Clausewitz and the Nature of War Essay Example For Students

Clausewitz and the Nature of War Essay In seeking out the fundamental nature of Clausewitzs own mature theories, perhaps the best place to start is with some of the most common misconceptions of his argument. Such misconceptions are almost always the product of writers who either never read On War (or read only the opening paragraphs or perhaps a condensation) or who sought intentionally (for propaganda purposes) to distort its content. The books specific arguments are very clearly stated and rarely difficult to comprehend. The first of these misconceptions is the notion that Clausewitz considered war to be a science. Another (and related) misconception is that he considered war to be entirely a rational tool of state policy. The first idea is drastically wrong, the second only one side of a very important coin. To Clausewitz, war (as opposed to strategy or tactics) was neither an art nor a science. Those two terms often mark the parameters of theoretical debate on the subject, however, and Clausewitzs most ardent critics (Jomini, Liddell Hart, the early J. F. C. Fuller) tended to be those who treated war as a science. As Clausewitz argued, the object of science is knowledge and certainty, while the object of art is creative ability. Of course, all art involves some science (the mathematical sources of harmony, for example) and good science always involves creativity. Clausewitz saw tactics as more scientific in character and strategy as something of an art, but the conscious, rational exercise of military strategy, a term much beloved of theorists and military historians, is a relatively rare occurrence in the real world. It has become our general conviction, he said, that ideas in war are generally so simple, and lie so near the surface, that the merit of their invention can seldom substantiate the talent of the commander who adopts them. *2 Most real events are driven by incomprehensible forces like chance, emotion, bureaucratic irrationalities, and intraorganizational politics, and a great many strategic decisions are made unconsciously, often long before the outbreak of hostilities. If pressed, Clausewitz would have placed war-making closer to the domain of the arts, but neither definition was really satisfactory. Instead, war is a form of social intercourse. The Prussian writer occasionally likened it to commerce or litigation, but more usually to politics. *3 The distinction is crucial: in both art and science, the actor is working on inanimate matter (or, in art, the passive and yielding emotions of the audience), whereas in business, politics, and war the actors will is directed at an animate object that not only reacts but takes independent actions of its own. War is thus permeated by intelligent forces. War is also an act of force to compel our enemy to do our will, but it is never unilateral. It is a wrestling matcha contest between independent wills, in which skill and creativity are no more important than personality, chance, emotion, and the various dynamics that characterize any human interaction. When Clausewitz wrote that war may have a grammar of its own, but not its own logic, he meant that the logic of war, like politics, is the logic of social intercourse, not that of art or science. This approach may seem to violate our usual concept of war, with its focus on clearly defined forms of victory and defeat, but it corresponds well to our actual experience. For example, which of the following provides a better metaphor for the outcome of the war with Iraq? 1. Finishing a long, grueling, dangerous engineering project. 2. Completing a great painting or symphony. 3. Winning an argument with ones spouse. Writing in German, Clausewitz used the word Politik, and his most famous phrase has been variously translated as War is a continuation of policyor of politicsby other means. For the purpose of argument, he assumed that state policy would be rational, that is, aimed at improving the situation of the society it represented. He also believed along with most Westerners of his era that war was a legitimate means for a states advancement of its interests. This is often taken to mean that war is somehow a rational phenomenon, and Clausewitz is convicted of advocating the resort to war as a routine extension of unilateral state policy. In fact, the choice of translation for Politikpolicy or politicsindicates differing emphases on the part of the translator, for the two concepts are quite different. Policy may be defined as rational action, undertaken by a group which already has power, in order to maintain and extend that power. Politics, in contrast, is simply the process (comprising an inchoate mix of rational, irrational, and non-rational elements) by which power is distributed within a given society. *4 And war is an expression ofnot a substitute forpolitics. Thus, in calling war a continuation of politics, Clausewitz was advocating nothing. In accordance with his belief that theory must be descriptive rather than prescriptive, he was merely recognizing an existing reality. War is an expression of both policy and politics (see relevant cartoon), but politics is the interplay of conflicting forces, not the execution of one-sided policy initiatives. The actual word Clausewitz used in his famous formulation is Fortsetzungliterally a setting forth. Translating this word as continuation, while technically correct, evidently implies to many that politics changes its essential nature when it metamorphoses into war. *6 This impression is contrary to Clausewitzs argument. War remains politics in all its complexity, with the added element of violence. The irrational and non-rational forces that affect and often drive politics have the same impact on war. On the side of rationality, it is true that Clausewitz argued that a party resorting to war should do so with a clear idea as to what it means to accomplish and how it intends to proceed toward that goal. The connection of war to rational political goals meant that wars could not be made to follow some fixed pattern; the conduct of wars would have to vary in accordance with their political purposes. His definition of strategythat it was the use of combats for the purpose of the warhas been criticized for overemphasizing the need for bloody battle, but its key point is the purpose of the war. If war was to be an extension of policy, that is, a tool of policy, then military leaders must be subordinate to political leaders and strategy must be subordinate to policy. As the Moltke-Bismarck clash demonstrated, this poses practical organizational problems. Like many of Clausewitzs teachings, his solution was not a simple prescription but a dualism: The military instrument must be subordinated to the political leadership, but political leaders must understand its nature and limitations. Politicians must not attempt to use the instrument of war to achieve purposes for which it is unsuited. There is thus a gray area between soldiers subordination to political leaders and their professional responsibility to educate those leaders in military realities. Exactly whose responsibility it is to sort out that ambiguity is a constitutional matter of some importance. Clausewitz did little to clarify it. In his original manuscript, Clausewitz said If war is to be fully consonant with political objectives, and policy suited to the means available for war, the only sound expedient is to make the commander-in-chief a member of the cabinet, so that the cabinet can share in the major aspects of his activities. This was altered in the second German edition (1853) to say so that he may take part in its councils and decisions on important occasions. *7 Whether the change resulted from well intentioned editorial intervention (for the original edition is full of inconsistencies, obscurities, and obvious editorial errors) or more sinister motivations is unclear. This minor editorial subversion certainly was not the cause of later German strategic errors, as some have implied. *8 This constitutional question aside, it is clear that Clausewitz demanded the subordination of military to political onsiderations throughout a conflict. As he said in 1831, He who maintains, as is so often the case, that politics should not interfere with the conduct of a war has not grasped the ABCs of grand strategy. *9 Policy considerations also can demand actions that may seem irrational, depending on ones values. Clausewitzs desire that Prussia turn on Napoleon before the 1812 campaign would have demanded virtual state suicide in the short run, but he felt that the states honorand thus any hope for its future resurgencerequired it. Clausewitz saw both history and policy in the long run, and he pointed out that no strategic decision is ever final; it can always be reversed in another round of struggle. This side of Clausewitz is uncomfortable for modern Anglo-American readers because it reflects a romantic view of the state as something that transcends the collective interest of its citizens. It provides a philosophical basis for apocalyptic policies like Hitlers and Japans in World War Two. Most modern readings of Clausewitz, including my own, tend to skate over such aspects of On War. They are simply too alien to the spirit of our age to have much meaning. So much for the rational control of war. On the other hand, Clausewitz lived during the transition from the 18th-century intellectual period called the Enlightenment (which stressed a rational approach to human problems) to the age of Romanticism (which was ushered in by the disasters of the French Revolution and stressed the irrational, emotional aspects of mans make-upincluding nationalism). His world view reflected elements of each. His vision of war thus falls also very much into the domain of the non-rational and even the irrational, in which strictly logical reasoning often plays no part at all and is always apt to be a most unsuitable and awkward intellectual tool. *10 Because the flow of military events is uniquely shaped by the specifics of every situation, from its politics and personalities to the terrain and even the weather, the course of war is never predictable. One of the most important requirements of strategy in Clausewitzs view is that the leadership correctly establish kind of war on which they are embarking. *11 This is often understood to mean that leaders should rationally decide the kind of war that will be undertaken. In fact, the nature of any given war is beyond rational control: It is inherent in the situation and in the spirit of the age. Good leaders, avoiding error and self-deception, can at best merely comprehend the real implications of a resort to violence and act accordingly. Fu rther, a war often takes on a dynamic beyond the intentions of those who launched it. The milkman and the catalogue man EssayAs a total phenomenon its dominant tendencies always make war a paradoxical trinitycomposed of primordial violence, hatred, and enmity, which are to be regarded as a blind natural force; of the play of chance and probability within which the creative spirit is free to roam; and of its 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. The passions that are to be kindled in war must already be inherent in the people; the scope which the play of courage and talent will enjoy in the realm of probability and chance depends on the particular character of the commander and the army; but the political aims are the business of government alone. 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 between 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. Let us analyze this quotation in detail: In arguing that war is more than a chameleon (an animal that merely changes color to match its surroundings, but otherwise remains identical), Clausewitz is saying that war is a phenomenon that, depending on conditions, can actually take on radically different forms. The basic sources of changes in those conditions lie in the elements of his trinity. The Clausewitzian trinity is often misrepresented as comprising the people, the army, and the government. Look more closely and you will realize that it is really made up of three categories of forces: irrational forces (violent emotion, i. e. , primordial violence, hatred, and enmity); non-rational forces (i. e. , forces not the product of human thought or intent, such as the play of chance and probability); and rationality (wars subordination to reason, as an instrument of policy). Clausewitz then connects each of those forces mainly to one of three sets of human actors: the people, the army, and the government. We should stress the word mainly, because it is clear that each of the three categories that constitutes the actual trinity affects all of these human actors to some varying degree. 1. The people are paired up with irrational forcesthe emotions of primordial violence, hatred, and enmity (or, by implication, the lack thereof). 2. The army and its commander are paired up with the non-rational forces of chance and probabilitythey deal with those factors under the creative guidance of the commander (and creativity depends on something more than mere rationality, including, hopefully, the divine spark of talent or genius). The government is paired with the rational force of calculationpolicy is, ideally, driven by reason. This corresponds to the famous argument that war is an instrument of policy. Thus, when Clausewitz speaks of war as a total phenomenon, he is not talking about war in the abstract (absolute war), nor about war in theory. He is talking about real war, war as we actually experience it, and he is describing just why it is that war is so dynamic, so unpredictable, so kaleidoscopic in its appearance. The concluding imile in this excerpt from On War is a nearly exact analogy: Clausewitz is saying that theory must be, as war is, like an object suspended among three magnets. He is referring to the observed scientific fact that such a pendulum, once set swinging between three centers of attraction, behaves in a nonlinear mannerit never establishes a repeating pattern. As it enters a phase of its arc in which it is more strongly affected by one force than the others, it gains a momentum which carries it on into zones where the other forces can begin to exert their powers more strongly. The actual path of the suspended object is never determined by one force alone but by the interaction between them, which is forever and unavoidably shifting. The trinity also provides us with clues as to what Clausewitz meant by Politik, for the only element of the paradoxical trinity which makes it unique to war is that the emotions discussed are those that might incline people to violence, whereas politics in general will involve the full range of human feelings. The policy aspects are those argely connected with rationality, whereas politics encompasses the whole trinity. The trinity metaphor, as given here, therefore serves to sum up much of Clausewitzs approach to war. In itself, however, it leaves out the fact, strongly emphasized elsewhere in On War, that war is always an interaction between opposing forces. That is, this trinity exists on both sides, thus further complicating the picture. An approach to theory which denies or minimizes the role of any of these forces or the interaction between them is, therefore, by definition wrong. The soldier who expects the events of war to unfold in any other way is doomed to be surprised, disappointed, and frustrated as events are forever spinning off on unpredictable trajectories. So what, then, was Clausewitzs strategic prescription? Various writers have argued that Clausewitz was the advocate of a particular style of war, held by some to be that of total or absolute war (terms that represent quite different concepts), and by others to be that of limited war. In fact, the mature Clausewitz advocated neither. Rather, he called for state policy to choose a form of war, consistent with its goals and the situation, from somewhere along the limited-to-unlimited continuum of real war. Although the younger Clausewitz of the Instruction for the Crown Prince tended towards a firm prescription of decisive battle, the mature Clausewitz of On War did not. To seek decisive battle did not, after all, make sense for a party who could expect to lose. Readers easily detect that Clausewitz had some emotional attachment to war in its more powerful form as a result of his own experience with it, but intellectually he was quite clear on the validity of either. The philosophers students are shown how to analyze a military problem, but left quite on their own as to what to do about the ones they actually face. Other writers have claimed that Clausewitz was an advocate of concentric attacks, in contrast to Jominis advocacy of interior lines. In fact, Clausewitz spent more time discussing concentric operations in part simply because Jomini had already done so good a job explaining the opposite approach. The choice of either would depend, as always, on the specific situation. Clausewitz did provide some guidance in choosing military objectives. Perhaps most important was the idea of focusing ones military efforts against the enemys center of gravity (Schwerpunkt), which has become an important concept in American doctrine. Clausewitzs use of this term is problematic, however. He often used it in very general terms to mean something like the main thing or the key point at issue. He used it in tactical discussions to denote the main line of attack. When applied to operations or strategy, however, the term assumed a more narrow definition. The center of gravity was the most important source of the enemys strength. Operationally, it usually appears as the key enemy field force. Strategically, it is most commonly the enemys military forces as a whole or in part, but it can be his capital or something less concrete, like the common interest of an alliance or even public opinion. The term comes from Mechanics, and Clausewitz was clearly trying to use a scientific metaphor to force the reader to focus on key considerations rather than frittering away his energy on peripheral concerns. Unfortunately, Clausewitzs statement that A center of gravity is always found where the mass is concentrated most densely is scientificly incorrect, and the metaphorwhile useful and interestingsuffers accordingly. In any case, as usual with Clausewitz, the correct identification of any center of gravity would have to be consistent with the character of the situation and appropriate to the political purposes of military operations. To seek for an all-purpose strategic prescription in Clausewitzs discussion of the center of gravity will therefore lead to the usual frustration. The rigid prescription simply is not there. Destruction of the enemy army is not the fixed goal of Clausewitzian strategy. A superficial reading of On War may, however, leave the reader somewhat confused on this point. Clausewitzs definition of strategy emphasizes battle, and he states quite clearly, time after time, that there is only one means in war: combat. The subtlety that one must be aware of here is that by combat Clausewitz means not only the actual bloody clash of armed men on the field of battle but also potential or merely possible clashes. *21 Since there doesnt seem to be enough space for the rest of my essay you can mail me to get the full annotated thesis.