The Clausewitz Collection (merged thread)

[slapout9]

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]

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.

Book is available now, with three positive reviews on Amazon ...

http://www.amazon.com/Clausewitz-Del...8168045&sr=8-1

[William F. Owen]

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]

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]

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


Firn

Probably the best answer

[Steve Blair]

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.

[Tom Odom]

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.

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...