Wilf, we are in the same triangle ...
not the Bermuda Triangle (which captured my initial try at this post when at home - and sent it into the ether); but this one:
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from Wilf
He also had a number of trinities, and they were all context specific. Passion, reason and chance, for example are those he uses to describe the social nature of war.
which is exactly the "remarkable trinity" quoted in MCDP 1-1 Strategy, and in any number of US doctrinal publications on strategy.
In that "remarkable trinity", the characteristics (using your terms) are primarily associated as follows: "passion" (people), "reason" (government) and "chance" (armies). Or, in CvC's own terms (Howard & Paret translation, which I quoted in my prior post and here numbered for absolute clarity):
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... composed [1] of primordial violence, hatred, and enmity, which are to be regarded as a blind natural force; [2] of the play of chance and probability within which the creative spirit is free to roam; and [3] of [war’s] element of subordination, as an instrument of policy, which makes it subject to reason alone.
The first of these three aspects mainly concerns the people; the second the commander and his army; the third the government.
I suggest the foregoing rather clearly establishes that reason ("rational thought" in your words; "rationality" in mine) was associated by CvC with governments - in his theoretical construct, reason cannot be associated with the people who are moved by "blind natural force" - "primordial violence, hatred, and enmity". Nor can "reason" be relied on in the case of commanders and armies because of the element of chance (query: why chaos and complexity theory would not be applicable to peoples and governments as well, but that is a subject matter for another thread).
No doubt that CvC's view of governments was informed by the European governments in place when he wrote (a product of Metternich and Vienna, so quite conservative in tidy boxes) - and those which had shaped Europe since Westphalia. In that construct, the Sovereign was co-terminous with Sovereignty - then, in a very real sense, the ruler was the state. Not that many years before, Louis XIV had stated exactly that.
The salient point of all that is that the government (the ruler and his cabinet) was necessarily composed of statesmen because their objectives and courses of action were the state's objectives and courses of action. The government was the state and defined the national interests. A very simple construct, justified by the realities ca. 1831 Europe.
CvC was also informed (perhaps a better word is "uninformed") as you say:
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CvC was pretty sceptical of democracy and/or republics, as he saw them work in practice. Best to look back at Thucydides as a strong influence on Clausewitz, were the forces that drive nations or peoples to war, were Fear, Honour, and/or Interest.
as to which, the first point is simply that the Athenian and Spartan systems of governance were not informative when it came to the system of Jeffersonian-Jacksonian Democratic-Republicanism then developing in the US; or to the parliamentary system of democracy developed in the UK after George III lost his grip. The Greek systems are even less informative when it comes to the evolved systems of governance in either the US or UK. In short, CvC was no SME when it came to the interplay between the people, government and the military in modern democracies like the US and UK.
The second point deals with the Thucydidean construct of "fear, honour and/or interest" as factors leading to wars. In CvC's time, whose "fear, honour and/or interests" were critical to the decisions to make war ? The only answer is the ""fears, honour and/or interests" of the statesmen, since they (not the people) decided on the national interests that include those factors.
Now, use of the term "statesmen" has everything to do with those folks being the "deciders" when it came to what they believed was in the national interest. It has nothing to do with whether those statesmen (by the Grace of God, etc.) were competent or not in making those decisions. Since CvC had the decisions of Louis XIV, XV and XVI in front of him, we can fairly infer that he did not believe that all statesmen and their governments were competent.
Moving this up to the present, and back to my initial point, is that there have been substantive changes in US politics since the era of Jeffersonian-Jacksonian Democratic-Republicanism (which CvC would have viewed with some distain is a good probability). Crudely stated, we are much more likely to find politicians, rather than statesmen, making national policy decisions.
To introduce some rigor in my terms, by "politicians" I mean persons who practice "politics", the art of getting elected to and remaining in office - often by log rolling legislation and policies which enhance the latter objective. While this has always been true to some extent in US politics, the present practicalities of the election cycles and fund-raising efforts require politicians to be just that - leaving little room for consideration (much less implementation) of the national interests. The vastly quickened media cycle has also added up to politicians being more and more politicians.
Even beyond that, we have seen more and more "professional politicians" in office. That is, the guy or gal who perhaps went to law school (let's say with very high grades, etc.), but then got into politics at the grassroots (say, in community organizing) or by marrying into the governor's mansion. Those folks are indeed SMEs in politics - that is a serious comment; they are good at it and know their profession as well as any professional. But, that does not make them "statespersons".
They, at the highest level, do end up with that mission - to be statespersons faithfully representing the national interests (the "peoples' business" as they are so fond of saying) - until the next election cycle, etc. Perhaps, I am naive, but I believe that Pres. Bush then, and Pres. Obama now, felt and feel that they represented and represent the national interests - as they saw and see them. That situation is, however, qualitatively different from the situation that CvC wrote about.
My suggestion is that the People, collectively and over a longer timeframe, are more likely to get the national interests right, than transitory politicians.
Entirely too long, and somewhat political; but the subject matter of the discussion seemed to require some political sidebars.
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Wilf, this ...
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I would submit that US Foreign Policy post -911 shows CvCs observation, as being correct.
looks like an argument heading in a brief. Please feel free to complete the brief; but tell me what CvC observation you are suggesting (he must have made 100s or 1000s of observations); and the facts tying that observation into post-9/11 US foreign policy.
Cheers :)
Mike
If your perception is this ...
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from Wilf
My reading of CvC is that Passion is associated with the people, because people as a collective are not rational. Rule of the mob? ... Now these are not direct relationships, they are merely cited as dominant influences. I see them as largely correct and useful.
you are, in classical US political terms, a Hamiltonian[*]. It is very much a matter of perception - and a product of one's entire life experience. So, I end up a Jeffersonian-Jacksonian. You don't see it that way.
Evidence of the people collectively acting over time ? As one example, I'd look to the Civil Rights story from Reconstruction to the present, where the pendulum swung back and forth until something of a consensus was reached by a majority of the people.
All this having been said, you haven't addressed the key issue of transitory politicians setting national policy. If CvC addressed that issue in one of his "observations", please supply the quote - thereby giving me a chance to recant and renounce heresy. :)
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[*] Watch out for Aaron Burrs. ;) Now there was a rabble rousing politician who tried to lead a charge. Good pistol shot, though.
Agree with Wilf. I have great difficulty finding
many times in our history when we we did what was morally right. OTOH, there are few cases of totally amoral conduct including those Wilf mentioned.
The few times we did what was morally right, we generally screwed it up. Viet Nam was an example. We signed a treaty to assist. Morally correct, I think. We then urged and paid the Viet Namese to ask us to assist. Morally wrong, I think. We then proceeded to assist. Morally questionable. We screwed it up -- morality not relevant.
Same with WW II. We were on the side of 'right.' We did what was needed to win regardless of human cost (ours or others). We cheated, lied, stole and bullied other nations to get into the war that may not have ever significantly affected us. What of all that was 'right' and what was 'wrong?'
There's a lot of gray out there...
That said, we and the British have generally acted in our own interests as have all nations. Across the board, both of us have done more good than harm on a practical (pragmatic) and realistic basis. I think the 'moral' aspect in the conduct of nations is sort of a misnomer. Nations are not people; they may have some social characteristics and national trends in the psyche arena but they aren't people.
It has been said that morals are what others think you should be doing -- but they may not necessarily feel constrained to act the same way. Lot of truth in that.
Ill share some lunch time reading on strategy...
...with the understanding that Asia is not my area of expertise, but an interesting place nonetheless.
From David Rothkopf's blog on the FP Website:
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Then you arrive at Singapore's Changi Airport and you are powerfully reminded that the excellence of the airline is not a fluke. This is the best airport in the world, spacious, efficient, and attractive. As such, it is the perfect preparation for Singapore itself, almost certainly the best run political entity on the planet. Admittedly, the country, led from the start by the man who is now known as its Minister Mentor Lee Kwan Yew, has practiced what I would characterize as constrained form of democracy but few places have ever so compellingly made the case that what is trade away in terms of the occasional citation for spitting gum on the sidewalk is more than made up for in a society that is prosperous (Asia's second richest), innovative, and safe.
It is a government that has led the way by behaving in many ways like a corporation, taking ideas like competitiveness and strategic planning seriously. (At dinner tonight with a senior business executive who is one of the country's great entrepreneurial success stories, she said, "In the beginning, in Singapore, the state was the entrepreneur." And that was said with a genuine appreciation for all the state achieved in that role.) Even in the midst of a global recession it has been seen as not just responsive, but creatively responsive, promoting retraining of workers and focus on new growth industries.
Part of the credit must go to its unique system of senior government official compensation. Ministers are paid via a formula: two thirds of the average of the eight highest salaries in six key professions (lawyer, accountant, banker, multinational executive, local manufacturer, and engineer). As a result in recent years the president and the prime minister have made in excess of $2 million a year in salary and other ministers in excess of $1 million. The result is that many of the best minds will be found in the government, zero corruption and terrific results. Want an example of the innovation? The president, prime minister, and ministers took an almost one-fifth pay cut this year because of the recession. What? Accountability among public officials? Real incentives? Imagine the loud "gak" you would get out of the U.S. government as they choked on those ideas.
Wilf, we are still in the same trinity - part 1 ...
that is p.89 of Howard & Paret, as appears in full in my post #37, and which I will repeat here (keeping my numbering to designate the three points of the trinity; and keeping your emphasis and mine as well; and including CvC's fourth paragraph):
Quote:
... composed [1] of primordial violence, hatred, and enmity, which are to be regarded as a blind natural force; [2] of the play of chance and probability within which the creative spirit is free to roam; and [3] of [war’s] element of subordination, as an instrument of policy, which makes it subject to reason alone.
The first of these three aspects mainly concerns the people; the second the commander and his army; the third the government.
These three tendencies are like three different codes of law, deep-rooted in their subject and yet variable in their relationship to one another. A theory that ignores any one of them or seeks to fix an arbitrary relationship among them would conflict with reality to such an extent that for this reason alone it would be totally useless.
Our task therefore is to develop a theory that maintains a balance between these three tendencies, like an object suspended between three magnets.
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Again, I have to make it very clear that the situation I am addressing is the interface between the people, the government and the military in setting national policy, and its impact on national strategy and military strategy (as those terms are defined in joint doctrine), as that interface exists in the US in the first decade of the 21st century.
I am not making or trying to make some generalized argument that applies to the US in other time periods, or to other nations in the same or other time periods. In short, I'm not addressing the application of CvC to Hitler or Hamas, WWII or Vietnam, Native Americans or Texan Mexicans, or the peoples of South Korea, the Lebanon and Somalia.
Scope: US, 1st decade of 21st century - its interface of people, government and military.
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What CvC wrote is clear enough. As to the main tendency of the people: "[1] of primordial violence, hatred, and enmity, which are to be regarded as a blind natural force;" As to the main tendency of the government: "[3] of [war’s] element of subordination, as an instrument of policy, which makes it subject to reason alone."
My modest suggestion is that the primary characteristics, that CvC applied to the people and government ca. 1831 (a view strongly held by Metternich in Europe and less strongly by Hamilton in the US), are not the primary characteristics of situation I address - US, 1st decade of 21st century - its interface of people, government and military.
Further, I suggest that to take CvC's early 19th century charactistics for the people and government ("tendencies", as he called them, "like three different codes of law, deep-rooted in their subject") and apply them to the 21st century US situation, would be serious error - and without rigor.
In fact, I would suggest that to do so would to violate CvC's statement that "to fix an arbitrary relationship among them" would render that argument "totally useless" (from 3rd CvC paragraph quoted above).
My second modest suggestion is that CvC's early 19th century analysis of the people and government did not (and could not - since CvC did not claim a magic crystal ball) take into account what I call the transitory politicians of the 21st century US situation. Again, to attempt to define them (the transitory politicians) in terms of the 19th and 18th century statesmen would also be an "arbitrary fixation" - and also "totally useless".
So, my two modest suggestions are not contrary to CvC's warning against "arbitrary fixations" - in fact, they heed that warning.
The following is an important concept; that is, the "tendencies" are "... yet variable in their relationship to one another" (as Ken said, "they are inherently unstable"); and that (4th para. above):
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Our task therefore is to develop a theory that maintains a balance between these three tendencies, like an object suspended between three magnets.
It is impossible to develop a theory and maintain the balance if one gets the composition of the magnets wrong; and attempts to define them for what they are not.
end part 1