The Clausewitz Collection (merged thread)

[Ray Levesque]

I believe the biggest problem that most have with Clausewitz is that his book (as if he wrote only one) is selectively read, anecdotally quoted, and rarely thought about in a critical manner. One of the basic problems with Clausewitz is that he died before he actually finished ON WAR. He had the draft, realized he needed to adjust it in light of his thinking about the influence of politics on war, and only had time to finish the first chapter before passing on.

So, are there inconsistencies in ON WAR? Certainly, which is one of the reasons it needs to be critically read and not mindlessly quoted. Having said that an officer can only be better off if he were to read the first book and thought deeply about “real” war, the fog of war, friction, the relationship of politics on war – he’s the only one that has truly tried to get to the nature of war regardless of its type. (Hmmmm...things that seem to have been ignored against the context of the so-called revolution in military affairs and the self-appointed gurus of transformation who focused on "capabilities-based" planning instead of on the real world threat.)

But, keep this in mind, Clausewitz clearly argues that any theory of war had to account for the fact that the majority of wars are limited in nature, and not the total "ideal" wars about which he had been writing. Clausewitz did not create the concept of “unlimited war” except as an ideal that could NEVER be achieved. Critically reading the first chapter of the book is key. So, although he didn’t write about insurgencies per se, his thinking on limited war and the need to align strategic goals (policy) with means still applies.

A pretty good book for understanding not just Clausewitz’ themes, but also how his writings, in particular ON WAR, were put together is READING CLAUSEWITZ by Beatrice Heuser.

However, what’s just as bad as criticizing Clausewitz without critically reading ON WAR is to accept what he says as dogma. He’s great food for thought and has a lot of application still today, but there are other strategic theorists out there that should be read in order to have a deeper understanding of the nature of war and so that you can modify your “lessons learned” to the situation at hand.