Fifty+ videos making reference to Clausewitz are listed in the 7-page "Clausewitz Videos" section. Some of these have actual educational value—especially the scientific videos, if you're willing to explore their meaning for the way the physical world actually behaves and to consider their parallels in Clausewitz's world view. Others are merely amusing. They are listed in no particular order of importance.
(THIS PAGE) Clausewitz's writing were not intended to become doctrine, but they are certainly relevant to doctrine. Explaining the relevance can be done well or poorly. — • — |
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ADDITIONAL PAGES Academic Lectures and Interviews by Prominent Clausewitz Scholars |
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This is a guide to some pop-culture references to Clausewitz that might be useful bits for lectures or presentations—especially if you are looking to fulfill the U.S. War Colleges' mandatory "Monty Python video requirement" for discussions on strategic theory. |
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Clausewitz's writing were not intended to become doctrine, but they are certainly relevant to doctrine. Explaining the relevance can be done well or poorly. |
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Clausewitz at the Pentagon, 2015 In 2015, then-Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness Brad R. Carson invited several prominent Clausewitz scholars to give a series of lectures, which culminated in a panel discussion involving Carsion and six of the series participants. We have 4 full-length classes by individual speakers and the full panel discussion. |
DOCTRINAL DISCUSSIONS
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● USAWC 6 SEP 2011. Dr. Jim Helis, chairman of the Department of National Security and Strategy, the Army War College, discusses Carl von Clausewitz during a lecture at the Army War College. This is pretty good, especially on Clausewitz's professional background. The discussion of Clausewitz's concepts is weakened by Helis's emphasis on unilateral "policy" (vice multilateral "politics"), which in our experience lends itself to a unilateralist, "engineering"-approach misinterpretation of Clausewitzian theory. He correctly identifies the elements of Clausewitz's "trinity"—a big plus. However, he misinterprets Clausewitz's skepticism of the accuracy of your typical tactical intelligence report to mean that "Clausewitz saw no value in intelligence." This is a common if inexplicable conclusion—thoroughly contradicted by Clausewitz's constant demand for careful study of all aspects of one's situation.
● Colonel Mick Mumford (Australia), "Social Media and Clausewitz: Incorporating new technologies into an old ideology." 16 November 2015. "Colonel Michael 'Mick' Mumford, CSC, is a graduate of the Australian Defence Force Academy and Royal Military College. In nearly 30 years of service he has commanded infantry soldiers at every level and his operational deployments include border protection in the Torres Strait, peace monitoring in Bougainville, election support in PNG, peacekeeping in Timor Leste, and active service in East Timor and Afghanistan. He is a Distinguished Graduate of the US Marine Corps' Command and Staff College and School of Advanced Warfighting and he holds the degrees of Bachelor of Arts, Master of Business Administration, Master of Military Studies, Master of Operational Studies, and Master of Divinity." Clausewitz.com's view: An interesting and useful discussion on its own terms, this is a fairly typical military-doctrinal view and use of Clausewitz. Clausewitz's book On War is explicitly not intended as doctrine, and in any case it would be a serious error to view Colonel Mumford's presentation as intended to provide any sort of summary of Clausewitz's arguments.
Social Media and Clausewitz: Incorporating new technologies into an old ideology. Colonel Mick Mumford, from Monash Arts on Vimeo.
● Mr. Atul Bhardwaj, Adjunct Fellow, Institute of Chinese Studies (ICS), Lecture on the Theory of War—"Clausewitz On War," appearing on VYAS (24 Hours Higher Education Channel), Consortium for Educational Communication, New Delhi, India. YouTube, published on 13 June 2016. (We were alerted to this video in June 2016 by Nicholas Ierullo.)
