The Clausewitz Collection (merged thread)

[Jimbo]

I have some problems with Tony Corn's article. The first problem I have is he gives Clauswitzian Theory too much credit for driving U.S. military strategy and doctrine. The U.S. Army has traditionally been driven by Jominian theory as opposed to Clauswitzian. Jomini can be summed up as telling somebody how to fight, and Clauswitz can be summed up explaining the why. The real misunderstanding of Clauswitz is that his work is assumed to be purely a work for military people. Many sections of his work ought to be read by political leaders because I feel he does an outstanding job of explaining the political leadership aspects of startegic decision making. That is why I believe that Clauswitz is more relevant than ever. Furthermore, Clauswitz defined his success as theorist based on timelessness and universiality. Both of which apply. I would argue that 4GW is not a theory. It has merely taking Maoist theory and added the concept of mass media to it. Maybe I can meet corn, since I am supposedly going to work in DC for 6 months from january to june on COIN issues.

[Steve Blair]

I agree, jimbo. Old Carl was writing more of an overarching theory than a simple prescriptive study. Clausewitz also never finished "On War," which is something the detractors tend to overlook.

[marct]

To much commentary on Anthropology for me not to jump in

Nor is Clausewitz responsible for the smothering political correctness that makes it virtually impossible even to discuss things like the strategic history of Islam. Personally, I am still recovering from the high-pitched institutional whining that ensued when I made remarks on that subject virtually identical to Corn's a few weeks ago at one of the nation's premier institutions for strategic education. And almost every PME effort to discuss the "anthropology" of Islam that I have experienced has immediately degenerated into an utterly irrelevant analysis of the finer points of Koranic theology.

No question in my mind that Clausewitz isn't responsible for the current PC attitudes, and I can certainly understand the "institutional whining" reaction - I see that frequently enough <wry grin>. Without being there, I honestly couldn't say whether the analysis of Koranic theology was irrelevant or not (probably, but there's always a chance it might not have been).

What is to clear to me is that Bassford got trapped in a debate where theologians (broadly construed to include both deistic and non-deistic theologies) set the rules of discourse. I'll admit to engaging in theological debates myself, usually over Port and/or Brandy. They can be a lot of fun, but the true enjoyment in them comes from one fairly simple fact - they have no immediate relevance to the material world. As such, they really should be exlcuded from discussions dealing with immediate, real world activities unless their relevance can be demonstrated.

Corn makes some (seemingly) favorable allusions to the potential value to strategists of understanding modern evolutionary theory (i.e., to Richard Dawkins and his memes). Great stuff! But mention evolutionary theory to a US-government audience and you'll spend the next hour debating the Book of Genesis with folks on the right side of the room; a week later you'll be reading articles by lefties in the Washington Post accusing you of advocating new eugenics laws banning reproduction by racial minorities.

Too true! I remember applying for a position in one US university and being asked if I would give Intelligent Design theory the same weight as Evolutionary Theory. Being 99% sure I wouldn't get the job, and being pretty sickened by the rampant PC attitude of the interviewer, I told her that I would be more than happy to teach a course that included ID theory - along with every other creation myth I was aware of: an "Anthropology of Origin Myths". You can imagine the reaction...

Bassford is also quite right in his comments about Dawkins meme theory - it has a direct relevance to the GWOT. Part of the problem, however, is that he (and the rest of us who use any neo-evolutionary theory) is up against is an institutional reaction within Sociology and, to a lesser extent, Anthropology against anything to do with studying biology in addition to the Genesis crowd. This reaction comes out of a general, post-WWII reaction against the Nazis and their state-sponsored "racial science". The unfortunate problem is that it has, de facto, destroyed a very profitable line of research.

If Bassford really wants to get lambasted in the press by "lefties", he should try integrating Dawkins work with that of Jerome Barkow, Leda Cosmides and John Tooby and, just for fun, toss in the works of Charles Laughlin. Of course, he would also end up with a theoretical model that actually models mediaspace warefare and how it ties in to insurgency warfare. Obviously, this would be too useful to actually get published in any academic setting...

The errors Corn describes originate in American cultural attitudes that certainly do not derive from Clausewitz. Iindeed, it is those cultural attitudes that drive the frequently ludicrous manner in which Clausewitz's ideas are used and taught. Those attitudes will not magically disappear once every copy of On War has been safely burned. If anthropology becomes the new strategic rage, then educators who may be "men of one book" (or even "men of one set of Cliffs notes") will be subjecting students to equally misleading doctrinal discourses on Margaret Mead. (I'm not joking here: Read John Keegan's anthropological absurdities in his A History of Warfare, which are every bit as asinine as his comments on Clausewitz.)

Well, I suspect that the doctrinal discourses would be on Clifford Geertz and Clifford and Marcus, with hermeneutic strategies derived from Foucault, but I can't disagree. Too much of Anthropology teaching has moved towards a non-deistic theology - probably an inevitable consequence of institutional vectors following WWII. On this line, I posted an article that appeared in the Times Higher Education Supplement that is relevant in another thread.

Marc

[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.