can be said to be waging unconventional warfare covering a larger scope in activities than our UW definition. More to our stricter definition, AQ supports larger groups (insurgencies), smaller groups (e.g., Madrid and London train bombings), and even individuals where the support is indirect and moral only (MAJ Hasan), located in what to AQ is "enemy territory".

Following this old advice:

Know your enemy and know yourself; in a hundred battles, you will never be defeated. When you are ignorant of the enemy but know yourself, your chances of winning or losing are equal. If ignorant both of your enemy and of yourself, you are sure to be defeated in every battle.
—Sun Tzu

I'd like to know as much about my enemy as possible; but for a tactical level practitioner, far more important things (than his politics and ideology) probably take precedence - depending on what he is doing.

As Wilf just said:

Context, context and context.

All incoming is welcome

Mike

Surferbeetle

01-18-2010, 02:13 AM

Here are the areas, from Robert Martinage, Special Operations Forces: Future Challenges and Opportunities (http://www.csbaonline.org/4Publications/PubLibrary/R.20081117.Special_Operation_/R.20081117.Special_Operation_.pdf) (CSBA 17 Nov 2008), Chapter 1. A Primer on Special Operations Forces, pp.28-30 (pdf) (simply cuz he sums each area with doctrinal refs, so JMM doesn't have to re-invent the wheel). Brief comments re: AQ after the quotes.

Mike,

Very nice, the Sun Tzu/Judo approach to your analysis is appreciated and worth reflecting upon.

I have been following your analysis across politics/religion (very difficult if not impossible to separate in some parts of the ME, and the US for that matter), causation and motivation over the last few days/months and it has sparked some thoughts on demographics, coherence of a group (both senses of the word), and capabilities. How does understanding the concept of value chain analysis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_chain_analysis) apply to analyzing political/religious groups? Here are three links that might add to the discussion.

Microtargeting (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microtargeting) by Wikipedia

Microtargeting is the use by political parties and election campaigns of direct marketing datamining techniques that involve predictive market segmentation (aka cluster analysis). It is used by United States Republican and Democratic political parties and candidates to track individual voters and identify potential supporters.

Microtargeting's tactics rely on transmitting a tailored message to a subgroup of the electorate on the basis of unique information about that subgroup.

From FP Limbo World (http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/01/04/limbo_world): Dispatches from countries which do not exist by GRAEME WOOD

This trend is a mess waiting to happen. The first worry is that these quasi-states' continued existence, and occasional luck, emboldens other secessionists. Imagine a world where every independence movement with a crate of Kalashnikovs thinks it can become the new Kurdistan, if only it hires the right lobbyists in Washington and opens a realistic-looking Ministry of Foreign Affairs in its makeshift capital. The second concern is that these aspirant nations have none of the rights and obligations of full countries, just ambiguous status and guns without laws. The United Nations is, in the end, binary: You are in or you are out, and if you are out, your mass-produced miniature desk flag has no place in Turtle Bay.

Encouraging states like Abkhazia to flourish and proliferate has created precisely the kind of second-class statehood, with uncertain rights and responsibilities in the international system, that diplomacy was designed over the last several centuries to avoid. The Peace of Westphalia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_of_Westphalia) established an international order of fixed boundaries in 1648 and made no provisions for the existence of functionally independent enclaves in Brandenburg-Prussia, say, that France could use for leverage. The whole point was to come to conclusions about what was sovereign territory and agree to knock off the warfare and ambiguity. That was in part for the welfare of those enclaves, so they were not trapped in uncertainty and used as proxies -- or worse, neocolonies -- by first-class states. But Limbo World suffers that exact fate today.

Throughout my travels in Limbo World, the conversation would often swing back to Uruguay, where a 1933 agreement was sealed that is today an article of faith to Limbo Worlders. The Montevideo Convention established a theory of statehood that treated countries like starfish, capable of surviving after having their limbs hacked off and able to sprout new and independent states from those hacked-off limbs.

It has come to be known as the declarative theory of statehood: the idea that a state is any entity with a fixed territory and population, and a government that can enter into relations with other states. Needless to say, if the letter of this convention, to which the United States is a signatory, were followed, nearly every country in Limbo World would immediately convert into full nationhood and every rebel group on the planet would be scrambling to print business cards for its hastily convened diplomatic corps. Like many sweeping declarations of foreign policy, the Montevideo Convention (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montevideo_Convention) has been the victim of wise neglect nearly ever since its signing. Still, the opposite extreme in international relations -- giving existing countries a veto over every self-determination movement -- hardly recommends itself, and whatever happy medium exists between the two has not yet been reached.

Relevant to the topic?

From the 16 Jan 2010 BBC, Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt elects new leader (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8463323.stm)

The Brotherhood has influenced Islamist movements around the world with its model of political activism combined with charity work.

jmm99

01-18-2010, 04:01 AM

I'm a little written out, but thanks for the kind words. :)

As to this:

from SB
How does understanding the concept of value chain analysis apply to analyzing political/religious groups?

you might apply it to the unit described in the first paragraph of this post, Eh, Marc ... (http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showpost.php?p=91319&postcount=33):

I'm happy to see that the Local Governance-Local Populace Section of the Ad Hoc SWC Civil Affairs Team (created by Steve the Surfer - :D) is on the same page.

cuz, "Sir", I'ze just about thought out as to civil affairs.

But not quite. The value added chain seems a logical extension of profit centers and good cost accounting by adding to the equation (in what only could be a "fuzzy pattern"): the surplus value of labor; the surplus value of capital investment; and the surplus value of a functional multi-link chain. Marx is now rolling in his grave.

I liked the diamond cutter example from the Wiki on Value Chain:

The chain of activities gives the products more added value than the sum of added values of all activities. It is important not to mix the concept of the value chain with the costs occurring throughout the activities. A diamond cutter can be used as an example of the difference. The cutting activity may have a low cost, but the activity adds much of the value to the end product, since a rough diamond is significantly less valuable than a cut diamond.

Now, my local brewery union president daddy would say (if still alive): "If management sees the value of the diamond cutter, pretty soon the diamond cutter will see it too. So, unless diamond cutters can be picked up for a dollar, the diamond cutter should ask for a fiver; but the diamond cutter can't be a pig cuz otherwise the company will shut down and the diamond cutter will be out cutting sheep balls, which don't pay even a dollar."

So, "Sir", what terms of endearment are you offering your team - so I won't have to cut sheep equipment with my teeth as Errol Flynn claimed in his autobio. :D

------------------------
More seriously, the Value Chain concept probably has added value, but I'll leave it to bright management types to explain in rational detail how it could be applied to Special Operations Warfare and Counter-Special Operations Warfare.

Next item is Microtargeting. In a post a few months ago, I suggested keeping Karl Rove and David Axelrod in solitary confinement until they came up with a plan to solve the local governance issues in Astan - or admit in a bi-partisan spirit that we lack the capabilities to do so and then should get out of Dodge. What I implied is their knowledge of political microtargeting.

So, yes, microtargeting at the local level is what the "Narrative" and its "Causes" are all about - Mao's "from the people, to the people" (see John McCuen, The Art of Counter-Revolutionary War, pp.54-64 "Mobilizing the Masses"). That Narrative has to flow up and down (villages, district, provinces, nation); and it has to be implemented. Otherwise, you are left only with military force - that might win (as Wilf has often proved); but it is not a complete solution.

As to Limbo World, I'm not big on spilling my own blood and guts, or those belonging to someone else, solely for preservation of a Westphalian state, or worse yet to build one - one exception, the US, cuz It is mine and I am its. If the US fell apart, I guess I'd become a Yooper and work from there.

More directly, I believe we should learn the Management of Chaos (yes, I ripped off Naji's Management of Savagery). Let them take their own paths and see where it leads. If they become actual threats to the US then more corrective measures might be necessary. Perhaps, in these failed, failing and quasi states, we should be looking for alliances with NGOs (as to which, Legrange has his theories), as opposed to overt intervention and attempted nation building.

As to the last item, the brethren in Egypt split with AQ on the issue of addressing the near enemy (the Egyptian government) vs the far enemy (the US government); and also turned to the political struggle as their primary effort. That is one page out of the Maududi playbook. Whether the other pages will be left on the shelf - the future shall tell. As to this:

After the announcement of his election by the group's Shura Council on Saturday, Mr Badi told members: "Show the world the true Islam, the Islam of moderation and forgiveness that respects pluralism in the whole world."

Trust, but verify thrice (credits: an anonymous Finlander ;)).

Regards, "Commandant"

Mike

John

01-18-2010, 06:00 AM

I'm a little written out, but thanks for the kind words. :)

Mike
jmm (et al)

I appreciate the "recon probe" and the follow up. In actuality, my initial comments, were to develop my own understanding, and a "recon probe" of my own. (See RFI Thread, wargaming). I am interested in researching tactical level wargaming (not simulation or gaming), but the application of "thoughtware".

I have seen the practical uses of Value Chain Analysis; SWOT; Delphi Forecasting and several other commercial business models. My initial question is the applicability of such a model in our current threat environments. The Sun Tzu quote is spot on. However, given the number of players knowing your enemy is potentially quite a headache.

Certainly appreciate the comments from all. Alas back to the study grindstone.

Regards
John

slapout9

01-18-2010, 12:00 PM

Wasn't sure where to put this, but, it is one definition of good government. Bill Still's report on Good Government and how their greatest power is to create money.

http://www.youtube.com/user/bstill3

sullygoarmy

02-24-2010, 12:59 PM

From the NY Times picking on poor Uncle Carl:

http://ideas.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/24/the-u-s-militarys-german-fetish/?hp

William F. Owen

02-24-2010, 01:36 PM

Actually I don't see this as picking on CvC. I see it as someone pointing out that most US military thought is very poor and bumper sticker forcing mechanisms do not work.

I could quibble with detail, like using the word "Blitzkrieg," but just because stupid people mis-quote Clausewitz and do not understand him, does not make CvC not incredibly useful - and no one has ever done better!

CvC is only the best because he is the only comprehensive theorist on war that withstands rigour. If someone wants to argue that, I'm very "up for it!" :eek::D

J Wolfsberger

02-24-2010, 02:18 PM

Wilf, Sully,

If you have time to waste, the NYT article leads here: http://www.tomdispatch.com/archive/175208/

The reason it will be a waste of time is that it is the most thoroughly muddled "thinking" on the subject of war I've ever read. I agree, he can't possibly be picking on CvC, since he either never read him, or didn't comprehend what he read.

William F. Owen

02-24-2010, 02:39 PM

The reason it will be a waste of time is that it is the most thoroughly muddled "thinking" on the subject of war I've ever read.
....and as if for confirmation...

For many of us, these are the key pieces of analysis that made sense of our post-9/11 world.
- Naomi Klein
Why? What didn't make sense in the world before and what is you do not get now??

MikeF

02-24-2010, 03:06 PM

What translation of Clausewitz would y'all recommend?

I'm putting some of my beer money away towards buying more books:cool:.

v/r

Mike

kotkinjs1

02-24-2010, 03:14 PM

The Howard/Paret translation (1976/1984), hands down.

MikeF

02-24-2010, 03:16 PM

The Howard/Paret translation (1976/1984), hands down.

Thanks Jeremy. BTW, my brain is churned to by your last essay. Keep on keeping on:eek:.

William F. Owen

02-24-2010, 03:20 PM

What translation of Clausewitz would y'all recommend?

I wouldn't go and buy Clausewitz. Go and buy either the books I listed here (http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showpost.php?p=89209&postcount=142).

They are commentaries on Clausewitz and you'll get far more out of them - Especially Smith, than wading through it yourself. - then go and buy the Howard and Paret edition of CvC!

Tukhachevskii

02-24-2010, 03:42 PM

What translation of Clausewitz would y'all recommend?

I'm putting some of my beer money away towards buying more books:cool:.

v/r

Mike

You could also try the following website for an English/German side by side comparision of Vom Krieg run by Clausewitz scholar Christopher Bassford which uses the J. J. Graham version (which my old Professors claimed was stylistically closer to Clausewitz). Nonetheless, you could use it as a rossetta stone against which to judge the Paret/Howard Version which has its own problems.

http://clausewitz.com/CompareFrameSource1.htm

kotkinjs1

02-24-2010, 03:48 PM

I'd also piggyback w/ Mr Owen; Colin Gray is one of the best interpretations of CvC for modern usage.

Firn

02-24-2010, 03:50 PM

I do no think one should waste too many bits to comment this "notional construct". Reading things before constructing some sort of premeditated rambling usually helps. We have already insightful discussions about CvC on this board.

Firn

William F. Owen

02-24-2010, 04:58 PM

I'd also piggyback w/ Mr Owen; Colin Gray is one of the best interpretations of CvC for modern usage.
Concur. Colin Gray is the about the best there is for applying Clausewitz in the real world and he also has excellent insights into the limits of Clausewitz and how and why some of the perceived limits are relevant and why some are not.

See here. (http://www.amazon.com/War-Peace-International-Relations-Introduction/dp/041538639X/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpi_3) for the "simple" version.

sullygoarmy

02-24-2010, 05:52 PM

Gents,
Glad we have so many CvC fans out there...I have the same impression that the author has never read CvC save a few bumper sticker phrases which misses the point entirely of delving into his work.

J Wolfsberger

02-24-2010, 06:47 PM

William F. Owen

02-24-2010, 07:04 PM

e.g. Translating "vernichten" as "destruction" rather than "negation" leads to a lot of misunderstanding of what CvC was trying to convey.
Concur, but he does go on to explain explicitly what he means later in the book, - but yes, this is why Gray, Heuser and Smith are so useful.

Good point all the same.

slapout9

02-24-2010, 07:36 PM

I have three different translations (don't ask). I learned from reading one (Howard and Paret, I think), skimming the other two, and reading commentary, that the quality of translation significantly determines what one gets out of studying CvC. e.g. Translating "vernichten" as "destruction" rather than "negation" leads to a lot of misunderstanding of what CvC was trying to convey.

Translations and interpretations are part of what makes St. Carl so enduring and good for generating discussion/learning. For me his phrase "The Aim Is To Disarm The Enemy" as the ultimate goal could be interpreted many ways besides the use of violence.

Intel Geek

02-24-2010, 10:47 PM

I wouldn't go and buy Clausewitz. Go and buy either the books I listed here (http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showpost.php?p=89209&postcount=142).

They are commentaries on Clausewitz and you'll get far more out of them - Especially Smith, than wading through it yourself. - then go and buy the Howard and Paret edition of CvC!

What do you think of On Strategy: A Critical Analysis of the Vietnam War by Harry Summers?

Fuchs

02-25-2010, 12:03 AM

I have three different translations (don't ask). I learned from reading one (Howard and Paret, I think), skimming the other two, and reading commentary, that the quality of translation significantly determines what one gets out of studying CvC. e.g. Translating "vernichten" as "destruction" rather than "negation" leads to a lot of misunderstanding of what CvC was trying to convey.

today:

vernichten = to annihilate
zerstören = to destroy
negieren = to negate

1830's meanings may have differed.

"vernichten" has "total" almost built in. Something that was "vernichtet" is 100% gone. "zerstören" can also be applied to parts instead of only the whole thing. "negieren" is close to "to neutralize", doesn't require any damage - it is usually used as "to say no".

jmm99

02-25-2010, 01:46 AM

Fergieis

02-25-2010, 02:00 AM

I'll go out on a limb and say it doesn't matter who we study, only that we do so-

Whether it is Clauswitz, Jomini, Sun Tzu, or whoever is in style at time, what matters is that professionals tear into something, think critically about it, and analyze it. Whether you agree or disagree with the concepts you are reading, you exercise that all important muscle between your ears.

Now, if the LTC's issue is students at the War College are passively accepting Clauswitz rather than actively thinking, engaging, and applying concepts... then maybe he could have a case.

As to professional soldiers wanting to be... professional? Dedicated to thier chosen profession of arms? Thats like saying a fireman shouldn't vigorously train and plan to fight fires. A volunteer firefighter should be able to overcome with determination and "occaisional ineptitude".

Okay- dead horse, excuse me for that. I'm new.

William F. Owen

02-25-2010, 06:17 AM

What do you think of On Strategy: A Critical Analysis of the Vietnam War by Harry Summers?

I confess to never having read it. I have 27m of book shelf in my office, with 2m empty, so I guess I should!

Firn

02-25-2010, 08:52 AM

From 1959 Langenscheidt's, Verneinung = concept of negation; Vernichtung = concept of annihilation. Cf., nein = no; nicht = not.

Sounds like someone, as Fuchs just pointed out, was trying to get to the concept of "neutralize" by toning down (making more "humane") the English "translation" of "vernichtung". Cf., as we used in CORDS-Phoenix, "neutralize" to include kill, detain and convert.

Context will tell the tale; but CvC noted at more than one point that the enemy force does not have to be physically destroyed - e.g., it can collapse in one way or another. BUT, there always lurks in the background the real threat and ability to destroy.

Regards

Mike

Hope this helps. In this translation the "nur" or "only" has been left out!

Die Streitkraft muß vernichtet, d. h. in einen solchen Zustand versetzt werden, daß sie den Kampf nicht mehr fortsetzen kann. Wir erklären hierbei, daß wir in der Folge bei dem Ausdruck »Vernichtung der feindlichen Streitkraft« nur dies verstehen werden. (Italics by the author, bolds by myself)

The military power must be destroyed (annihilated, made void), that is, reduced to such a state as not to be able to prosecute the war (fight). This is the (only!) sense in which we wish to be understood hereafter, whenever we use the expression "destruction of the enemy's military power." (Italics by Graham, bold additions by Firn)

If we consider the whole sentence, vernichten contains both "annhiliation" and "making void", as "Vernichtung der feindlichen Streitkraft" states that a short phrase for "reducing the enemy military power (fighting capability) to such a state that it is no longer be able to prosecute the fight (war)."

....

A bit more on the vernichten part.

Wenn wir von Vernichtung der feindlichen Steitmacht sprechen, so müssen wir hier ausdrücklich darauf aufmerksam machen, daß uns nichts zwingt, diesen Begriff auf die bloße physische Streitkraft zu beschränken, sondern vielmehr die moralische notwendig darunter mit verstanden werden muß, weil ja beide sich bis in die kleinsten Teile durchdringen und deshalb gar nicht voneinander zu trennen sind. Es ist aber gerade hier, wo wir uns auf die unvermeidliche Einwirkung berufen, die ein großer Vernichtungsakt (ein großer Sieg) auf alle übrigen Waffenentscheidungen hat: das moralische Element, dasjenige, was am flüssigsten ist, wenn wir uns so ausdrücken dürfen und also am leichtesten sich über alle Glieder verteilt. Dem überwiegenden Wert, welchen die Vernichtung der feindlichen Streitkräfte über alle anderen Mittel hat, steht die Kostbarkeit und Gefahr dieses Mittels gegenüber, und nur um diese zu vermeiden ist es, daß andere Wege eingeschlagen werden.

If we speak of the destruction of the enemy's armed force, we must expressly point out that nothing obliges us to confine this idea to the mere physical force; on the contrary, the moral is necessarily implied as well, because both in fact are interwoven with each other even in the most minute details, and, therefore, cannot be separated. But it is just in connection with the inevitable effect which has been referred to, of a great act of destruction (a great victory) upon all other decisions by arms, that this moral element is most fluid, if we may use that expression, and, therefore, distributes itself the most easily through all the parts.

Against the far superior worth which the destruction of the enemy's armed force has over all other means, stands the expense and risk of this means, and it is only to avoid these that any other means are taken.

That this means must be costly stands to reason, for the waste of our own military forces must, ceteris paribus, always be greater the more our aim is directed upon the destruction of the enemy's.

But the danger of this means lies in this, that just the greater efficacy which we seek recoils on ourselves, and therefore has worse consequences in case we fail of success. (This is a pretty weak and distorting part of the translation!)

My rough translation of the last bit: "The superior (overwhelming) worth, which the annihilation of the enemy forces has over all other means, is opposed by the valuableness (costliness, preciousness) and danger of this mean, and only to avoid those [the consequences of those], other ways are taken [in war].

....

This seems to be a rather deep insight both in finance in war. Right Enron?

Die Waffenentscheidung ist für alle großen und kleinen Operationen des Krieges, was die bare Zahlung für den Wechselhandel ist; wie entfernt diese Beziehungen auch sein, wie selten die Realisationen eintreten mögen, ganz können sie niemals fehlen.

The decision by arms is, for all operations in war, great and small, what cash payment is in bill transactions. However remote from each other these relations, however seldom the realisation may take place, still it can never entirely fail to occur.

Firn

Firn

02-25-2010, 09:59 AM

I forgot to explain the "Wechselhandel" or "bill transaction" of that time. Basically you give some sort of security, usually a cheque which doesn't gets chashed to get a credit.

The decision by arms is, for all operations in war, great and small, what cash payment is in bill transactions (The "bill" was some sort of cheque or security presented to obtain a (of course larger) credit. At some point you have to pay and not just show something ). However remote from each other these relations, however seldom the realisation may take place, still it can never entirely fail to occur.

Perhaps this could be edited in.

Firn

Fuchs

02-25-2010, 10:02 AM

Firn

02-25-2010, 10:06 AM

I wrote "negieren = to negate" (although "negieren" is an imported word; Latin "negare") because of the context.

The mentioned "to say no" is better translated with the verb "verneinen", but it's not the only meaning of "negieren".

Yes, true enough and the fun side of translations. This is the reason why I added more choices in my very rough ones. It puts the reader in guard and shows that there are other nuances and (slightly) differing meanings. :D

Firn

Fergieis

02-25-2010, 04:15 PM

Yes, true enough and the fun side of translations. This is the reason why I added more choices in my very rough ones. It puts the reader in guard and shows that there are other nuances and (slightly) differing meanings. :D

Firn

Maybe this gives credence to one of the points the LTC was trying to make in the originally quoted article (although for different reasons)- due to problems inherent to translation, should we focus instead on an english speaking theorist in our Professional Military Education?
Which begs the question, are there any good ones to use of sufficient academic rigor, breadth and depth, and applicable to full spectrum operations?

Or, are we stuck choosing between translations from German, French (both working for russians-oddly) or Chinese. (CvC, Jomini, and Sun Tzu; the most popular I think)

Still though, I hardly think his comment about WWII means much. I could make a serious low-blow about the French military...
It would be more productive if he attempted to solve his asserted "problem" by suggesting alternatives (Studying BH Liddel Hart, learning through conceptual exercises, summary executions of low performing officers) rather than simply whine about how a military school focuses on a single school of thought.

Firn

02-25-2010, 05:26 PM

Maybe this gives credence to one of the points the LTC was trying to make in the originally quoted article (although for different reasons)- due to problems inherent to translation, should we focus instead on an english speaking theorist in our Professional Military Education?
Which begs the question, are there any good ones to use of sufficient academic rigor, breadth and depth, and applicable to full spectrum operations?

Wilf and kotkinjs1 have already pointed to a far better translation than this work from 1874. Wilf's post (http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showpost.php?p=93913&postcount=8) shows a good path to understanding. With an open and critic mind and some help pretty much everybody should gain good insight.

We are really fortunate when it comes to translations, as we have more and more choices. Other than that, Jomini was a Swiss, and the French were not the only ones who got routed. :D

Firn

Fergieis

02-25-2010, 06:14 PM

Other than that, Jomini was a Swiss, and the French were not the only ones who got routed. :D

Firn

Don't forget... Napoleon was Italian.

davidbfpo

02-25-2010, 08:15 PM

Just in case SWC readers have missed this item on KoW blog:http://kingsofwar.org.uk/2010/02/the-passions-of-war/

Since I've not read anything the Prussian author has written I cannot say more.

Fuchs

02-25-2010, 08:38 PM

Don't forget... Napoleon was Italian.

Corsica != Italian.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corsican_language

J Wolfsberger

02-25-2010, 08:51 PM

Don't forget... Napoleon was Italian.

No, he was Corsican. And in various ways, I think you've offended three different groups.:D

MikeF

02-26-2010, 01:20 AM

I'm working a CvC analogy into my interpretation of "The Surge," and how I viewed events on the ground in 2006. Several of my friends that were there have already concurred, and I wanted to ask some of the practisioners on SWC if they felt the same way before I include it in a published article.

Thanks much in advance, and I apologize for taking up space for my own interest.

When in 1806 the Prussian generals....plunged into the open jaws of disaster by using Frederick the Great's oblique order of battle, it was not just a case of a style that had outlived its usefulness but the most extreme poverty of the imagination to which routine has ever led. The result was that the Prussian army under Hohenlohe was ruined more completely than any army has ever been ruined on the battlefield.

-Carl von Clausewitz, On War

Patrolling Baghdad in May and June of 2003 after we finished the Thunder Runs was surreal. We had defeated Saddam's Army and conducted regime change, but the disruption without full occupation was unsettling. It just did not feel right. I left proud of what we had accomplished, but I was worried on how things would turn out. Going back in 2005 on a Special Forces staff was awkward. We weren't losing, but we weren't winning. It was like watching the last couple of Kevin Costner movies. He's a great actor, but Waterworld just sucked. The Government of Iraq was declared sovereign, they were holding democratic elections, but the violence just continued to escalate. I still cheer for Costner as I continued to cheer for Iraq. Then, everything changed.

Allow me to be absolutely clear, let there be no doubt, in 2006, we were losing the war in Iraq. Stepping off the C-130 in LSA Anaconda, you could smell the fear in the air as we drug our tail between our legs in some Orwellian propaganda of "putting the Iraqis in the lead" as we retreated to the comforts of massive forward operating bases and expanded our intake of salsa nights, Burger King, and flat screen televisions. Outside those massive entrenchments, a civil war was brewing and escalating bordering on genocide as entire villages and neighborhoods were cleansed and displaced. No one knew what to do so we stuck our heads in the sand and tried to forget hoping this nightmare would just end. Even today, I'm not sure if the average American will truly understand how close we came to losing during those days. They just take it in stride that everything worked during the cleanliness of Kimberly Kagan's "the Surge" far more concerned with the value of their homes and stock market investments since the administration failed to ask them to mobilize for war. They were more consumed with American Idol and Survivor. It is far more existential than that.

I felt angry refusing to lose a war that had taken so much of my twenties and resolved not to let those that came before me down. It was time to adjust.

v/r

Mike

jmm99

02-26-2010, 02:08 AM

they traced their ancestry to the Buonaparte family of Sarzana, Italy, which is located on the Ligurian-Tuscan border about 10 miles east of La Spezia. That family (http://genealogy.euweb.cz/bonapart/bonaparte1.html#F) is known from the 1300-1400s at Sarzana.

Near the end of the 1400s, one of them (a merc) ended up in Corsica and began the Corsican branch, leading down to Carlo, Nap's father - I3 in chart (http://genealogy.euweb.cz/bonapart/bonaparte2.html).

Carlo's descent, including Nap, is here (http://genealogy.euweb.cz/bonapart/bonaparte.html).

Cheers

Mike

Fergieis

02-26-2010, 02:51 AM

No, he was Corsican. And in various ways, I think you've offended three different groups.:D

Only three? I'm sorry couldn't have been more equitable to everyone.
Seriously though, all meant in good fun- no offense meant.

Napoleon was Corsican. An independent Corsica just prior to his birth had been under the influence of an Italian city state. They spoke Italian. Napoleon was ridiculed for his "non-French" origins early in his military career. The name Corsica itself is Italian. So was N.'s given name, which he changed do sound more French.

As far as lineage, I yield to the obviously better informed jmm99

they traced their ancestry to the Buonaparte family of Sarzana, Italy, ...

Cavguy

02-26-2010, 06:07 AM

The essay cited at (http://www.tomdispatch.com/archive/175208/) channels my CGSC tactics instructor's latest book The Clausewitz Delusion (http://www.amazon.com/Clausewitz-Delusion-American-Screwed-Afghanistan/dp/0760337136/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top) in asking several pertinent questions:

1) Why abandon traditional American way of war in the 1980s for Clausewitz, when we soundly defeated the German armies based on his writings twice

2) Centers of gravity - highly educated generals are constantly quoted as "misjudging" the CoG. If it's such a great concept, why do smart people have such trouble finding it, and even when they do, it seems to not have the desired effect.

I recommend Mr. Melton's book for a thought provoking read - he covers a lot of ground, some better than others, but the nuances of his arguments are worthwhile. He isn't so much criticizing Clausewitz himself, more the U.S. Army's implementation of doctrine based on CvC.

I was considering writing a review on the blog, but since I am entangled with the author for another few months it wouldn't be fully unbiased.

Fuchs

02-26-2010, 09:05 AM

2) Centers of gravity - highly educated generals are constantly quoted as "misjudging" the CoG. If it's such a great concept, why do smart people have such trouble finding it, and even when they do, it seems to not have the desired effect.

Because Americans don't talk about Clausewitz' Schwerpunkt when they say "CoG". Most U.S. generals have no clue about Schwerpunkt because they learned CoG instead and attribute it falsely to CvC.

There is no need to "find" a Schwerpunkt. You simply set it. You order it. You create it.
A Schwerpunkt is the own concentration of strength to overwhelm at one place or it's one intent that gets as much effort to achieve it as possible without collapsing elsewhere.

A CoG is a critical vulnerability. It describes the enemy, while a Schwerpunkt describes the own activities.

The USMC acknowledged this in its FMFM-1 "Warfighting" field manual (1989):

(...) Sometimes known as the center of gravity. However, there is a danger in using this term. Introducing the term into the theory of war Clausewitz wrote (p.485): "A center of gravity is always found where the mass is concentrated the most densely. It presents the most effective target for a blow; furthermore, the heaviest blow is that struck by the center of gravity." Clearly, Clausewitz was advocating a climatic test of strength against strength "by daring all to will all" (p. 596). This approach is consistent with Clausewitz' historical perspective. But we have since come to prefer pitting strength against weakness. Applying the term to modern warfare, we must make it clear that by the enemy's center of gravity we do not mean a source of strength, but rather a critical vulnerability.

in a footnote that was in reference to

Therefore, we should focus our efforts against a critical enemy vulnerability. Obviously, the more critical and vulnerable, the better.

Firn

02-26-2010, 09:11 AM

I remember the post concerning his book, but as I haven't read it, I can't comment on it. I just want add that first question is a valid one, but which begs a lot of questions. What is the traditional American way of war? Having far more resources on might (simplistically) quip. Was the German armies really based on Clausewitz? A very complex topic and his simplistic statement is certainly wrong. And last but not least, how and why was Nazi Germany defeated? Certainly not because the allied armies were so much more skilled than the German (and Axis) ones. ;)

Ironically the first question seems to be based on a very fractured vision of reality, something which CvC heavily criticized or even ridiculed. When you analyze things you have to dissect, but you should be still aware of the (political, economical, strategic, social ...) context. Without doing so, you could call the the Battle of Wavre (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Wavre) a great victory for Marshal Grouchy. :eek:

Perhaps you should blog this topic, or perhaps I really should buy that book.

Firn

Firn

02-26-2010, 09:22 AM

I felt angry refusing to lose a war that had taken so much of my twenties and resolved not to let those that came before me down. It was time to adjust.

v/r

Mike

This is a burden of many a soldier in war. When comrades get killed and wounded, when friends and relatives suffer and oneself has also spent much it is important and hard to try to no let you and others down.

I sincerly hope that Iraq becomes a less troubled state with the gift of peace.

Firn

John Grenier

06-13-2010, 11:50 PM

It sounds like he is making the typical misinterpretation of the trinity. The trinity is composed of three principal tendencies or forces: hostility, chance, and purpose. These are universal to war and human nature. The "secondary" trinity (military, governement, and people) is often mistaken for what Uncle Carl was actually talking about and may not be applicable to all situations today. Tell him to go back to the pond.

Klugzilla, paleez!:D

Pete

06-16-2010, 03:18 AM

Well where I am, we have entire groups of learned men, who just study the Torah and many other sacred texts - and argue all day and for many years. :eek:
Were Wilf one of those scholars of arcane texts he'd probably have his very own thread in the Trigger Puller forum on the efficacy of the Jawbone of an Ass as a weapon of war. His thread would include discusssion on the proposed basis of issue of the Jawbone, Ass within the standard infantry company, as well as the recommended MOS to repair the Jawbone, Ass at the direct and general support levels of maintenance.

William F. Owen

06-16-2010, 01:06 PM

Were Wilf one of those scholars of arcane texts he'd probably have his very own thread in the Trigger Puller forum on the efficacy of the Jawbone of an Ass as a weapon of war. His thread would include discusssion on the proposed basis of issue of the Jawbone, Ass within the standard infantry company, as well as the recommended MOS to repair the Jawbone, Ass at the direct and general support levels of maintenance.

Well you do need lots of Jawbones. I'll also take any Ass I can get! :eek:

Michael C

10-28-2010, 10:42 PM

Last time I posted a thread on this forum, the response was fantastic. Though I asked a simple, yet innocuous question (who believes war is war) the responses were awesome and got into the issues of defining war, war's nature and the character of war/insurgency/civil wars etc.

Since I am continuing the series on my blog, I want to ask a corollary question. I have found time and again that the far and away master of military theory is Carl von Clausewitz. Many commentors on this forum love Clausewitz, I know that. My question is, does Clausewitz have too much influence?

Here are my two last posts on the "war is war" topic. The first is "War is War is Clausewitz (http://www.onviolence.com/?e=304)" and the second is "Killing, Fighting, Death, Destruction War is War (http://www.onviolence.com/?e=308)"

I also want to thank everyone who commented on the last post I put up. I am working on a personal definition of war, and many of the comments had new and original ideas I hadn't heard.

Bob's World

10-29-2010, 12:38 PM

Michael, Michael, Michael...chumming the waters of the Small Wars Journal with your bloody questions!:)

Ok, as the first shark on the scene, let me just say "YES."

Clausewitz offers much for those who seek to understand warfare; where we get into trouble is when we determine that becuase we are good at Clauswitzian warfare to make every problem warfare and and wage it as such.

The proplem is not CvC, it is our over-application of his teachings to things that (while oft violent) have little to do with warfare at all. Consider this excerpt from a post a made a few minutes ago regarding COIN and Afghanistan.

http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/2010/10/your-coin-is-no-good-here/#c014650

1. Why are soldiers rather than politicians having these conversations? Insurgency is politics, but it is the type of politics born of the failures of the current crop of politicians, so they pass the problem to the military to solve on their behalf, and the military then (not surprisingly) makes the problem one of war and warfare. Politicians leave warfare to soldiers. (Mission passed, mission solved…)

2. Why politicians remain on their hands: It’s a war now, with a General in charge. Once the General “wins” or “loses” either one, the politicians and diplomats will then be able to get back to doing what they do. This is a natural mindset, but it is equally a crippling one. COIN is a civil emergency for the host nation government; for the intervening government it is best seen little different than our approaches to an Indonesian tsunami or Bangladeshi flood. The military is a wonderful reserve of excess capability and capacity to help a civil government turn the corner on an overwhelming emergency. Last in, first out. Not our emergency and certainly not our “war.”

Best of luck with your blog!

Bob

slapout9

10-29-2010, 03:00 PM

CvC was half right in his definition of War. I use the SBW definition. It is the use of Force or Fraud to achieve the objective. Fraud can be thought of as Subversion or Psychological Warfare combined with or substituted for Physical Warfare.

J Wolfsberger

10-29-2010, 05:16 PM

My question is, does Clausewitz have too much influence?

Drop thermonuclear questions much? :D

I think both too much and not enough.

Too much in the sense that, as Bob points out, CvC wasn't addressing the elements of conflict that lie more in the area of political and social relationships and maneuvering. (For that, see Machiavelli.)

Not enough in the sense that the principles he was developing (remember that Vom Kriege was an incomplete first draft published after his death) haven't really changed.

As an example, I don't think CvC helps arrive at an understanding of the Anbar Awakening. The Prince, on the other hand, helps a great deal

Firn

10-29-2010, 06:49 PM

Drop thermonuclear questions much? :D

I think both too much and not enough.

Too much in the sense that, as Bob points out, CvC wasn't addressing the elements of conflict that lie more in the area of political and social relationships and maneuvering. (For that, see Machiavelli.)

As an example, I don't think CvC helps arrive at an understanding of the Anbar Awakening. The Prince, on the other hand, helps a great deal

His most important point in this regard might indeed be that as war is the continuation of Politik (polity, politics, policy) with the inter-mixtion of other means one should also take a good hard look at that pesky Politik. Fighting a war does not mean politik stops and other means disappear. In this case a good reading of him should open minds and ways and not close them down. It is quite ironic that the man which blasted others for trying to ignore the political context of military problems should be a problem in this regard.

Given that the inner tendency of war tends to spiral out of control, as he observed, to heavy military means might not be in the interest of a country which wants to limit violence to be able to withdraw while reaching most of it's political objectives. As usual doing the right thing in this difficult context was the hard part. In Anbar it seemed to work.

Firn

M.L.

10-29-2010, 09:08 PM

Michael C-

I posted this on your blog, but here are my thoughts:

Two points. You said on your blog:

"The most common definition of war--Clausewitz’ definition--is that war is the continuation of politics by other means. War has two parts: the political and the violent. His definition doesn’t specify which should be primary--the politics or the violence--but from what I understand, he views politics, or grand strategy, as the most important factor in war."

First, Clausewitz defined war as "an act of violence to compel the enemy to do our will" He also said that warfare has three elements, not two. Those elements are policy (or the nation), violence (or the military) and the people. He said these three elements were a "paradoxical trinity" and that a theory which ignores any of the three isn't much of a theory. Clausewitz said any one of them might be the most important at any given time, but that they all play a part.

Second point. Clausewitz first defined war (as stated above) within the context of "total war." In other words, what is the true, unconstrained nature of war? It is violence and death to the last man. However, he later defines war as a "a continuation of policy" as an acknowledgment that war always serves a political objective, and is therefore constrained. Clausewitz stated that defining the political objective was the first and most important question to be answered before starting a war, however, that doesn't mean that politics is the most important part of the "paradoxical trinity."

So, back to the central question, what is the nature of war? Its pure nature is violence and death to the last man. However, we constrain war to serve political objectives. Discussions of armed social science, ROE, et. al, are questions of how far we constrain war to meet political ends.

Michael C

10-31-2010, 12:16 AM

I have gone away from using/reading forums, but one of the best parts of discussion boards like this is using them as a sounding board for one's ideas. So thanks again everyone for the comments.

@Bob-I'll agree that Clausewitz himself isn't the problem. Like all philosophies or dogmas that are overused, the founder is often not the problem so much as the disciples who put too much faith into one solution. And I agree that our political system way too often passes the buck to the military, then lets them fail in situations that are politically impossible, or at least really, really difficult.

@Slapout- I plan to use that definition of warfare in a future post on defining war(fare). I hadn't heard it before the last post, and I think it raises interesting problems and arguments.

@J Wolfsberger- I mentioned that On War was unfinished at CvC's death, and I think that fact is undermentioned when it comes to CvC.

@ML- I got your comment but haven't responded to it. As I cautioned in the CvC post, I am no expert on CvC. While I bemoan the simplification of CvC's ideas in the post, I also participate and simplify his ideas for our readership. Thanks for the clarification and I will try to incorporate that into anything I write on Clausewitz in the future.

Global Scout

10-31-2010, 01:29 AM

I'm a big advocate for expanding our view and doctrine for conflict, but to be frank I have been very disappointed with all the new ideas since 9/11 that have gotten us no where (it takes a network to defeat a network, human terrain, you have to change their political system, we have to develop their economy, then they'll stop fighting, etc.). All of these views and many more have simply distracted us from our objective of defeating the enemy.

We tend to hold up several of these ideas as validated principles for COIN and small wars, even though we continue to suffer set back after set back when employing them. I don't alway agree with Wilf, but I do agree there have been very few great military theorists since Clausewitz.

William F. Owen

10-31-2010, 12:37 PM

I don't alway agree with Wilf, but I do agree there have been very few great military theorists since Clausewitz.

If Wilf gave that impression, then he was having one of his less useful days.... :)

Actually I would submit though CvC is the Gold Standard, there are others of notable merit, but you have to be pretty widely read to make an effective judgement.

What tends to set the high standard amongst most of the useful theorists, is that they all start from Clausewitz, or come back to him eventually. The test is when you have to translate the THEORY into PRACTICE. Clausewitz's guidance on critical analysis still provides one of the best routes to do that. - IMO.

Firn

10-31-2010, 08:24 PM

@ML- I got your comment but haven't responded to it. As I cautioned in the CvC post, I am no expert on CvC. While I bemoan the simplification of CvC's ideas in the post, I also participate and simplify his ideas for our readership. Thanks for the clarification and I will try to incorporate that into anything I write on Clausewitz in the future.

After reading your first blog post I have to agree. M.L gave a pretty good quick primer. Perhaps you should go to the www.clausewitz.com page and read some of the introductionary stuff before going further.

"War is the continuation of Politik (polity, politics, policy) with [the inter-mixtion] of other means" is a very subtle description. Economy, Culture, Technology, Religion do all shape both politics and military matters in many many ways but only through political (and social) intercourse will the military means be organized and inter-mixed. War has especially due to those specific military means it's own ruleset or grammar, but not his own logic. That social and human logic permeates all human existence.

Taiko

11-11-2010, 10:33 PM

Some helpful tips for reading CvC:

1. Understand that his work was unfinished. He had discovered the theory that war is a continuation of politics rather late in his life and was in the process of rewriting his thesis when he died.

2. Make a clear distinguishment between what CvC wrote about 'war' and 'warfare'. CvC's writing on 'war' is universal and still relevant today. CvC's writing on 'warfare' is context specific and subject to time and space. Hence, war never changes, but warfare constantly changes with time and space. If we do not learn to adapt to those changes then we will surely be at a disadvantage in shaping the conflict environment.

3. Be very weary of what 'commentators' say about CvC. He is subject to constant misinterpretation and can be taken grossly out of context. Detractors such as Martin Van Creveld are a classic example. CvC advocates are also guilty of taking what CvC wrote out of context with Helmuth von Moltke being another classic example.

4. As per usual, one reading of CvC is simply not enough to understand how he interposes an ideal of war and warfare with the reality of war and warfare. To fully appreciate CvC, and ensure that you do not misinterpret what he has writen, you will need to understand the theoretical methodology of the time. For this Kant is your best starting point.

Good luck with unraveling the mind of the best western militery theorists of all time. :)

jmm99

11-12-2010, 12:55 AM

Back from an extended vacation ?; or

were you lost in the Outback doing anthropology ?; or

did you become engrossed in studying this device:

http://www.clausewitz.com/graphics/ROMP2.jpg

which has something to do with trinities (http://www.clausewitz.com/readings/Bassford/Trinity/TrinityTeachingNote.htm) (IIRC) ? :):D

Agree, of course, with your four points re: studying CvC.

Regards

Mike

Taiko

11-12-2010, 03:16 AM

jmm99

11-12-2010, 03:41 AM

so you will adapt, improvise and overcome - of that, I've no doubt.

Regards

Mike

William F. Owen

11-12-2010, 07:49 AM

Some helpful tips for reading CvC:
....................

Good luck with unraveling the mind of the best western militery theorists of all time. :)

I generally agree (as I would!) BUT - beware! 90% of what is useful about Clausewitz can be explained in a quite a brief way. Also 90% of the discussion and argument about Clausewitz is concentrated on about 20-30% of his writing. Books 4,5,6 and 7 are rarely.... if ever discussed or commented on.

Given deep understanding, a lot of what Clausewitz said, IS quite simple and thus accessible. What most folks here need to avoid is the "Literary Criticism" school of thought, that strays far from practical application.

To apply Clausewitz in a useful and practical way, you don't even have to know how to spell "Kant." :D

Taiko

11-12-2010, 08:12 AM

I generally agree (as I would!) BUT - beware! 90% of what is useful about Clausewitz can be explained in a quite a brief way. Also 90% of the discussion and argument about Clausewitz is concentrated on about 20-30% of his writing. Books 4,5,6 and 7 are rarely.... if ever discussed or commented on.

Given deep understanding, a lot of what Clausewitz said, IS quite simple and thus accessible. What most folks here need to avoid is the "Literary Criticism" school of thought, that strays far from practical application.

To apply Clausewitz in a useful and practical way, you don't even have to know how to spell "Kant." :D

True, I should have qualified the reading of Kant to theoretical methodology only rather than his works on ethics. Understanding CvC methodological framework helps to avoid mistaking his proposition of the ideal of war, "war on paper", to war in reality. While Book 1's framework, which he considered finished, is fairly straight forward in understanding CvC's interposition of reality with ideal. Some of the nuance in the rest of the Books can be lost if you make the mistake of misinterpreting the ideal with the reality.

But I agree, it is very easy to get bogged down in a purely methodological argument of CvC's work and miss the forest for the trees. Unfortunately, the critics of CvC miss this basic point and end up with a reading of CvC that is totally out of context.

Case in point:

As an example, I don't think CvC helps arrive at an understanding of the Anbar Awakening. The Prince, on the other hand, helps a great deal.

CvC's paradoxical trinity is a far superior theoretical explanation of the Anbar Awakening than Machiavelli's Prince. The application of Clausewitz’s paradoxical trinity is pivotal in explaining the role of cause and effect in determining the nature of a war and understanding the changes in the level and intensity of violence between and within wars. It effectively captures the whole relationship of policy and violence in terms of the push and pull inherent in the laws of cause and effect and its regulating principles which policy must accommodate in conducting a war (Echevarria II 2009). The validity of the paradoxical trinity, and its utility, as a useful theoretical framework can be seen in understanding the origins and application of the ‘surge’ in Iraq.

The ‘surge’ in Iraq, otherwise known as the “Joint Campaign Plan 2007-2008” that began in 2007, was driven primarily by the American military as a “shift in operational methods” in response to the various insurgency’s strategies of 2003-2006 (Kilcullen 2009: 133, Metz 2008: 185, Molan 2008: 345). Applying Clausewitz’s trinity to explain the ‘surge’, the role of the regulating principles can be seen as:

US: (Violence) chance and probability, purpose, hostile feelings/intensions -Policy- (Politics) military, people, government

Iraq: (Violence) hostile feelings/intensions, chance and probability, purpose- Policy- (Politics) people, military, government

In identifying the political cause that set the ‘surge’ in motion all three of the regulating principles play a role, with the military at the lead. Its origins can be attributed to General David Petraeus who assembled a team of twenty-four military, governmental and civil experts who were to make up the Joint Strategic Assessment Team that was tasked with developing an integrated civil-military plan to address the level and intensity of violence used by the insurgencies in Iraq (Kilcullen 2009: 133). The result of this meeting of minds was a new American doctrine for counterinsurgency (COIN) titled Field Manual 3-24 (FM 3-24). In conjunction with pressure from the American people and Congress, who both wanted to see an end to the war, this new doctrine lead to a change in policy of the Bush administration (Metz 2008: 185, Ricks 2009: 155).

The original policy of the Bush administration was centered on a ‘top-down approach’ that focused on regime change and the introduction of a democratic government at the national level (Bush 2005: 1). FM 3-24 shifted this policy to a bottom-up approach “based on confidence building measures and improved security” for the population of Iraq at the local level (Kilcullen 2009: 133). In identifying the effect of this policy and the subsequent reduction in violence in Iraq, all three of the regulating principles set out by Clausewitz play a role, with chance and probability at the lead. The chance of the “Anbar Awakening” and the Sunni Arab populations rejection of al Qa’ ida in Iraq was an important turning point for the war (Kilcullen 2009: 141, Metz 2008: 185). This occurrence was further exploited by the probability of success used in the development of FM 3-24 and the introduction the new COIN doctrine in addressing the insurgency’s strategy in Iraq. The purpose of FM 3-24 was to “give the Iraqi political leaders breathing space to address the root causes of the conflict” (Metz 2008: 185). This, in theory, would eventually reduce the level of hostile feeling and intentions direct towards the American forces on the ground, and between Sunni Arabs and Shiites. With a subsequent reduction in violence the political objective that set the war in motion can be realised.

In applying Clausewitz’s paradoxical trinity to the ‘surge’ the validity of his propositions on the nature of war are still apparent. As has been shown, Clausewitz’s regulating principles on the cause and effect of the level and intensity of violence in war provide a powerful explanatory conceptual framework from which to understand the nature of the war being fought and critically analyse the conduct being undertaken in a war. The ‘surge’ provides compelling evidence of Clausewitz’s proposition that while politics exerts a subordinating influence over war for the purpose of realising its goals, its influence runs up against, and is in turn reduced or elevated by, the play of chance and probability, and the force of hostile feelings and intensions. It also explains the interrelationship between the regulating principles of violence and political power in relation to the government, the military and the people in Iraq and America and its effect on policy. By applying the trinitarian definition of war to the broader case studies of Iraq and Afghanistan it will show how these regulating principles can be used to understand the various phases of both wars and critically analyse how they have been and are being conducted.

(Back to flipping burgers :D )

Taiko

11-16-2010, 04:41 AM

The answer the OP’s question: does Clausewitz have too much influence?

Short answer is no.

Why you may ask? I’ll start from the beginning and try to cut down on the academic jargon. In CvC’s book On War he seeks to answer one question: Why does the level and intensity of violence change within the life time of a war and between different wars in different time periods?

CvC arrived at his answer rather late in his life. CvC reasoned that the intensity and level of violence within and between wars is determined by the ‘policies’ that set a conflict in motion. By arguing that war is a continuation of politics by other means CvC sets up a causal relationship:

Policy (cause) Violence (effect)

However, CvC does not stop there. In order to test his answer he goes on to develop a theorem (yardstick for measuring the intensity and level of violence within and between wars), which he called the paradoxical trinity. In setting out the paradoxical trinity CvC identified a number of primary and secondary regulating principles (dependent, independent, intervening variables), that can be used to measure and explain the intensity of violence within and between wars, the main primary regualting principles are:

Policy (the main regulating principle that determines the level and intensity of violence in the life time of a war, it also influences politics, and, is in turn influenced by politics and violence during the various phases of a war)

Politics (primary regulating principle that influences policy)

Violence (primary regulating principle that influences policy)

The reason CvC called this trinity a paradox is because while policy determines the level and intensity of violence in war, policy is itself influenced by the level and intensity of violence and politics of the time. The relationship is not a static one, but rather a dynamic one that can change during the course of a war and between different wars. In some cases violence itself is the dominate regulating principle that determines the level and intensity of violence, in others policy or politics will be dominant while the others are subordinate regulating principles.

CvC introduces an additional number of secondary regulating principles (intervening variables) into this dynamic relationship to explain why in the course of a war the level and intensity of violence can rise and fall.

Policy

Violence: chance and probability, hostile feelings/intensions, purpose

Politics: people, government, military

It is very important to take into account that both the primary and secondary regulating principles are dynamic and subject to change within and between wars. Up until his death CvC was in the process of determining how the different regulating principles influenced the level and intensity of violence within and between wars. This work still remains to be done! However, the framework of the paradoxical trinity is in place and is one of the best explanatory tools that can be used to explain, for example: why the Cold War did not get hot, why the level and intensity of violence in small wars can and does fluctuate, and why the level and intensity in both World Wars came close to absolute.

In addition, I would argue that the paradoxical trinity can also be used as a strategic framework that can shape the conflict environment and dictate the level and intensity of violence used within both large and small wars. The goal being to achieve zero levels of violence and a cessation of the conflict through the application of the paradoxical trinity. The regulating principles can be just as easily applied to COIN and counter-terrorism. This is why CvC does not have too much influence.

So, if you want to understand war read CvC, if you want to understand warfare read Sun Tzu. But that is a story for another day.

jmm99

11-16-2010, 05:55 AM

We have the politics (the political process - one meaning of Politik) that leads to the policy (another meaning of Politik) which drives "war" as Politik's continuation via other means. As you say, we have more or less violence depending on how these factors interact and feed on each other. That concept applies to the military struggle (a wrestling match).

Moving beyond CvC's main focus on the military, we also have the political struggle (not entirely non-violent and scarcely electoral politics in one's favorite riding). While this may be also called "politics", it is not the same "politics" as in the political process (Politik1) that leads to the "policy" (Politik2). What is called "politics" in the political struggle is also not exactly the same as the "policy" (Politik2), of which the political struggle is another continuation.

That difference is demonstrated by the manipulation of slogans (and programs) during the political struggle - e.g., the political struggle slogan of land reform via individual peasant ownership, where the long-range policy (Politik2) calls for collective farms as a (not publicized) end result.

Similarly, the political process (Politik1) - e.g., a "United Front for Liberation" which does not reflect a long-range policy (Politik2) of One Party Rule as a (not publicized) end result.

Of course, it is possible for all these "politics" to be the same or at least not conflicting.

My take is that the various "politics" involved (which should be distinguished) are more complicated than the military aspects (obviously well covered by CvC).

Regards

Mike

Taiko

11-16-2010, 07:07 AM

All true Mike, but I think this is why CvC includes the secondary regulating principles. So in understanding the casual effect of politics on policy and violence we need to take account of the relationship between the government, people and military before and during the various phases of a war. To understand the political climate before and during conflict CvC provides a form of measurement via the secondary pricinples.

So, we ask who is in control of power (politics) that will be in a position to influence policy and the level and intesity of violence, is it the military, the people or the government? And, how does who is in control of power (politics) effect the policy/politics/level and intensity of violence in the various phases of war.

Specifically, when CvC is looking at secondary regulating principles of politics my reading of it is that he is looking at the power relationship between the people, the government and military. Who holds the power to determine the policy of the political group as a whole, and how does this effect the level and intensity of violence in the various phases of a war.

The primary and secondary regulating principles are the basic framework from which you can identify the centre of gravity in a war. It is useful in understanding how dynamic the centre of gravity is, and can be, and why there can be a variation in the level and intensity of violence during a war. For example, you can use the regulating pricinples to understand how A'Q/UBL go about planning for attacks in different regions of the world. The countries they are operating in all have very different centres of gravity, the regulating principles are different for both violence and politics, and they need to plan operations accordingly otherwise they run the risk of creating an Anbar Awakening.

William F. Owen

11-16-2010, 07:47 AM

We should not confuse "Politics" with being just what Politicians do. This would be incorrect. Politics is "Power over People (thus land and resources.)"

War is essentially the actions to alter the distribution of power via violence. Non-violence is thus politics. That may include legal and illegal means, but it ain't "War."

...and additionally, Clausewitz doesn't need to be defended, or even really explained. What really needs doing is to teach what he sought to taught, in an accessible way.

slapout9

11-16-2010, 04:49 PM

The primary and secondary regulating principles are the basic framework from which you can identify the centre of gravity in a war. It is useful in understanding how dynamic the centre of gravity is, and can be, and why there can be a variation in the level and intensity of violence during a war. For example, you can use the regulating pricinples to understand how A'Q/UBL go about planning for attacks in different regions of the world. The countries they are operating in all have very different centres of gravity, the regulating principles are different for both violence and politics, and they need to plan operations accordingly otherwise they run the risk of creating an Anbar Awakening.

At the online edition of On War at the (calusewitz home page) COG's are also called Centers of Force and Centers of Power. Might be easier to understand using that description.

Tom Odom

11-16-2010, 05:03 PM

At the online edition of On War at the (calusewitz home page) COG's are also called Centers of Force and Centers of Power. Might be easier to understand using that description.

You can download the Kindle version (http://www.amazon.com/On-War-Volume-1-ebook/dp/B000JQU6S6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital-text&qid=1289926992&sr=1-1-spell) for free.

That way Wilf can put Carl under his pillow :D

jmm99

11-16-2010, 08:00 PM

Here is my take in a graphic, where policy coordinates the political and military struggles.

In practice, we are looking at some variant of CvC's "war cabinet" - another "trinity", consisting of representatives from Policy (in charge), Political Struggle and Military Struggle:

1317

For CvC's views on the "war cabinet", see this post on another thread "The art of war in its highest point of view is policy (http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showpost.php?p=109532&postcount=88)" - long quote from Book 8, Ch 6 (1873 Graham trans), Influence of the Political Object on the Military Object (http://www.clausewitz.com/readings/OnWar1873/Bk8ch06.html).

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Wilf, the Political Struggle is part of a War (at times, the major part; at other times, not so significant); but agreed it is not "war" in the sense of organized violence by armed forces; nor, following its exclusion as "war", can it be called "warfare". That being said, the political and military struggles must be coordinated - a job for Policy, to ride herd on the political and military cats.

slapout9

11-16-2010, 08:58 PM

You can download the Kindle version (http://www.amazon.com/On-War-Volume-1-ebook/dp/B000JQU6S6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital-text&qid=1289926992&sr=1-1-spell) for free.

That way Wilf can put Carl under his pillow :D

Thanks Tom, I will put that on the back burner for awhile because best Intelligence indicates NO Kindle before Xmas:(

slapout9

11-18-2010, 12:34 AM

M.L.

11-18-2010, 02:42 AM

A question for all the CvC experts. Supposedly War is war and there are many differant types of Warfare. If this is true, then how come CvC said there are 2 types of Wars? One to destroy the enemy and the other to grab some of his territory and either keep it or use it to trade for a peace agreement.

This is one of the concepts that CvC didn't get the opportunity to develop. In his author's note dated 10 JUL 1827 he writes:

I regard the first six books, which are already in a clean copy, merely as a rather formless mass that must be throughly reworked once more. The revision will bring out the two types of war with greater clarity at every point.

These two types of war, enemy focused vs. terrain focused, should not be confused with ideas of absolute war (war in its pure, unbounded form) vs. real war (in the real world, war is always restrained in some form).

The nature of war, on the other hand, is clearly defined as "an act of force to compel the enemy to do our will." Whether to surrender, retreat, let us have their land, or whatever, the nature of war does not change, while the character of war does change.

CvC is tough...I'm sure I'm not making it easier...hope this helps though.

William F. Owen

11-18-2010, 07:01 AM

I regard the first six books, which are already in a clean copy, merely as a rather formless mass that must be throughly reworked once more. The revision will bring out the two types of war with greater clarity at every point.
Which is why the idea, rather then the expression of it, needs to be examined. The "purity of text" approach to Clausewitz can be counter productive.

These two types of war, enemy focused vs. terrain focused, should not be confused with ideas of absolute war (war in its pure, unbounded form) vs. real war (in the real world, war is always restrained in some form).
thus, for example we can see here he is talking about the conditions/Ends/Policy that armed force seeks to achieve. Of note, he does not stray off into any garbage about the "population."

The nature of war, on the other hand, is clearly defined as "an act of force to compel the enemy to do our will." Whether to surrender, retreat, let us have their land, or whatever, the nature of war does not change, while the character of war does change.
Again, common sense that drives a bull-dozer through a lot of modern doctrine.

CvC is tough...I'm sure I'm not making it easier...hope this helps though.
I find CvC very tough to read, but actually pretty easy to understand. What made that easy, was ditching most of what I have ever been taught by popular military history, which remains the major block to understanding.

slapout9

11-18-2010, 03:49 PM

The following is CvC notice given about his unrevised book. Credit to Clausewitz.com on line version of On War which is where I copied it from.

NOTICE
I LOOK upon the first six books, of which a fair copy has now been made, as only a mass which is still in a manner without form, and which has yet to be again revised. In this revision the two kinds of War will be everywhere kept more distinctly in view, by which all ideas will acquire a clearer meaning, a more precise direction, and a closer application. The two kinds of War are, first, those in which the object is the OVERTHROW OF THE ENEMY, whether it be that we aim at his destruction, politically, or merely at disarming him and forcing him to conclude peace on our terms; and next, those in which our object is MERELY TO MAKE SOME CONQUESTS ON THE FRONTIERS OF HIS COUNTRY, either for the purpose of retaining them permanently, or of turning them to account as matter of exchange in the settlement of a peace. Transition from one kind to the other must certainly continue to exist, but the completely different nature of the tendencies of the two must everywhere appear, and must separate from each other things which are incompatible. Besides establishing this real difference in Wars, another practically necessary point of view must at the same time be established, which is, that WAR IS ONLY A CONTINUATION OF STATE POLICY BY OTHER MEANS. This point of view being adhered to everywhere, will introduce much more unity into the consideration of the subject, and things will be more easily disentangled from each other. Although the chief application of this point of view does not commence until we get to the eighth book, still it must be completely developed in the first book, and also lend assistance throughout the revision of the first six books. Through such a revision the first six books will get rid of a good deal of dross, many rents and chasms will be closed up, and much that is of a general nature will be transformed into distinct conceptions and forms.

I have highlighted what I think are the important points and here is my interpretation of them.

1-He clearly meant to revise his book before final publication.

2-There are TWO kinds of War and which type of War you are going to fight is the Supreme question,the Strategic question to ask.

3-The POLITICAL objective was, is and always will be the ultimate guidance on the conduct the War. The POLITICAL objective defines what winning is, not the military objective.