Reply With QuoteHowever I still believe that Staretgy is "What" to attack. What is the Center of Garvity? Tactics is the "How." How can I best attack the Center of Gravity?Originally Posted by William F. Owen
It is. Thank Carl von Clausewitz.
Infinity Journal "I don't care if this works in practice. I want to see it work in theory!"
- The job of the British Army out here is to kill or capture Communist Terrorists in Malaya.
- If we can double the ratio of kills per contact, we will soon put an end to the shooting in Malaya.
Sir Gerald Templer, foreword to the "Conduct of Anti-Terrorist Operations in Malaya," 1958 Edition
However I still believe that Staretgy is "What" to attack. What is the Center of Garvity? Tactics is the "How." How can I best attack the Center of Gravity?
Yep!
Hear! Hear!
Sir, the following observations may be of some use to you and the other members of the SWC in the discussion especially with regards to the issue of interpretation, meaning and intention.
Firstly, from Peter Winch, The Idea of A Social Science and Its Relation to Philosophy
[in the context of an examination of Pareto] But ideas cannot be torn out of their context in that
way; the relation between idea and context is an internal one. The idea gets its sense from the role it plays in the system. It is nonsensical to take several systems of ideas, find an element in each which can be expressed in the same verbal form, and then claim to have discovered an idea which is common to all the systems. This would be like observing that both the Aristotelian and Galilean systems of mechanics use a notion of force, and concluding that they therefore make use of the same notion. (p. 107-8)
And with regards to Clausewitz (which I thought might be pertinent in a more general way to the discussion) the following from Jan Willem Honig ‘Clausewitz’s On War: Problems of Text and Translation’, in Clausewitz in the Twenty-First Century, Ed. by Hew Strachan and Andreas Herberg-Rothe.
As I see it a great deal of our terminological confusion rests with our inability to determine the quite specific felicity conditions necessary to determine whether, say, someone’s use of the term “operational” actually means “operational” as in operational art, operational level of war, or operations (activities) in general, i.e., previous usages of operations were often simply a shorthand for “military activities in general” as in “our operations in Europe” which obviously means our “military operations in Europe” or, if spoken by a CEO then “our business activities in Europe”, etc. Indeed, the Soviet concept of deep operations (glubokaia operatsiia) is only vaguely related to, for instance, Dupuy’s and his collaborators’ conception of Operations in FM 100 Operations of the 1980s. Soviet military thinking was based upon materialist dialectics and the revealing of the scientific laws of warfare (something which, ironically, the current SOD enthusiasts are trying to recreate thereby forgetting altogether the art in operational art which takes into account friction, fog and chance and the necessity for coup d’oliel (sp?) ...at least in my reading!Let us begin with one seemingly innocuous example: the translation of the word ‘Niederwerfung’. Although (as we will see in a moment), they are by no means consistent, Howard and Paret have a pronounced preference for translating this word as ‘defeat’. This is a defensible choice of words, but Niederwerfung, which literally means ‘to throw down’, suggests something altogether more definite and final than ‘defeat’. It suggests putting an enemy in a situation from which no recovery is possible. ‘Defeat’, on the other hand, is more readily understood as a transitory situation, a moment in a process which, overall, is marked by both reversals and successes. One suffers, or inflicts, a defeat. An enemy, however, is only once ‘overthrown’—to use the word by which Niederwerfung is traditionally translated. Niederwerfung became an established technical term in the German military vocabulary of the nineteenth century and first half of the twentieth century. It possessed a specific meaning, which the less decisive ‘defeat’ does not adequately capture: the destruction of the enemy’s means of resistance, that is, his armed forces. This came to be regarded as the central aim in war. Clausewitz already understood the term as such and, indeed, he can be credited with developing the conceptual framework that explained why the enemy’s Niederwerfung played such a singular and critical role in war. The contemporary English and French military literature assimilated the idea and translated the term, respectively, with ‘overthrow’ and renversement. (p. 61)
Clausewitz posits, on the first page of On War, that war is ‘an act of force to compel our enemy to do our will’. This, if it is to be achieved, requires making him, in Howard and Paret’s translation, ‘powerless’. The word Clausewitz uses, however, is more specific. He writes ‘wehrlos’ or defenceless. ‘Power’ suggests something broader and vaguer that may be more in tune with modern perceptions of international relations which stress the importance of power, but I would argue that Clausewitz intends to be more precise. Making the enemy ‘wehrlos’, or ‘disarming’ him, is the natural aim in war, as without means of resistance the enemy has no choice but to do the victor’s will. It therefore constitutes the focus of military operations, or what Clausewitz calls the Ziel, or military aim. Choosing ‘powerless’, because of its broader, more political meaning, might also easily further confuse the rigorous distinction Clausewitz makes throughout the first chapter between the political aim, or Zweck, and the subordinate military Ziel. Howard and Paret’s translation does not reproduce Clausewitz’s rigour: Zweck variously appears as aim, object, purpose, end, goal, and requirements. These translations overlap with those chosen for Ziel. As neither Zweck nor Ziel always appears with their clarifying adjective ‘political’ or ‘military’ (kriegerisch), English readers must work harder to uncover the logic than Clausewitz intended. (p. 62)
Clausewitz is at pains to emphasize the importance and specificity of disarming the enemy and, in this context, also repeatedly clarifies the relationship between disarmament and overthrow. On the opening page of book I, chapter 2, he writes that the aim in war is ‘den Gegner niederzuwerfen, d.h. ihn wehrlos zu machen’—‘to overthrow the enemy, that is, to make him defenceless’. Translating this with ‘to overcome the enemy and disarm him’ (90) does not quite equal the clarity of the original. Other examples of clear and consistent use of the terms abound; in the third section of chapter 3 of book I, he talks about ‘Entwaffnen oder Niederwerfen des Gegners’ (where the ‘oder’, or ‘or’, must be interpreted as indicating an equivalent, not an alternative). Subsequently, in the fourth section, he writes ‘daß die Entwaffnung oder das Niederwerfen des Feindes, wie man es nennen will, immer das Ziel des kriegerischen Aktes sein muß’—‘that the disarmament or the overthrow of the enemy, call it what you will, must always be the aim of the military act’. The opening sentence of book VII, chapter 3 reads: ‘Das Niederwerfen des Feindes ist das Ziel des Krieges, Vernichtung der feindlichen Streitkräfte das Mittel’—‘The overthrow of the enemy is the aim of war, the destruction of the enemy armed forces the means’. And, finally, in the concluding book on the plan of war one reads ‘daß die Niederwerfung des Feindes, folglich die Vernichtung seiner Streitkräfte das Hauptziel des ganzen kriegerischen Aktes sei’—‘that the overthrow of the enemy, consequently the destruction of his armed forces is the main aim of the whole military act’. One further thing is worth noting here: Clausewitz’s choice of the word Akt (which also already appears in his definition of war: ‘War is an act of force etc.’). The use of this word reinforces my earlier point on ‘overthrow’ in that overthrowing an enemy suggests a definite end result. This makes sense as part of an ‘act’, as this not only implies something that possesses a clear beginning, but also a clear finality. In Howard and Paret, where the word Akt is directly translated, it usually appears as ‘action’—which is open to the same objection I raised with respect to the choice of ‘defeat’ instead of ‘overthrow’: it does not possess the same sense of defined singularity, of clear finality, of the German. Despite a clearly consistent, coherent, and very deliberate choice of words, the Howard–Paret translation renders the quoted passages as follows (I have italicized the different translation choices for Niederwerfung): ‘disarm or defeat’ (p. 75); ‘to overcome the enemy, or disarm him—call it what you will— must always be the aim of warfare’ (note also the inversion!) (p. 77); ‘In war, the subjugation of the enemy is the end, and the destruction of his fighting forces the means’ (p. 526); and ‘that the grand objective of all military action is to overthrow the enemy—which means destroying his armed forces’ (p. 577). (p. 62-3)
Absolute war, Clausewitz argues, could only exist in reality if three conditions could be met. First, war must be an isolated act, something that arises ‘urplötzlich’ without any reference to ‘political life’ (Staatsleben).
The ‘ur’ emphasizes the primeval suddenness of the event, which is rather too lamely rendered by ‘suddenly’ in Howard–Paret (78). Second, war should consist of ‘einem einzigen Schlag ohne Dauer’, that is, ‘a single blow of no duration’. This instantaneity, which the logic demands, is not properly reflected in translating this with ‘a single short blow’ (79). Finally, the result of war must be ‘absolute’. ‘Absolute’ is translated with ‘final’ (80), which given the immediate context is defensible, but, within the broader context of the importance Clausewitz attaches to this particular word, is more difficult to accept. Once more, the translation may suggest less logical rigour and precision than the original possesses. (p. 66)
{My emphasis in all the above quotes}
Last edited by Tukhachevskii; 12-14-2010 at 06:18 PM.
Show me an English CvC quote with more than one line and I'll point out the translation mistake(s). It's really that bad.
His grammar was even worse, though. A CvC-German translation seems overdue.
Yes, and then of those you do pick up a book... they want to pick-up one book only.
Again, wow. There is so much wrong with the above statement I don't know where to begin.
Lets see....
Strategic Bomber = Enola Gay
Strategic Corporal = Lynndie England
Strategy and operations were not as distinct in the Napoleonic era as they are today. Therefore, much of what we think of as operational war fighting was indeed "strategy" during that time. Modern operational warfare BEGAN to emerge in the Napoleonic era, but began to take its contemporary form in WWI. Given this information, you'll note that your rather restrictive list of sources (Moltke, Foch, Clausewitz and Hamely) all hail from periods of history when operational warfare was in its infancy. Unsurprisingly, you won't learn much about operational warfare this way. That's like reading about the Wright Brothers in an attempt to understand a jet. Perhaps a broader range of reading is in order.
I've read Clausewitz. While Clausewitz is useful, your interpretation is far too literal. Focusing on the exact wording of a book, written nearly 200 years ago in a different language, is inadvisable at best.
I assure you that I didn't attain my education on Wikipedia or Google. However, it seemed to me that you needed a simple way to verify that contemporary military views the ends/ways/means construct as I have explained to you. You seem to have taken the point in admitting that 99% see it my way. You do not agree - fair enough. A standard distribution would tell us that you are either incredibly bright or incredibly dull. I'll leave that judgement to the crowd.
Last edited by M.L.; 12-15-2010 at 02:32 AM.
There are two types of people in this world, those who divide the world into two types and those who do not.
-Jeremy Bentham, Utilitarian Philosopher
http://irondice.wordpress.com/
Hi Tukhii,
No doubt about this:
which is the same point that Steve Blair made.from T
...whether, say, someone’s use of the term “operational” actually means “operational” as in operational art, operational level of war, or operations (activities) in general, i.e., previous usages of operations were often simply a shorthand for “military activities in general” as in “our operations in Europe” which obviously means our “military operations in Europe” or, if spoken by a CEO then “our business activities in Europe”, etc.
I addressed two books (Halleck & Mahan; both in American as originally written) and specifically one chapter in each book - that on strategy, which includes the author's discussion of operations. I also mentioned Jomini Chap III, also on strategy with a comprehensive discussion of operations.
None of them is merely dealing with "operations (activities) in general", but with operational art as a subset of strategy (as I view what I read). I suppose someone else could slog through those several hundred pages and reach a different conclusion on what they say. If so, I'd be interested to read that analysis.
Regards
Mike
I hope that was tongue in cheek...
She had no strategic or operational impact and very little tactical impact -- unless you consider a failure of leadership and training leading to an unnecessary capture and the resulting dumb publicity stunt that was an embarrassment to the Army to have any real effect or lasting military impact...
As for the Enola Gay, good one. Really.
Coulda used Bockscar also. Though one could wonder about the other 3,968 B-29s and variants built and one probably could omit mention of their service as tactical bombers during the Korean War or their service as air sea rescue aircraft and tankers later in life.Can't speak for the rest of the crowd but IMO Wilf's more than bright enough. Little arrogant sometimes but then there's a lot of that going around.A standard distribution would tell us that you are either incredibly bright or incredibly dull. I'll leave that judgement to the crowd.
Googling, in fragrante delicto,
of the Great White Bear's "Hear! Hear!", the combined two phrases "policy strategy tactics" + "ends ways means" (in Advanced Search), returns two hits: This thread; and a link that leads to U.S. ARMY WAR COLLEGE, GUIDE TO NATIONAL SECURITY ISSUES, VOLUME I: THEORY OF WAR AND STRATEGY, 4th Edition, Edited by J. Boone Bartholomees, Jr (June 2010). Pdf links for Vol I and Vol II.
The specific cite (where "policy, strategy, tactics" and "ends, ways, means" are discussed and dissected) is to CHAPTER 1, WHY IS STRATEGY DIFFICULT?, by David Jablonsky. This is 10 pages worth reading - with supporting references, starting (but not ending) with CvC:
The remainder of Jablonsky's "brief" goes on to discuss levels of war (including operational) and DIME, etc.FROM REVOLUTIONS TO TOTAL WAR
In the wake of the Napoleonic Wars, there was a growing recognition of the increased complexity of strategy, summarized in Carl von Clausewitz’s warning that “there can be no question of a purely military evaluation of a great strategic issue, nor of a purely military scheme to solve it.”[5] At the tactical level, the Prussian philosopher wrote, “the means are fighting forces trained for combat; the end is victory.” For the strategic, however, Clausewitz concluded that military victories were meaningless unless they were the means to obtain a political end, “those objects which lead directly to peace.”[6] Thus, strategy was “the linking together (Verbindung) of separate battle engagements into a single whole, for the final object of the war.”[7] And only the political or policy level could determine that objective. “To bring a war, or any one of its campaigns to a successful close requires a thorough grasp of national policy,” he pointed out. “On that level strategy and policy coalesce.”[8] For Clausewitz, this vertical continuum (see Figure 1) was best exemplified by Frederick the Great, who embodied both policy and strategy and whose Silesian conquests of 1741 lie considered to be the classic example of strategic art by demonstrating “an element of restrained strength, . . . ready to adjust to the smallest shift in the political situation.”[9]
With his deceptively simple description of the vertical continuum of war, Clausewitz set the stage for the equivalent of a Copernican shift in the strategic ends‑ways‑means paradigm. Now that paradigm was more complex, operating on both the military and policy levels with the totality of the ends, ways, and means at the lower levels interconnected with the political application at the policy level of those same strategic elements. This connection was the essence of Clausewitz’s description of war as a continuation of political intercourse (Verkehr) with the addition of other means. He explained that
5. Original emphasis. Carl von Clausewitz, Two Letters on Strategy, Peter Paret and Daniel Moran, ed./trans., Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army War College, 1984, p. 9.We deliberately use the phrase “with the addition of other means” because we also want to make it clear that war in itself does not suspend political intercourse or change it into something entirely different.... The main lines along which military events progress, and to which they are restricted, are political lines that continue throughout the war into the subsequent peace.... War cannot be divorced from political life; and whenever this occurs in our thinking about war, the many links that connect the two elements are destroyed and we are left with something pointless and devoid of sense.[10]
6. Carl von Clausewitz, On War, Michael Howard and Peter Paret, eds., Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1976, pp. 142‑143.
7. Michael Howard, Clausewitz, New York: Oxford University Press, 1986, p. 16; Clausewitz, On War, pp. 127‑132.
8. Clausewitz, On War, p. 111. “In the highest realms of strategy ... there is little or no difference between strategy, policy and statesmanship.” Ibid., p. 178. Winston Churchill relearned these lessons in World War I. “The distinction between politics and strategy,” he wrote at that time, “diminishes as the point of view is raised. At the Summit, true politics and strategy are one.” Winston S. Churchill, The World Crisis 1915, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1929, p. 6.
9. Clausewitz, On War, p. 179.
10. Ibid., p. 605.
Relevant to the present discussion is an SSI monograph, Alien: How Operational Art Devoured Strategy, by Brigadier Justin Kelly, Dr. Michael James Brennan (2009):
CheersBrief Synopsis
The publication of the 1982 version of Army Field Manual (FM) 100-5, Operations, introduced to the English-speaking world the idea of an operational level of war encompassing the planning and conduct of campaigns and major operations. It was followed 3 years later by the introduction of the term “operational art” which was, in practice, the skillful management of the operational level of war. This conception of an identifiably separate level of war that defined the jurisdiction of the profession of arms was, for a number of historical and cultural reasons, attractive to U.S. practitioners and plausible to its English-speaking allies. As a result, it and its associated doctrine spread rapidly around the world. The authors argue that as warfare continues to diffuse across definitional and conceptual boundaries and as the close orchestration of all of the instruments of national power becomes even more important, the current conception of campaigns and operations becomes crippling. To cope with these demands by formulating and prosecuting “national campaigns,” the authors propose that the responsibility for campaign design should “actually” return to the political-strategic leadership of nations supported by the entirety of the state bureaucracy. This would mark the return of the campaign to its historical sources. If the United States and its allies fail to make this change, they risk continuing to have a “way of battle” rather than a “way of war.”
Mike
You may be thinking of Jessica Lynch. England was part of the Abu Ghraib fiasco.
Fair enough. Like I said, his construct of ends/ways/means is fundamentally and radically different from conventional military thought and theory. He could be a prodigy who is fantastically ahead of his time. Or, he may simply misunderstand the subject. I tend toward the latter explanation, but I've been wrong before...Can't speak for the rest of the crowd but IMO Wilf's more than bright enough. Little arrogant sometimes but then there's a lot of that going around.
Last edited by M.L.; 12-15-2010 at 04:46 AM.
There are two types of people in this world, those who divide the world into two types and those who do not.
-Jeremy Bentham, Utilitarian Philosopher
http://irondice.wordpress.com/
Uh-oh. The Kelly/Brennan SSI monograph uses the word Blitzkrieg, which is an imaginary doctrine, on page 91. How could a general officer and a PhD both be talking about imaginary things like blitzkrieg and operational warfare?!
I trust Mr. Owen will set them straight!
There are two types of people in this world, those who divide the world into two types and those who do not.
-Jeremy Bentham, Utilitarian Philosopher
http://irondice.wordpress.com/
It is very radical as it is taught, but it is not so radical when it is viewed through CvC and On War. Not radical at all from that stand point.
Heh, you're right. Penalty of being old and mixing one's metaphors instead
of a drink...Terrible thing is I should've remembered Lynndie particularly well because my son's platoon was in the exterior security Company from the 82d that was at Abu Gharaib at the time -- he told me in a November Sat Phone call that they had seen and elevated the problems to Bde and thence to Div. Thence they went to Sanchez's puzzle palace and that all hell was about to break loose. Wasn't quite that bad but break loose it did...
Fascinating since there's little doubt that Sanchez's pressure for intel certainly contributed to if it did not lead to the excesses. Chain of command failure from the top down. They got Karpinski and the Bn Cdr but I'm still waiting for the Courts Martial of the Company Commanders and 1SGs. Rick of course skated...
I hied to Lynch as the IMO more notable impact of the two. However, with England, the leadership and training criticism is also valid and the resulting publicity was also an embarrassment to the Army -- though the 'dumb' in this case was photographing the even more stupid actions of the MPs -- which was in process of coming out without the pictures.
Still, I think my point remains valid -- neither of the young ladies achieved strategic, operational or tactical import or really created any lasting effect.
CvC is quoted often, and misinterpreted more often. This is a case of both.
Mr. Owen is focusing on the words of On War in a vacuum, rather than a broader view of the ideas within their historical context.
I can quote you CvC that will seemingly justify war crimes, or anything else for that matter. However, an honest interpretation of CvC certainly does not advocate war crimes.
Two things make CvC more valuable as a broad, "big idea" kind of work than as a book of quotable quotes. First, the book was never finished. Second, CvC uses a dialectical method to form his ideas. He may express one idea in one passage, then an opposing idea in the next passage. Simply quoting one passage doesn't really tell us much. We have to read the entire work and synthesize the big ideas.
That is why when someone quotes Clausewitz to me, I know he/she doesn't really get it. Someone who really knows CvC will rarely quote, but will often summarize.
There are two types of people in this world, those who divide the world into two types and those who do not.
-Jeremy Bentham, Utilitarian Philosopher
http://irondice.wordpress.com/
Not really, when the Air Forces deactivated the Strategic Air Command and reorganized there units it was because they had finally realized that there is no such thing as a Strategic Bomber or a Tactical bomber for that matter. There are just Bombers with differant ranges and payload capabilites but they are all Bombers. What you have are Missions (that could be considered either Strategic or Tactical) but ANY bomber including a guy with a car packed full of explosives could carry them out.
I'd say Abu Ghraib was a huge setback strategically from an information operations standpoint. It completely undermined the US narrative of "liberating" the Iraqi people, as well as further undermining the already underwhelming international support.
It was certainly a rallying cry for insurgent recruitment, both inside Iraq and out.
Would the insurgency have been fundamentally changed had Abu Ghraib not happened? Impossible to say, but I believe that it certainly hurt the US strategically, though perhaps not (as you say) in a lasting way.
I think the larger point is that the levels of warfare are very dynamic. Certain acts by units or even individuals at the tactical level can and do have strategic effects.
There are two types of people in this world, those who divide the world into two types and those who do not.
-Jeremy Bentham, Utilitarian Philosopher
http://irondice.wordpress.com/
I agree but so does Colin S Gray in the article by him that I posted. Both simply believe that CvC is the best we have as far as a general theory of War. As to whether they are right or not I don't know as I think CvC is only half right myself. What I do know is that Wilf is not stupid! Stubborn cetainly but he is not dumb.
Let's not confuse things (assets/forces) with effects.
A bomber, in and of itself, is not an inherently strategic asset.
A bomber which drops a nuclear device, well, that tends to have a strategic impact.
The original conception of a strategic bomber was that of an aircraft which was designed to go after targets which would yield strategic effects. For example, the B-1 was designed to penetrate Soviet airspace (integrated air defense threat) and deliver a nuclear payload - a strategic mission if I ever saw one.
So, we can generally associate certain forces with certain effects at every level of war (ends, ways, and means...IF you believe in that voodoo), however, that does not preclude the use of those forces for other missions.
A primarily tactical asset can have a strategic effect. The opposite is true, though common sense says that would be a waste of resources.
There are two types of people in this world, those who divide the world into two types and those who do not.
-Jeremy Bentham, Utilitarian Philosopher
http://irondice.wordpress.com/
So can I and have often said that CvC would make an excellent Chief of Police. And this is why I think Strategy is so difficult for people to learn and this is my own theory....Strategy is nothing but Criminal Behavior and that is very difficult for a normal person to practice but it is very easy for a criminal personality to practice, which is why they are so difficult to fight or capture. They don't think like the rest of us. Sneaking up behind someone and shooting them is criminal behavior but on the battlefield it is considered good Strategy. That is why Strategy (Evil Behavior) must be well controlled by an Honest Policy level or it will all go crazy. Just my opinion.
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