"Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before," Bokonon tells us. "He is full of murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by their ignorance the hard way." Kurt Vonnegut, Cat's Cradle   Student Papers Historical Links PME Links Texts and Info Marxists Periodicals Other SEE ALSO: Search the Clausewitz Homepage Clausewitz in Business Clausewitz and Nonlinear Science Clausewitz in Unusual Contexts Clausewitz Bibliographies in English, German, French, Japanese, and Other Clausewitz Bookstore Links in French - German - Japanese - Other languages     If your on-line resource would be of interest to those seeking information regarding Clausewitz, please send links and a description to the Clausewitz Home Page Editor. Visit the Clausewitz Bookstore! US - UK - France - Germany

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The high-tech way to cheat (or to know your students are cheating).

Military Strategists / Sun Tzu vs. Carl Von Clausewitz.
A 4 page paper that considers the military philosophies presented by Sun Tzu and Clausewitz and the similarities and differences that can be inferred from a comparison of their works. Bibliography lists 2 sources.   Artofwar.wps

Fog and the Friction / Always Part of the War
A 6 page paper arguing that regardless of how mechanized and technologically advanced warfare becomes, it will still contain the "fog and friction" described by Karl von Clausewitz. While technology will assist on the battlefield, it will not make up for numerous other factors. Bibliography lists 4 sources.   Fogfric.wps

Napoleon Could Not Have Won The Russian Campaign
An 8 page paper positing that Napoleon had no chance of winning the campaign. Arguments are based on William Fuller, Jr's. "backwardness" theory of Kutuzov's campaign, which included tactics that Napoleon was unprepared, strategically, to fight, or even interpret. Fuller's theories and Kuturov's tactics and strategies are argued successfully against von Clausewitz and Sun Tzu strategy and tactic theories. Bibliography lists 6 sources.   Naporuss.wps 

Do the Writings of Clausewitz have contemporary relevance?

"If you sign up you could be reading the rest of this essay in under two minutes."

by Neil Hamlett, U. S. Navy Engineering Duty Officer.

See especially Ch.2: Characteristics of Warfare

A. Clausewitz, Sun Tzu, and Information in Warfare in an Abstract Sense

B. Western Military in the Information Age

C. Summary: Warfare in the Information Age

"The Continuing Relevance Of Clausewitz: Illustrated Yesterday And Today With Application To The 1991 Persian Gulf War." Quantico, VA: USMC Command and Staff College, 1991." At http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/report/1991/HHT.htm

A Study of Clausewitz's Concept of the Military Center of Gravity

Review of On War for History 261, 10/7/92, on WarHorse Simulations page. 

Download papers:
"JOHN BOYD AND JOHN WARDEN: AIR POWER'S QUEST FOR STRATEGIC PARALYSIS," by DAVID S. FADOK

"BEYOND THE INDUSTRIAL WEB: ECONOMIC SYNERGIES AND TARGETING METHODOLOGIES," by STEVEN M. RINALDI, MAJOR, USAF

"THE LINKS BETWEEN SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY AND MILITARY THEORY: UNDERSTANDING THE PAST; IMPLICATIONS FOR THE FUTURE," by ROBERT P. PELLEGRINI

BREVE INTRODUCCIÓN A CLAUSEWITZ
By OSCAR ARANDA MORA, CAPITÁN DE CORBETA
(Lieutenant Commander, Chilean Navy)

This work pursues two intentions. The first is to introduce the thought and the work of General Clausewitz, with the hope to serve as a point of departure for further study of his work. The second intention is to spread its main concepts, thinking especially about those whose academic and professional obligations prevent them from dedicating the time required to the pleasure of reading this masterpiece concerning war. At the same time, it seeks to induce the reader to personal meditation on those paragraphs of On War that the author of this introductory work thinks--with modesty--to be of the greatest importance.

LtGen P.K. Van Riper (USMC) on The Immutable Nature of War (NOVA) In Millennium Challenge 2002, a $250 million war game designed to test the new technologies and concepts of transformation and network-centric warfare—in which U.S. forces are data-linked with one another as never before—Lt. Gen. Paul Van Riper, former president of the Marine Corps University, was asked to command the "enemy" forces. In the first days of that mock battle, he used unconventional methods, including a preemptive attack that featured air-, sea-, and ground-launched cruise missiles to sink 16 American ships. After the American forces decided to refloat the ships and restart the game, Van Riper stepped aside from his role, contending that the rest of the game was scripted for American victory. In this interview, Van Riper explains the peril of placing too much faith in technology at the expense of a deeper understanding of the nature of war. See also Christopher Bassford, "Doctrinal Complexity: Nonlinearity in Marine Corps Doctrine," which discusses GEN Van Riper's contributions to USMC doctrine.

Brigade Planners for the 1st Brigade, 1ID at Fort Riley Kansas have
formed the "Devil Brigade Junior Clausewitz Club," dedicated to
detailed and deliberate planning as their armored brigade
continues to prepare, train, and execute missions
in multiple theaters around the world. They will now be taking our
Club House to Iraq for 6-12 months.

Napoleonic Literature Homepage. Includes many complete books, such as: The Imperial Guard of Napoleon; The Memoirs of Baron de Marbot; Maxims of Napoleon; Life of Napoleon Bonaparte; Memoirs of Constant; The Note-Books of Captain Coignet; Napoleon in Captivity 

The Napoleonic Wargaming Club NEWSLETTER

"Clausewitz, Liddell Hart, and the 'Manoeuvrist Approach'"
by 2e Luitenant Peter Robinson
Koninklijke Militaire Academie adjutant
1e Bn. Regiment Oranje-Nassau No. 38
2e/2e Nederlandsche Divisie

DEPARTMENT OF WAR STUDIES

A resource for educators and students of game theory.

Leximancer is a computer-based tool that can be used to automatically analyse the content of document collections and display the extracted information.

Click HERE for links to:
1. Screenshots comparing Clausewitz with the USMC Capstone Publications, along with thematic annotations.
2. Browsable Concept Index to Clausewitz' On War.

This is a pretty good blurb on Clausewitz, though the opening line is fatuous, incorrect, and out-of-synch with the rest of the article: "Prussian general whose writings, especially On War, advocated the concept of total war, in which all the enemy's territory, property, and citizens are attacked." 

The Carnegie Council was established by Andrew Carnegie in 1914 to work toward the ideal of world peace. It is an independent, nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to research and education at the nexus of ethics and international affairs. Subject topics include, human rights, ethics and the use of force, Reconciliation, the global economy and the environment.

Our link is to the Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Use of Force Initiative. The program develops resources and networks on the ethical uses of force, including references to Clausewtiz. It includes speech transcripts, articles, reviews and other materials.

COMPLETE Original German Version (Berlin, 1832)

COMPLETE English Translation (this one is by British COL J.J. Graham, London, 1873)

SEVERAL OTHER (incomplete) ON-LINE VERSIONS

INDEXES to ON WAR

Clausewitz Bibliographies

See the squashed version of Clausewitz's On War HERE.

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Clausewitz in Turkish (1975): The entire book, On War, in Turkish translation.

JOHN BOYD

Boyd, a superb USAF fighter pilot, tactical analyst, aircraft designer, and inventor of the famous (and useful) "OODA Loop," is held by his followers to be the greatest strategic thinker since Sun Tzu. As usual with the acolytes of any particular strategic theorist, some of his followers—but certainly not all—tend to waste our time by energetically sneering at other theorists (something Clausewitz.com reserves only for dishonest propagandists, of course) rather than looking for the underlying links and synergies that might help us actually advance our understanding of the strategic problems we face.

There are a lot of info and links at http://www.sci.fi/~fta/JohnBoyd.htm.

Links to Boyd's original briefings are available at http://www.d-n-i.net/second_level/boyd_military.htm.Belisarius.com
"War, Chaos and Business"

This is a business-oriented Boyd site devoted to promoting Boyd's ideas. Visitors will be astounded to discover the following:

"You may not realize it, but many of today's most powerful business strategies—agility, the role of time and speed, and the need for mutual trust—trace directly back to this maverick Air Force fighter pilot."

See also the Sun Tzu site SONSHI.COM's excellent interview with Dr. Chester "Chet" Richard, who was an associate Boyd from the mid-1970s until Boyd's death in 1997.

Chet Richards keeps Boyd's genius and contribution to society alive via his web sites "War, Chaos, and Business" (AKA Belisarius.com) and "Defense and the National Interest."

Boydians tend to draw a caricature of Clausewitz as a Newtonian scientific primitive (hardly validated by modern nonlinear theorists' analysis of Clausewitz's world view) and as obsessed with "decisive battle"—a curious notion that traces back to Wellington's misreading of Clausewitz's study of The Campaign of 1815. This alleged "obsession with decisive battle" is basically a conflation of Clausewitz's 1) emphasis on combat as the factor that distinguishes war from other forms of politics, and 2) his suggestion that perhaps the sacrifices of war should be made in pursuit of an actual decision to the political issue under violent dispute.

The Clausewitzian countercritique of Boyd would go something like this:
The primary problem with Boyd's thinking is that he and his disciples consistently ignored the political factors in real-world strategy, on both the theoretical and practical levels—perhaps because there is not a lot of political interaction inside an F-86 cockpit. The results have been some useful tactical, doctrinal, and technical advances; much internecine bureaucratic hostility; and a whole lot of personal and career frustration and destruction. Boyd was an interesting character and he provided some useful tools, but a Clausewitzian would be uncomfortable calling him a "strategist." Still, interesting stuff.

A USEFUL JUST WAR THEORY SITE: JustWarTheory.com is a free, non-profit, annotated aid to research and instruction in philosophical studies of warfare. It is owned and maintained by Mark Rigstad, Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Oakland University.

Brian Orend, "War," The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2002 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.).

SUN TZU

The Giles Translation (c.1910)

The Giles Translation (2)

The Cleary Translation (c.1991)

Sun Tzu at MIT

Sun Tzu: The Art of War Various links to materials regarding Sun Tzu

Sun Tzu: The Art of War - A Bibliography
This is a selected bibliography of written works on the Art of War from Asia in the Sun Tzu tradition, and the Art of War in the European tradition. Books listed include non-military texts in business, law, management and sports. This bibliography was written by Richard H. Rongstad for the Sun Tzu Organization and Viking Phoenix.

Sonshi.com is almost certainly the best Sun Tzu site on the web. It's sole purpose is to be your one reliable Sun Tzu and strategy resource on the Web. It also features a heavily abridged version of Clausewitz's On War.

Sun Tzu: The Art of War: Internet Links

Introductory Working Bibliography to Sun Tzu's Art of War
(Sun Zi bing fa), by Prof. George J. Stein, Chairman, Dept. of Future Conflict Studies, U.S. Air War College.

Dr. Mikkel Vedby Rasmussen [Institute of Political Science, University of Copenhagen.] "The Acme of Skill: Clausewitz, Sun Tzu and the Revolutions in Military Affairs." Paper to be presented at the ECPR workshop on Theories of War, Grenoble, France. April 2001.

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POLITICAL THEORY - a section of "The Western Canon." A website with links to information on and writings by important political theorists: Plato, Aristotle, Niccolò Machiavelli, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Baron de Montesquieu, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Immanuel Kant, Edmund Burke, The Federalist Papers, Jeremy Bentham, G. W. F. Hegel, Alexis de Tocqueville, John Stuart Mill, and Karl Marx.

Strategic Commentary 22nd. July 1965: Clausewitz and Vietnam.
Strategic Commentary 21st. April 1966: Clausewitz; Vietnam; Rhodesia.

Two 1960's-era commentaries on Vietnam from a Clausewitzian perspective, written by Terence Heelas, a radical strategist and an admirer of Clausewitz. From Leo Baxendale.

This article is in Italian. It argues that Sun Tzu's practical view of war is more sensible than "the logical and absolute theories of von Clausewitz." The Clausewitz Homepage agrees completely with this assessment, since Clausewitz's discussion of "absolute war" is, as Clausewitz called it, "a logical fantasy" designed to show the dangers of relying on abstract logic when considering the dangerous problem of war in the real world in which we live.

Cultural Wars

Review essay on Keegan, A History of Warfare; Pick, War Machine: The Rationalisation of Slaughter in the Modern Age; Porter, War and the Rise of the State; van Creveld, On Future War.

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DOD's First Professional Journal On-line

Ziele der Clausewitz-Gesellschaft

"On Diplomacy." Parts 1-4. Parts 5 & 6. A series of eight articles (six completed), each focusing on one book of On War, which will seek to apply Clausewitz's analysis to the art of war in [the game] Diplomacy. By Joseph Wheeler. 

DOSSIER CLAUSEWITZ

Aron, penseur de Clausewitz
Entretien avec Hervé Coutau-Bégarie
La Théorie du Combat
Général Gil Fiévet, A l'écoute de Clausewitz
Une chronologie et une bibliographie sommaire

 

Sayaka Chatani created her (mostly) Japanese-language website, SecurityGirl.net, when she was a Master's student at Columbia University, studying International Security Policy. Her site includes the sections on Clausewitz listed below.

- Who is Clausewitz, what is On War?

- Introduction to Clausewitz's terminology

- Clausewitz Humor

- Short bibliography

Obituary for Colonel Harry G. Summers, Jr. Soldier, scholar, military analyst, writer, editor and friend. By David T. Zabecki. Originally from Colombiad. Summers was a major U.S. Army commentator on Clausewitz and had a tremendous influence on the way Clausewitzian ideas were incorporated into Army doctrine. A list of his relevant writings is Here. A discussion of his interpretation of Clausewitz's famous "Trinity" is Here.

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The War Page A collection of links on war, wargames, and all things warlike.

Return to Clausewitz Homepage