NOTE: The reader is better served by reading the updated version of the paper from which this chapter was taken, which is HERE. The original printed version is useful only if you are interested in the author's personal evolution.

The bibliography of this book is replete with works that seek to explain or condense Clausewitz's theories. Some are more successful than others. A few are brilliant. None is acceptable as a substitute for Clausewitz's own work; none can capture On War's richness and complexity. Further, all attempts to do so (including the one given here) are distorted by the impact of contemporary concerns and by idiosyncratic personal interpretations. On War itself is often misleading for much the same reason: Clausewitz placed great stress on some points simply because they were antagonistic to the fashions of his own time, leaving later readers somewhat confused about the importance of those points to his overall scheme. The issue of moderation in war, his comments on the idea of the "bloodless victory," and his sometimes contradictory comments on the value of intelligence and surprise are examples. Nonetheless, it is appropriate here to provide a short survey of the man and his works, one molded by an acute awareness of the widespread confusion regarding both. (1)

Clausewitz's personality--important to any interpretation of his work--has been treated in many different ways. To the British military historian Michael Howard he was a "soldier's soldier" who wrote a practical military philosophy aimed at practical military men. Peter Paret, a German émigré to America who has emerged as the most prominent of contemporary Clausewitz scholars, presents him as a somewhat aridly brilliant intellectual. Clausewitz's detractors have portrayed him as a bloodthirsty military dilettante, and generations of bored soldier-students in Germany as well as Britain and America have treated him as a stuffy old pedant, author of a dry and tiresome tome best left to college professors.

In fact, Clausewitz was a complicated man of both action and thought, who left a complicated legacy. Sensitive, shy, and bookish by nature, he could also be passionate in his politics, his love for his wife, and his longing for military glory. Frequently in combat, (2) he regularly displayed coolness and physical courage. He was untouched by scandal in his personal life, and his intellectual integrity was ruthless. His keen analytical intelligence was accompanied, perhaps unavoidably, by a certain intellectual arrogance. The latter quality is amply demonstrated by the many sarcastic comments that appear in On War. These characteristics may account for the fact that, while he rose to high rank in the Prussian service, he almost always served as a staff officer rather than as a commander. His assignments, however, frequently put him near the center of military-political events.

The works most important to Clausewitz's reception in the English-speaking world are On War itself and its distant precursor Principles of War (written in 1812), along with two historical studies: The Campaign of 1812 in Russia (partly written in 1814 and finished after 1824) and The Campaign of 1815 in France (completed after 1827). (3) The two latter works can be regarded as intermediate steps in the evolution of Clausewitz's ideas; they contain or reflect important elements of his maturing theories but are basically straightforward studies of Napoleonic campaigns in which Clausewitz himself had participated.

In 1812, Clausewitz resigned from Prussian service in principled protest of Prussia's collaboration with Napoleon in the coming war with Russia. He then took service with the Russian czar's armies. Before leaving Berlin, Clausewitz wrote "The most important principles of the art of war to complete my course of instruction for his Royal Highness the Crown Prince" (usually entitled in English the Principles of War or "Instruction for the Crown Prince"). He presented it to the sixteen-year-old Prussian crown prince Friedrich Wilhelm (later King Friedrich Wilhelm IV, r. 1840-58), whose military tutor Clausewitz had become in 1810. The Principles represented, in appropriately simplified form, Clausewitz's theoretical development up to 1812. It was, however, only a rather primitive precursor to his later magnum opus, On War. Although some of the more important theoretical concepts of On War are fairly well developed (e.g., "friction,"), many are present only in embryo and others are entirely absent. The Principles of War's subject matter is largely tactical.

In particular, and in great contrast with the later work, Principles of War is not notably sophisticated in historical terms. It is based almost entirely on the experience of Frederick the Great and the more recent wars with revolutionary France and Napoleon. Unfortunately, it has often been treated as a précis of Clausewitz's mature theory, which it most emphatically is not.

On War (based on unfinished manuscripts and published posthumously in 1832) is a hefty work. It has often been printed in three separate volumes, and the newest single-volume English-language edition runs about 580 pages (not counting the accompanying commentaries). It is internally divided into eight books: (1) On the Nature of War, (2) On the Theory of War, (3) On Strategy in General, (4) The Engagement, (5) Military Forces, (6) Defense, (7) The Attack, and (8) War Plans.

Books 1, 2, and 8 are generally considered the most important, as well as the most nearly finished. Other sections are often left out of abridged versions, especially Books 5, 6, and 7, allegedly because they are tactical in nature and thus obsolete. This sometimes leads to serious misunderstandings of Clausewitz's arguments, for it is precisely in these books that he works out the practical implications of his ideas. For those who preferred to paint Clausewitz as the "apostle of the offensive," it was especially convenient to leave out Book 6, "Defense," for it is by far the largest. To be understood, the work really has to be approached as a whole.

Precisely who was to benefit from reading On War is a trifle perplexing. Clausewitz's practical purpose in writing it was to give "military analysts" a clear conceptual scheme for understanding war, in hopes of improving both its actual conduct and the literature discussing it. He hoped that such an understanding would improve the judgement of military commanders, but he also believed that "military genius" was more a matter of temperament and character than of intellect. Perhaps because of his awareness of his own character, he felt that intellectuals generally made poor commanders. Only a self-conscious intellectual, however, was likely to plow through a book like On War. The book seems in fact to be aimed more at historians, military educators, and staff officers than at actual commanders, perhaps in the hope of some sort of "trickle up" effect.

On War certainly was not intended to provide a practical guide to commanders in the field, some sort of military "cookbook." Such a purpose, which underlies a great deal of military doctrinal writing, was alien to Clausewitz's approach to military theory: "Given the nature of the subject, we must remind ourselves that it is simply not possible to construct a model for the art of war that can serve as a scaffolding on which the commander can rely for support at any time." Since theory could not be a guide to action, it must be a guide to study; it is meant to assist the student in his efforts at self-education and to help him develop his own judgment, "just as a wise teacher guides and stimulates a young man's intellectual development, but is careful not to lead him by the hand for the rest of his life." His studies of educational theory had convinced Clausewitz of the limits of intellectualizing: Knowledge, he knew, was not ability. "These truths certainly need to be authenticated by experience." Reality (experience) always took precedence over the kind of abstract "truth" that can be transmitted by mere writing. Theory must never conflict with reality, and thus must be essentially descriptive of war, never prescriptive of action. "No theory, no general, should have anything to do with psychological and philosophical sophistries." (4)

Unfortunately, it is clear that many would-be readers of On War have made it no further than halfway through the first chapter and given up on what seems to be an exceedingly abstract philosophical treatment of the problem. (5) These first few pages set up an abstract theoretical idealization of war, what Clausewitz called "absolute war." This term represents a philosophical abstraction, a "logical fantasy" impossible to achieve in reality. Absolute war is war in a pure form, violence at its most extreme, unrestrained by intelligent forces. It occurs for no particular reason and takes place in one near-instantaneous maximum effort by both warring parties. It aims at the utter overthrow of the enemy through the destruction of his physical means to resist.

This discussion of war in the abstract, however, takes up only a small section of the first chapter (about five out of fifteen pages) and is not typical of the overall work. In the rest of the book, Clausewitz deals with "real war," that is, the gritty reality of war as we actually experience it. He explores why it is so different from his own idealization, from the faulty constructs of other intellectuals, and from the pontifications of "pedants" (the latter group a particular object of scorn). Real war is constrained by limits in the form of the ever-present social and political context, of human nature, and of the restrictions imposed by time and space. These factors forbid that the absolute should ever come to pass.

Because Clausewitz's classification of the varieties of war is so often misunderstood, it is necessary to nail home this point. The spectrum of war does not run smoothly from "absolute" to "limited." Rather, we have on the one hand absolute war, an abstraction that never actually occurs. On the other we have "real" war, which is always limited by practical factors. Real war occurs along a spectrum from the mere threat of force to conflicts that are unlimited in the sense that at least one of the antagonists is unwilling to accept any outcome other than the complete overthrow of his adversary.

Of all real-world possibilities only thermonuclear war, which Clausewitz naturally did not envision, could closely match the absolute concept. One might argue that such a war has never occurred simply because it is equally unrealistic, in the sense that, although it may have become technologically feasible, there seems to be no comprehensible political motive that would impel a state to launch it. The Cold War's nuclear strategists were unable to provide a credible political scenario to explain the nuclear exchanges they described, and the nuclear powers were always careful to avoid creating a situation that might make such mutual suicide seem desirable or necessary to any individual state among them. (6)

It is also important to note that Clausewitz's concept of absolute war is distinct from the later concept of "total war." Total war is a prescription for the actual waging of war typified by the ideas of General Erich von Ludendorff (1865-1937), who actually assumed control of the German war effort during World War One. It requires the total subordination of politics to the war effort--an idea that was anathema to Clausewitz--and the assumption that total victory or total defeat is the only option. The concept of total war involves no suspension of the effects of time and space, as did Clausewitz's idealization. Clausewitz sometimes wrote as if Napoleon had approached or even achieved the absolute, but this is mere rhetorical excess and clearly inconsistent with his careful definition.

To understand On War, to distinguish it from Clausewitz's earlier works, and to differentiate his ideas from those of his competitors, one must understand Clausewitz's evolving attitude towards history. Alone, his historical studies of Napoleonic campaigns would probably not have altered his approach to theory, but as time went on he also made detailed studies of earlier and quite different wars. These included, among other things, seventeenth-century campaigns like those of Gustavus Adolphus and Turenne, the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-14), and east European wars with the Turks. Thus On War reflects a much wider range of historical experience and a much more sophisticated approach to history as a discipline than did the earlier Principles of War. Much of the misappreciation of Clausewitz's basic theories derives from the fact that he generally worked out their practical significance in a contemporary European context, but the underlying theory has universal implications.

Clausewitz's approach to history became increasingly historicist. That is, he saw history in relative terms, rejecting absolute categories, standards, and values. The past had to be accepted on its own terms. The historian must attempt to enter into the mind-sets and attitudes of any given period, the "spirit of the age." History is a dynamic process of change driven by forces beyond the control and often beyond the comprehension of any individual or group. This historicism is particularly obvious in two key themes of On War that are missing in the Principles. These are the famous notion that "war is a continuation of policy with an admixture of other means" (i.e., organized violence) and the recognition that war can vary in its forms depending on the changing nature of policy and of the society within which it is waged.

Both insights derived from Clausewitz's relentless criticism of his own evolving ideas. Clausewitz's earlier theoretical musings emphasized the quest for "decisiveness" in warfare. These derived from the experience of the French Revolution and its sequels, but this approach clearly could not explain the relatively indecisive and limited warfare of earlier periods. Unless, that is, earlier generations of soldiers were to be dismissed as fools, and Clausewitz ultimately rejected this solution. He therefore determined that war could legitimately take on the near-absolute form in which it had been waged by the revolutionary armies and Napoleon or assume a much more limited character, depending on its sources and motivations.
 

Most former wars were waged largely in [a] state of equilibrium, or at least expressed tensions that were so limited, so infrequent, and feeble, that the fighting that did occur during these periods was seldom followed by important results. Instead a battle might be fought to celebrate the birthday of a monarch (Hochkirch), to satisfy military honor (Kunersdorf), or to assuage a commander's vanity (Freiberg).

In our opinion it is essential that a commander should recognize these circumstances and act in concert with their spirit.

Clausewitz suspected that the example of the Napoleonic wars would serve as a model for future conflicts. Much of On War is therefore concerned with hard-fought struggles aimed at achieving a real political decision, the actual "overthrow" of the enemy, and thus with military strategies aimed at actually disarming the enemy through the destruction (physical and/or moral) of his armed forces. This was unlimited war.

On the other hand, Clausewitz also saw the possibility that war would revert--or evolve--into forms more closely resembling those of the prerevolutionary era. He called these weaker forms of war "limited wars" and characterized them in various ways: "wars in which no decision is sought," wars of limited aims, wars to seize a slice of enemy territory (either for its own sake or as a bargaining chip for use in attaining some other end). (7) Although the concept is clearly present and clearly important, it is by no means fully developed. That may be an advantage, of course. Leaving the concept open-ended makes it easy to adapt to changing circumstances.

Clausewitz's rewriting of his draft manuscript for On War was largely a matter of reworking it to incorporate these insights. This process was never completed, cut short by his untimely death from cholera at the age of fifty-one. On War is therefore essentially two very different books superimposed. In some sections the earlier contempt for the limited form still shines through, (8) but the theoretical justification for waging such wars, though not fully explored, is undeniably present. The historian in Clausewitz had triumphed over the purely empirical soldier. (9)

Indeed, much of On War is devoted to discussions of the place of war in history, the practical uses of military history to the soldier, and the difficulties of both reading and writing it. Clausewitz's most important technical contribution to the field of military history was his discussion of "critical analysis." (10) Clausewitz distinguished carefully between the historian and the military critic, even though he recognized that the two roles often went together. Historical research, he maintained, has nothing to do with either theory or criticism. It is the discovery, interpretation, and arrangement of equivocal facts. Critical analysis is the tracing of effects back to their causes. Criticism proper is the investigation and evaluation of actions taken (or "means employed"), the consideration of alternative courses of action, the realm of praise and censure. In such evaluation, actions must be analyzed both on their own level (i.e., tactical, operational, (11) strategic, political) and as they interact at other levels. Theory provides the framework for analysis and judgment.

Clausewitz insisted that history not be abused. There were four ways in which historical examples could legitimately be used in conjunction with theory: to explain an idea, that is, to give dimension to an abstract concept; to show the application of an idea; to demonstrate the mere possibility of some phenomenon; and to deduce a doctrine (this being by far the most difficult). He was highly skeptical that the last could be achieved in most cases and demanded the most exacting rules of evidence. Very little of the existing literature met these requirements, particularly in the case of ancient history, for which so much of the detail and context had been lost.

Given the difficulty of producing a truly useful historical study and the ease with which shallower efforts could mislead students, Clausewitz advocated that military educators rely on the in-depth examination of one campaign (the more recent the better) rather than on broader but less exacting histories. This concept underlies the later historical researches of the German general staff. But although it may contribute to a staff officer's technical virtuousity, this insistence on depth rather than breadth may constitute a weakness in Clausewitz's pedagogical views. It tends almost inevitably to leave students less sensitive to the changeability of the "spirit of the age." Hans Delbrück, on the other hand, generally considered to be the founder of modern, professional, "scientific" military history, emphasized the wider implications of Clausewitz's theories. His work was never popular with the German general staff.

Before discussing further the actual content of Clausewitz's theories, it is useful to note three other important writers with whom his ideas are often contrasted. While it falls outside the scope of this book to deal directly with Moltke, Jomini, and Sun Tzu, the reader should be aware of their importance. All of these writers differ from Clausewitz in noteworthy aspects, though none is truly his antithesis.

The ancient Chinese sage Sun Tzu lived, if such an individual existed at all, sometime during the "Warring States" period of Chinese history (453-221 B.C.). (12) Sun Tzu's book is generally considered the most important of the Chinese military classics and has had a significant if unmeasurable impact on the modern Japanese as well as on the military theories of Mao Tse-tung and subsequent writers on revolutionary warfare.

Sun Tzu is often offered up as the antithesis of Clausewitz, particularly on the issue of the "bloodless battle." His admonitions that a good general gains victory without battle and that no nation ever benefited from a long war are widely perceived as a direct contradiction to On War's emphasis on combat. In actuality, Sun Tzu and Clausewitz are more complementary than antithetical, and there are a good many direct parallels. (13) Sun Tzu's understanding of history as a dynamic process and his subordination of military to political considerations certainly parallel Clausewitz's. Both stress destruction of the enemy's will rather than merely of his physical forces. Sun Tzu discussed the tactics and strategies of actual combat at great length, and much of his discussion of "bloodless struggle" refers to political and psychological matters rather than actual war. Winning an interstate struggle without combat might be desirable from Clausewitz's point of view but even though war is a continuation of politics, by Clausewitz's definition it involves the admixture of violence. Much of Clausewitz's emphatic rejection of the idea was prompted by the fanciful musings of earlier theorists of a warfare based exclusively on bloodless maneuver. There may be a direct connection of sorts here, for Sun Tzu's work was translated into French in 1772 and was popular with writers of the late Enlightenment. (14) The idea also appears, however, in earlier European works like those of Maurice de Saxe (1696-1750), who has likewise been contrasted with Clausewitz.

If there is in fact any fundamental difference between the two writers (beyond Sun Tzu's extreme brevity, which most readers applaud), it can probably be traced to their differing approaches to the balance of power mechanism. Sun Tzu accepted the traditional Chinese ideal of uniting "all under heaven," despite the fact that the China he discussed was split into warring states in many respects as unique as those of modern Europe. The Warring States period ended, in fact, in the unification of China. Clausewitz thought the idea of unifying Europe's diverse peoples to be an absurdity, as one might expect in an opponent of Napoleon.

Antoine-Henri Jomini, later Baron de Jomini, was a French-speaking Swiss (1779-1869). Originally headed for a career in banking, young Jomini got carried away by the excitement of the French Revolution and joined the French army in 1798. He returned to business in Switzerland after the Peace of Amiens (1802), where he began writing on military subjects. His Traité de grande tactique was first published in 1803. He continually revised, enlarged, and reissued it into the 1850s. (15)

Rejoining the army in 1804, Jomini was accepted as a volunteer staff member by one of Napoleon's marshals. He served in the Austerlitz and Prussian campaigns, then in Spain. He finally received an actual staff commission in the French army at the behest of Napoleon a while after Austerlitz (1805). He served for a while as chief of staff to his long-time mentor, Marshal Ney. Unfortunately, Jomini's arrogance, irascibility, and naked ambition often led to friction with his fellows and eventually to a falling-out with Ney. Eventually, however, Jomini was promoted to brigadier general and given a succession of fairly responsible staff positions, mostly away from actual troops. Following his recovery from the rigors of the Russian campaign, he was reassigned to Ney in 1813 but shortly thereafter arrested for sloppy staff work. His ambitions thwarted by real or imagined plots against himself, Jomini joined the Russian army in late 1813. He spent much of the remainder of his long career in the Russian service.

During his actual military career, "Jomini ... [had been] a very minor figure, seldom mentioned in orders or dispatches, practically ignored in the memoirs of the officers who had served with him." Nonetheless, he became by far the best known military commentator of his day, and maintained that position through zealous self-promotion. His most famous work, Summary of the Art of War, was written, like Clausewitz's Principles of War, for a royal prince to whom he was military tutor.

Although long since retired, he advised Czar Nicholas during the Crimean War and Napoleon III during his Italian campaigns. Even during Jomini's lifetime, of course, there were many prominent military men who viewed Jomini with great skepticism. Napoleon himself is alleged to have said to his marshals, "You all think you understand war because you have read Jomini's book! Is it likely that I should have permitted its publication if it could accomplish that?" (16)

Ironically, in his maturity Jomini grew wary of the revolutionary passions that had originally inspired him to take up the sword himself. Perhaps his dependence on one of the most conservative governments in Europe had some influence on his attitude. His prescriptions seem therefore to be aimed at professional soldiers leading professional armies in wars more similar to those of the ancien régime than to those in which he had fought as a young man.

Jomini's military writings are easy to unfairly caricature: They were characterized by a highly didactic and prescriptive approach conveyed in an extensive self-defined vocabulary of strategic lines, bases, and key points. His fundamental prescription was simple: Place superior power at the decisive point. He constantly stressed the advantages of interior lines. Indeed, Clausewitz's own sweeping critique of the state of military theory appears to have been aimed in large part at the Swiss:
 

It is only analytically that these attempts at theory can be called advances in the realm of truth; synthetically, in the rules and regulations they offer, they are absolutely useless.

They aim at fixed values; but in war everything is uncertain, and calculations have to be made with variable quantities.

They direct the inquiry exclusively toward physical quantities, whereas all military action is intertwined with psychological forces and effects.

They consider only unilateral action, whereas war consists of a continuous interaction of opposites.... Anything that could not be reached by the meager wisdom of such one-sided points of view was held to be beyond scientific control: It lay in the realm of genius, which rises above all rules.

Pity the soldier who is supposed to crawl among these scraps of rules, not good enough for genius, which genius can ignore, or laugh at. No; what genius does is the best rule, and theory can do no better than show how and why this should be the case. (17)

These passages immediately follow Clausewitz's sneers at the "lopsided character" of the theory of interior lines, comments unquestionably directed at Jomini.

Jomini was no fool, however. His intelligence, facile pen, and wide experience of war made his writings a great deal more credible and useful than so brief a description can imply. Once he left Napoleon's service, he maintained himself and his reputation primarily through prose. His writing style--quite unlike Clausewitz's--reflected his constant search for an audience. He dealt at length with a number of practical subjects (logistics, sea power) that Clausewitz largely ignored. Elements of his discussion (e.g., his remarks on Great Britain and sea power and his sycophantic treatment of Austria's Archduke Charles) are clearly aimed at protecting his political position or expanding his readership. And, one might add, at minimizing Clausewitz's. Jomini evidently perceived the Prussian writer--whose death thirty-eight years before his own was a piece of rare good fortune--as his chief competitor.

The fundamental differences between Clausewitz and Jomini are rooted in their differing concepts of the historical process and of the nature and role of military theory. Essentially, Jomini saw war as a stage for heroes, a "great drama." He saw the revolutionary warfare in which he himself had participated as merely the technical near-perfection of a fundamentally unchanging phenomenon, to be modified only by superficial matters like the list of dramatis personae, technology, and transient political motivations. He drew his theoretical and practical prescriptions from his experiences in the Napoleonic wars. The purpose of Jomini's theory was to teach practical lessons: His target audience is not in doubt, being clearly "designed for officers of a superior grade." Accordingly, Jomini's tone was thoroughly didactic and utilitarian, often pedantic. His writing thus appealed more readily to military educators, and his key work, Summary of the Art of War (Précis de l'art de la guerre, 1838), became, in various translations, popularizations, and commentaries, the premier military-educational text of the mid-nineteenth century. (18)

Much of the oft-commented-on contrast between Jomini and Clausewitz can be traced to such factors, and to the frequent abridgment of On War, which makes it appear much more abstract than Jomini's work when in fact they often discussed the same practical subject matter. (19)

Despite his insistence that theory must be descriptive rather than prescriptive in nature, Clausewitz frequently lapsed into didactic discussions of common military problems, particularly in Books 6 and 7.

It is also important to remember, but frequently forgotten, that the Summary was written after Jomini had read On War. Clausewitz's comments therefore do not reflect the modifications that Jomini made afterwards to his original argument, for the Summary contains many adjustments clearly attributable to Clausewitz's influence. These include Jomini's comments on the importance of morale, the impossibility of fixed rules (save perhaps in tactics), the need to assign limits to the role of theory, the skepticism of mathematical calculations (and a denial that Jomini's own work--despite all the geometrical terminology and diagrams--was based on such), the disclaimer of any belief that war is "a positive science," and the clear differentiation between mere military knowledge and actual battlefield skill. (20)

This recognition of the validity of many of Clausewitz's points did not lead Jomini to adopt the philosopher's style, for at least three reasons. First, he correctly distinguished his own work from Clausewitz's by pointing to its explicitly didactic purposes. Despite his agreement that war was essentially a political act, Jomini pointed to the practical implications of this different focus: "History at once political and military offers more attractions, but is also much more difficult to treat and does not accord easily with the didactic species."

Second, and in common with a number of Clausewitz's later detractors, Jomini found the Prussian's approach to be intellectually arrogant, overly metaphysical, and simply too damned difficult to digest. He stressed simplicity and clarity over a "pretentious" search for deeper truths. Further, he objected to what he saw as Clausewitz's extreme skepticism (incrédulité) of all military theory--save that in On War.

Third, there was a personal element in Jomini's critique of Clausewitz. Clearly, on some level he did greatly admire Clausewitz's work. He regretted that the Prussian had not been able to read his own Summary, "persuaded that he would have rendered to it some justice." Jomini was thus deeply wounded by the criticisms in On War. He expressed his bitterness in a number of hyperbolic sneers ("The works of Clausewitz have been incontestably useful, although it is often less by the ideas of the author, than by the contrary ideas to which he gives birth") and in accusations of plagiarism ("There is not one of my reflections [on the campaign of 1799] which he has not repeated"). These insults, because they refer to the Prussian by name, have more meaning to readers unfamiliar with On War than do the Summary's concessions on theoretical issues.

It is often assumed, therefore, that Jomini and Clausewitz are opposites. In fact, their differences are as often stylistic as real, but then, in intellectual matters, style and substance are often the same thing.

Unlike Jomini, the great German soldier Helmuth von Moltke (1800-91) was a self-confessed disciple of Clausewitz. Austere but remarkably tactful, Moltke was that rarity, an intellectual and staff officer who made his mark as a great commander. (21) He was selected as chief of the Prussian general staff in 1857 and remained in the job until 1888. It is for his work in this position that he is chiefly remembered today. Before Moltke brought it to prominence by masterminding the great Prussian victory at Königgrätz, so obscure was the position of chief of the general staff that one general receiving his orders is said to have asked, "Who is this Moltke?" Working (not always harmoniously) with Otto von Bismarck as chancellor and Albrecht von Roon as minister of war, Moltke did a great deal to create the German military model that, after Prussia's victories over Austria (1866) and France (1870-71) and the ensuing unification of Germany, came to dominate military organizations throughout the world. Moltke's military behavior and his explicit discussions of military theory reveal a mind thoroughly grounded in the concepts of On War but much more concerned with organizational matters. He left an intellectual and organizational legacy, however, that seems to many to contradict that of his master.

On the issue of the political control of war, Moltke argued that "strategy can direct its efforts only toward the highest goal that the available means make practically possible. It best supports policy in working solely to further political aims, but as far as possible in operating independent of policy. Policy dare not intrude itself in[to] operations." (22) In other words, the political leadership could dominate only at the beginning and end of a war; in the meantime, the role of the military leadership was to reduce the enemy to helpless acquiescence in the political goals of the victorious state. Military leaders must, in this view, be allowed to do their jobs without political interference. Moltke evidently believed that this view was in complete accordance with Clausewitz, quoting one of the latter's letters to Müffling: "The role and right of military science, as regards policy, is principally to take care that policy does not demand things contrary to the nature of warfare, nor, through ignorance of the operation of the instrument commit errors in the utilization thereof."

Moltke's attitude concerning the relationship of the military commander to the political leadership actually reflected not so much a disagreement with Clausewitz as a fundamental problem in the Prussian--and later the German Empire's--constitution. Under Napoleon, of course, political and military responsibility had been collocated, and in parliamentary governments the dominance of the political leadership was largely uncontested. In Prussia, the relationship was unclear. As Moltke wrote to the kaiser, the political and military chiefs were two parallel, "mutually independent agencies under the command of your majesty." (23) Also, the evolution not only of the army but also of the Prusso-German state apparatus itself meant that they came to represent distinct (and sometimes antithetical) social classes rather than the nation. Unfortunately, Moltke's argument is easily taken out of this specific context.

A classic clash between the military and political spheres occurred in late 1870, as Moltke's army moved on Paris after the destruction of the French field armies at Sedan and Metz. Bismarck, the kaiser's chancellor and chief political officer, wanted Paris brought under attack as soon as possible. His concern was not so much the conduct of the war itself (although he was eager to influence France's internal political struggle) as worries that a protracted war might lead to some outside intervention disastrous to Prussian policy. Moltke resisted Bismarck's demands, citing technical military reasons. There was doubtless some truth to these, but Moltke was also motivated by institutional concerns to resist the chancellor. He had perhaps a political motive as well: Like many Germans, Moltke wanted to see the power of France--the incorrigible aggressor--permanently smashed. He feared that Bismarck was aiming at a less-than-maximized victory of the sort he had imposed on Austria in 1866.

In the event, the kaiser eventually overruled Moltke and placed the control of war policy in Bismarck's hands. (The constitutional issue nonetheless outlasted Bismarck's tenure in office.) In this context, the relationship between Moltke's and Clausewitz's views on the political guidance of war is difficult to characterize.

In seeking out the fundamental nature of Clausewitz's 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 secondary treatment) or who sought intentionally (i.e., for propaganda purposes) to distort its content. The book's specific arguments are clearly put forth and rarely difficult to comprehend, though admittedly hard to absorb in their entirety. The first of these misconceptions is the notion that Clausewitz considered war to be a "science." (24) 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 Clausewitz's most ardent critics (Jomini, Liddell Hart, the young 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, whereas the object of art is creative ability. Of course, all art involves some science (e.g., the mathematical sources of harmony) 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." (25) Most real events are driven by incomprehensible forces like chance, emotion, bureaucratic irrationalities, and intra-organizational politics, and 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. (26) 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 actor's will is directed at an animate object that reacts and, furthermore, 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 duel, a contest between independent wills, in which skill and creativity surely play important roles but are no more prominent than personality, chance, emotion, and the various dynamics that characterize any human interaction. Thus when Clausewitz wrote that war may have a grammar of its own, but not its own logic, he was pointing out that the logic of war, like that of politics, is the logic of social intercourse, not that of art or science.

Writing in German, Clausewitz used the word Politik, and his most famous phrase has been variously translated as "War is a continuation of `policy'--or of `politics'--by other means." He also assumed, for the purpose of argument, that state policy would be rational, that is, aimed at improving the situation of the society it represented. He believed along with most Westerners of his era that war was a legitimate means for a state's advancement of its interests. This is often taken to mean that war is somehow a "rational" phenomenon, and Clausewitz has been convicted of advocating the resort to war as a routine extension of unilateral state policy.

In fact, the choice of translation for Politik--"policy" or "politics"--is indicative of 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 that 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 nonrational elements) by which power is distributed within a given society. (27) And war is an expression of--not a substitute for--politics. 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 indeed an expression of both policy and politics, but "politics" is the interplay of conflicting forces, not the execution of one-sided policy initiatives. (28)

The actual word that Clausewitz used in his famous formulation is Fortsetzung--literally a "setting forth." Translating this word as "continuation," though technically correct, evidently implies to many that politics changes its essential nature when it metamorphoses into war. (29) This is an impression contrary to Clausewitz's argument. War remains politics in all its complexity, with the added element of violence. The nonrational and completely irrational forces that affect and often drive politics have the same impact on war.

On the side of the rationality argument, it is certainly true that Clausewitz argued, didactically, that a state contemplating the resort 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 war could not be a generic commodity; the conduct of wars would have to vary in accordance with their political objects. His definition of "strategy"--that it was "the use of combats for the purpose of the war"--has been criticized for overemphasizing the need for bloody battle, but its key point is "the [political] 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. Like the Moltke-Bismarck contretemps demonstrated, this poses practical organizational problems. As with many of Clausewitz's 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.

Exactly whose responsibility it is to determine just where this line is located is a constitutional matter of some importance. Clausewitz did little to clarify it. In his original manuscript, Clausewitz stated, "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." (30) 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, as are its practical ramifications. This minor editorial subversion, if subversion it was, certainly was not the cause of later German strategic errors, as some have implied. (31)

This constitutional question aside, it is clear that Clausewitz demanded the subordination of military to political considerations 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." (32)

Policy considerations also can demand actions that may even seem irrational, depending on one's values. Clausewitz's 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 state's honor--and thus any hope for its future resurgence--required 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 Hitler's and Japan's 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 Enlightenment to the age of Romanticism, and his worldview reflects elements of each. His vision of war thus falls also very much into the domain of the nonrational 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." (33) Because the flow of military events is so thoroughly conditioned 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 Clausewitz's view is that the leadership correctly "estimate the character of the war." This is often understood as meaning 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.

Further, a war often takes on a dynamic quite beyond the intentions of those who launched it, for the conduct of war always rests--in unpredictable proportions--on the variable energies, interests, abilities, and character of Clausewitz's famous trinity of the people, the army, and the government. Political leaders may easily misjudge or lose control of passions in their own state. Further, their opponents have similar such uncertainties as well as wills and creativities of their own.

In 1976, Russell Weigley--one of the most creative, interesting, and influential of modern American military historians--attacked Clausewitz for missing this very point. Weigley had clearly developed his own recognition that war tends to escape rational control, but he denied Clausewitz any understanding of that fact, so central to the Prussian's argument. Quoting Gerhard Ritter, he wrote that

 
what Clausewitz failed to see or at least to acknowledge is that war, once set off, may very well develop a logic of its own because the war events themselves may react on and alter the guiding will [note the singular case]; that it may roll on like an avalanche, burying all the initial aims, all the aspirations of statesmen.

In fact, the Prussian writer had clearly noted that "the original political objects can greatly alter during the course of the war and may finally change entirely since they are influenced by events and their probable consequences." (34) Like so many of Clausewitz's critics, Weigley--via Ritter--was engaged in reinventing the wheel. It is clear that Clausewitz's war is, despite all that intellect and reason can do to modify it, a game of chance outside the bounds of rational control.
 

Would Prussia in 1792 have dared to invade France with 70,000 men if she had had an inkling that the repercussions in case of failure would be strong enough to overthrow the old European balance of power? Would she, in 1806, have risked war with France with 100,000 men, if she had suspected that the first shot would set off a mine that was to blow her to the skies? (35)

Thus Clausewitz was hardly one to urge that the resort to war be taken lightly or routinely or to claim that its result would necessarily further the unilateral policy goals of the party who launched it.

Another source of unpredictability was what Clausewitz called "friction," stemming from war's uncertainty, chance, suffering, confusion, exhaustion, and fear. Friction stems from the effects of time, space, and human nature; it is the fundamental and unavoidable force that makes war in reality differ from the abstract ideal of "absolute war." Events take time to unfold, with all that that implies. Purely military or political courses of action are deflected by countless delays and distractions. Strategic intelligence and battlefield information are often misleading or flatly wrong, and even the wisest order is subject to loss, delay, misinterpretation, poor execution, or willful disobedience. Every individual human being is a friction-producing cog in the machine of war, producing a delicate machine of endless complexity and unreliability.

 
Everything in war is very simple, but the simplest thing is difficult.... Action in war is like movement in a resistant element. Just as the simplest and most natural of movements, walking, cannot easily be performed in water, so in war it is difficult for normal efforts to achieve even moderate results. (36)

To some extent, of course, the causes of this difficulty are inherent in any large organization; Clausewitz saw it as unique to war because European armies were the first truly large, modern organizations. Clausewitz never had to convince the Social Security Administration that no, he had not died and was thus still eligible for benefits.

Much of what Clausewitz called friction was, however, peculiar to war, particularly something that may seem obvious but escapes many theorists and armchair war planners: War is dangerous, and danger (either physical or moral) has an impact on the behavior of the participants. Under its influence, "the light of reason is refracted in a manner quite different from that which is normal in academic speculation.... [and] the ordinary man can never achieve a state of perfect unconcern in which his mind can work with normal flexibility." (37)

Jomini, whose military experience was as great as Clausewitz's, understood perfectly well the practical importance of such factors. To him, however, they were unpredictable and therefore extrinsic to theory, whereas to Clausewitz they were so much a part of the fabric of war that theory must consider them as intrinsic.

This insistence on the unpredictability of war raises some important issues. Clausewitz's writings are sometimes cited in support of various attempts at mathematically modeling war, (38) but although much of Clausewitz's logic sounds vaguely mathematical and many of his individual propositions could no doubt be expressed in numbers, Clausewitz pointedly refrained from doing so. In essence, his explanation for this restraint is very similar to that of modern Chaos theory and nonlinear analysis as it is applied in such varied fields as physics, biology, and economics. (39) In demonstrating why long-range weather prediction is bound to fail, for instance, nonlinear theorists cite the so-called Butterfly Effect: "A butterfly stirring the air today in Peking can transform storm systems next month in New York." That is, tiny differences in input quickly become overwhelming differences in output. (A more dignified term for this effect is "sensitive dependence on initial conditions.") (40) Chaos theorists have demonstrated how even a few variables imperfectly known can reduce a system to a chaotic state. In war, there is an inherently unknowable number of largely unquantifiable variables, all of which may interact with one another in an unpredictable way. The very parameters of any equation of war are unfathomably variable.

Nonlinear theory performs three valuable functions relating to Clausewitz's ideas: It confirms his assessment of the predictive approach to military theory; it provides a clear scientific validation of his world view; and it gives the historian metaphors useful in comprehending the real world in which Clausewitz sought to root his own theory. (41) Like the nonlinear theorists, Clausewitz insisted on keeping in view the whole phenomenon under discussion rather than attempting to draw conclusions from those few unrepresentative subcomponents that might lend themselves to linear mathematical analyses. He focused on real-world experience, on concrete phenomena, rather than on simplified and inherently unrealistic models. (42) "Just as some plants bear fruit only if they don't shoot up too high, so in the practical arts the leaves and flowers of theory must be pruned and the plant kept close to its proper soil--experience." (43) Clausewitz's historicist belief that war can change its nature depending on the "spirit of the age" echoes the chaoticists' "paradigm shifts." Their observations of "symmetry at different scales" parallels Clausewitz's similar "ends and means" analyses of tactics, strategy, and politics, the same phenomena expressed at different scales in terms of time and space. The Prussian theorist would agree that mathematics had a place in war, as did other kinds of arts and sciences, but using math as a basis for theory or prediction was a laughable absurdity.

The significance of butterflylike individual inputs and unique variables is particularly clear in Clausewitz's discussion of friction, of the significance of individual actions by any of the individual participants--of whatever rank--in military and political events, and of the impact of factors like terrain, always unique.
 

[Military] events are proof that success is not due simply to general causes. Particular factors can often be decisive--details known only to those who were on the spot. There can also be moral factors which never come to light; while issues can be decided by chances and incidents so minute as to figure in histories simply as anecdotes. (44)

Note that Clausewitz's emphasis on the triumph of specific over general factors is most true of contests between near-equals, which he generally assumed to be the case in European conflicts. In struggles between opponents markedly unequal in either moral or material terms, as in, say, the recent United Nations war against Iraq, general factors will tend to be more decisive. This emphasis on the particular and the specific permeates Clausewitz's mature theories. Frustrated readers seeking in his writings an answer to some particular problem sometimes bemoan this facet of his argument as an evasive "Well, that depends...," but that is just the point. The greatest familiarity with the most correct theory does not permit the decision maker to skip the details. For good measure, Clausewitz heightens the frustration by noting that the details are very often missing or wrong.

So what, then, was Clausewitz's 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 continuum between those two extremes. Although the younger Clausewitz of the "Instruction for the Crown Prince" tended toward a didactic 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, and Clausewitz sought a theory of universal applicability. 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 philosopher's students are shown how to analyze a military problem, but are left 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 with Jomini's 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 concept of focusing one's military efforts on the enemy's "center of gravity" (Schwerpunkt). He often used this term in tactical discussions merely to denote the main line of attack. When applied to strategy, however, it assumes a more narrow definition. The center of gravity was the most important source of the enemy's strength. Normally it would be the enemy's army in the field, but it could be his capital or something less concrete, like an alliance or even public opinion. The correct choice, as usual with Clausewitz, would have to be consistent with the character of the situation and appropriate to the political purposes of the war. To seek for an all-purpose strategic prescription in Clausewitz's discussion of the "center of gravity" will, accordingly, lead to the usual frustration. The prescription simply is not there.

A superficial reading of On War may, however, leave the reader somewhat confused on this point. After all, Clausewitz's definition of strategy emphasizes battle, and he states 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. (45) The distinction is crucial: Clausewitz likened actual bloodshed to the occasional cash transaction in a business normally operating on credit. He did not say that a bloodless war of maneuver (à la Sun Tzu or Saxe) is impossible, merely that maneuver by itself is meaningless; it must be backed up with the credible threat of battlefield success. An effective maneuver may create a situation in which the enemy is convinced that if it comes to battle, he will lose more than he is willing to risk. The maneuvering party must still be prepared for the possibility that his bluff will be called. The battle of Blenheim, 1704, is a good example. The Franco-Bavarian leaders thought that they had maneuvered Marlborough's army into a position from which it must, according to the conventions of the time, retreat. Instead, Marlborough attacked and inflicted one of the greatest setbacks French arms were to suffer before May 1940. (46)

This argument was part of a larger one that any kind of moderation or limitation in war must be based on a realistic expectation that it will be reciprocated and that such expectations are often unrealistic. Clausewitz used an interesting metaphor to make this point: "He must always keep an eye on his opponent so that he does not, if the latter has taken up a sharp sword, approach him armed only with an ornamental rapier." (47) Dealing with "absolute" war in the abstract, Clausewitz pointed out that "to introduce the principle of moderation into the theory of war itself would always lead to logical absurdity." (Italics added).

This argument has much to do with Clausewitz's bloodthirsty reputation. One of the accusations made against Clausewitz is that his sanctions against "moderation" in theory led directly to the later German practice of military Schrecklichkeit (frightfulness). In fact, Clausewitz did not mean that moderation was absurd in practice, because the social conditions within civilized states and the relationships between them often made moderation an element of policy. He failed to develop this point very far, however, and the accusation that it served to justify later German atrocities--to say that it "caused" them would certainly be going too far--is one of the hardest of all the indictments against him to evade. The theoretical point is hard to deny, but the language in which it was expressed is harsh.
 

Kind-hearted people might of course think there was some ingenious way to disarm or defeat an enemy without too much bloodshed, and might imagine this is the true goal of the art of war. Pleasant as it sounds, it is a fallacy that must be exposed: war is such a dangerous business that the mistakes which come from kindness are the very worst. The maximum use of force is in no way incompatible with the simultaneous use of the intellect.

Clausewitz's position is easier to understand if we consider the military transition that Europe was forced to undergo at the end of the eighteenth century. As had happened to a great extent in Europe under the ancien régime, a society might well ritualize war into a mere game for social reasons, in the name of humanitarianism, or in the hope of economizing on the waste of resources. To accept such a conventionalization of war was, in Clausewitz's view, to fall into a trap. "The fact that slaughter is a horrifying spectacle must make us take war more seriously, but not provide an excuse for gradually blunting our swords in the name of humanity. Sooner or later someone [i.e., some revolutionary or alien invader] will come along with a sharp sword and hack off our arms." (48) The conventionalization of war in prerevolutionary Europe had created the ideal situation for a Napoleon to exploit.

Unfortunately, Clausewitz's not-unreasonable conviction that the state must always be prepared for a life-and-death struggle fed easily into the unreasoning paranoia that helped lead Germany's leaders to launch World War One. That Clausewitz himself was touched by such an attitude is heavily suggested in other essays he wrote. (49)

The popular forces unleashed by the French Revolution, the event that triggered Clausewitz's fears, were, however, too powerful to be put back into the bottle. French successes had created a precedent that others would undoubtedly try to repeat. Clausewitz was therefore interested in the role of popular passions and public opinion in both politics and war. As a professional officer in an army with a venerable and glorious tradition, he was also sensitive to the quite different military virtues represented by such armies. All of these considerations fell generally under the heading of "moral factors," and Clausewitz's work is famous for its emphasis on them: "One might say that the physical seem little more than the wooden hilt, while the moral factors are the precious metal, the real weapon, the finely-honed blade." (50) They applied at the individual (usually discussed under the rubric of "military genius"), the organizational, and the societal levels.

Curiously, even though Clausewitz's emphasis on moral factors has always been noted, many of his later critics argued that he had reduced strategy to the simplistic act of bludgeoning the enemy to death with overwhelming numbers. This accusation should not be dismissed out of hand, as some modern analysts have done. (51) Clausewitz's method of argumentation on this point illustrates the ease with which his ideas can be distorted by sloppy reading or hostile editing. In discussing the armies of modern Europe, Clausewitz did indeed stress numbers:
 

Here we find armies much more alike in equipment, organization, and practical skill of every kind. There only remains a difference in the military virtues of Armies, and in the talent of Generals which may fluctuate with time from side to side.... From this we may infer, that it is very difficult in the present state of Europe, for the most talented General to gain a victory over an enemy double his strength. Now if we see double numbers prove such a weight in the scale against the greatest Generals, we may be sure, that in ordinary cases, in small as well as great combats, an important superiority of numbers but which need not be over two to one, will be sufficient to ensure the victory, however disadvantageous other circumstances may be.... The first rule is therefore to enter the field with an Army as strong as possible. This sounds very like a commonplace, but still it is really not so.

It is clear that Clausewitz regarded the raising of the largest possible armies as an important factor in national strategy (and the ability to raise troops was in large part clearly a function of popular support for state policy). The number of troops "is determined by the government.... with this determination the real action of the War commences, and it forms an essential part of the Strategy of the War...." Tactically, Clausewitz stressed concentration of superior force at the decisive point, as do virtually all military writers: "In tactics, as in strategy, superiority of numbers is the most common element in victory."

This point is fundamental to Clausewitz's outlook on strategy, but translation problems sometimes obscure his point, as in Clausewitz's famous characterization of war as a "duel." Used in all of the English translations, it is not a very good substitute for the original German Zweikampf, literally "two-struggle." A duel with sword or (particularly) pistol is based more clearly on skill than on raw strength and lacks the dynamic character, the multiple points of contact, and the mutability of a wrestling match, Clausewitz's actual imagery. (52) His original metaphor provides a much better graphic image into which to fit the term "center of gravity."

His argument was not, however, that the victor would necessarily be the side with the most men but that there was no excuse for going into combat with less than the maximum available power:
 

If we strip the combat of all modifications which it may undergo according to its immediate purpose and the circumstances from which it proceeds, lastly if we set aside the valour of the troops [dem Wert der Truppen] ... there remains only the bare conception of the combat ... in which we distinguish nothing but the number of the combatants. This number will therefore determine victory. Now from the number of things above deducted to get to this point, it is shown that the superiority in numbers in a battle is only one of the factors employed to produce victory; that therefore so far from having with the superiority in number obtained all, or even only the principal thing, we have perhaps got very little by it, according as the other circumstances ... happen to vary.... There remains nothing, therefore, where an absolute superiority is not attainable, but to produce a relative one at the decisive point, by making skillful use of what we have.... to regard [numerical superiority] as a necessary condition of victory would be a complete misconception of our exposition. (53)

A partial reading of Clausewitz's views on surprise can be just as misleading. His bald statements that it "would be a mistake ... to regard surprise as a key element of success in war" and that "surprise has lost its usefulness today" are characteristically misleading if taken out of context, which often seems to be the case. (54) Also controversial is his argument that surprise often favors the defense. Overall, Clausewitz actually strongly emphasized the concept of surprise, suggesting that--defined as "the desire to surprise the enemy by our plans and dispositions, especially those concerning the distribution of forces"--it "lies at the root of all operations without exception, though in widely varying degrees depending on the nature and circumstances of the operation." He clearly appreciated its psychological impact and felt that almost the only advantage of the attacker rested in surprise.

Clausewitz obviously believed in the practical utility or necessity of war, and he was conscious of its offer of individual "glory." As a Prussian nationalist he had little sympathy for the claims of subjugated peoples such as the Poles. He was, however, no advocate of a policy of conquest. Although he is often portrayed as the "high priest" of Napoleon, this view ignores the fact that he was both a passionate Prussian patriot and a die-hard opponent of the French emperor. Clausewitz was detached enough to admire Bonaparte as a professional soldier, but his experience of the Napoleonic wars convinced him of the power of both nationalism and the balance-of-power mechanism. In his view, those forces would generally lead to the destruction of any would-be Alexander or Napoleon, at least in the European context. Thus, the wars he describes are often those of Napoleon, but his strategic biases are essentially conservative and antirevolutionary; the approach he takes is not Napoleon's but that of the emperor's most capable enemy, Scharnhorst. To call Clausewitz the "codifier of Napoleonic warfare" as his critics (and some of his supporters) often have, is to miss this important point. (55)

The clearest evidence of Clausewitz's faith in the balance-of-power mechanism lies in his analysis of the dynamic relationship of the offense and the defense. (56) He has been portrayed by various writers as a proponent of one or the other form, but as in so many important aspects of his theory, his actual position was instead to set up a dualism: Defense is the stronger form of war, but it has a negative object (self-preservation); offense is the weaker form, but it alone has a positive purpose (increasing one's strength through conquest). Any realistic military theory must embrace both.

The sources of the fundamentally greater strength of the defense are many. In a sense, the defensive form's superiority is self-evident: Why else does the weaker party so often resort to it? At the tactical level, Clausewitz was impressed by the power of entrenchments--and alarmed at the "pedants'" tendency to dismiss them--and by the defender's frequent ability to choose his own ground. He was also interested in fixed fortifications, although he warned against overreliance on them and made some careful observations on their correct use. In most battles, however, both sides use both offensive and defensive methods, and losses tend to be fairly equal until one side or the other breaks. Therefore he strongly emphasized the pursuit, which permits the infliction of disproportionate losses on the loser.

Much more important were the strategic aspects of defense. However strongly an offensive may start out, it inevitably weakens as it advances from its original base. The need to provide garrisons, the maintenance of lines of supply and communications, and the greater physical strain on troops in the attack all degrade the aggressor's force. Meanwhile, the defender falls back on the sources of his strength. Every offensive, however victorious, has a "culminating point." If the defender has enough time and space in which to recover (and Russia offered an excellent example), the aggressor will inevitably reach a point at which he must himself turn into the defender. If he pushes too far, the equilibrium will shift against him. The aggressor, in his own retreat (often through devastated territory), cannot draw on the defender's usual sources of strength, physical or psychological.

Moreover, public opinion is more likely to favor the strategic defender; any significant conquest by one aggressor state will threaten the rest. Eventually, the conqueror reaches a "culminating point of victory" at which his successes provoke sufficient counteraction to defeat him.

The essence of the defense is waiting: waiting until the attacker clarifies his own intentions; waiting until the balance of forces shifts; waiting for any improvement in the defender's situation, whether from the culminating process just described, from outside intervention, from mobilization of his own resources, or from some chance development. Time is almost always on the side of the defender.

Waiting, however, does not imply mere passivity, and a passive defense is not at all what Clausewitz was describing. His vision of any effective defense was profoundly active. If the defense functions essentially as a shield, it is best "a shield made up of well-directed blows." (57) Defense must, even at the strategic level, shift at some point to the offense; it is the "flashing sword of vengeance." Thus it is easy to find in On War isolated quotations that seem to glorify the offensive. It is nonetheless the interaction of the two forms that concerned Clausewitz.

The dynamic relationship between defense and offense is just one of a larger group of concepts that might collectively be labeled the "dynamics of war." These would include the emphases on friction and morale, the diminishing force of the offensive, and the "culminating point of victory"; in short, all of the factors that prevent war from being a linear process and that create the unpredictable seesawing between opposing wills and powers that characterizes our real-world experience of war.

Last but not least among the factors to be considered in understanding his ideas is Clausewitz's political position. Many of Clausewitz's basic historical, political, and military views derived from the influence of Scharnhorst and other Prussian military reformers. In broad terms, their argument was that the French Revolution had achieved its astounding successes because it had tapped the energies of the people. If the Prussian state was to survive, much less prosper, it had to do the same. This meant sweeping social and political reforms in the Prussian state and army, both of which had ossified under the successors of Frederick the Great. To conservatives, Scharnhorst's circle appeared to be dangerous radical, but although Clausewitz's works reflect a strong reform impulse, neither he nor his mentors desired a social or political revolution. Clausewitz's stance on the power of the defense and the workings of the balance of power and his lack of sympathy for the would-be conqueror demonstrate his fundamental moderation. He did in fact have a great enthusiasm for the British parliamentary model, a radical notion in Prussia, but his insistence on what would one day be called `the primacy of foreign policy' set him at odds with those who believed constitutional government was a political goal surpassing all others. It also made his point of view anathema to those who considered the preservation of the social hierarchy an objective rivaling the safety of the state. (58)

Thus Clausewitz was not a liberal or a revolutionary or a Nazi. Trying to place him and his theories somewhere on an anachronistic left-right political spectrum is a futile exercise. His politics can be understood only in reference to the specific situation of Prussia in the Napoleonic and restoration periods. (59)

There are, of course, many other aspects of Clausewitz's life and work that are worthy of examination, but these are the matters that have surfaced most often in English-language discussions.

NOTES to Chapter 2

1. Quotes from On War given in this section are in most cases taken from the 1976 Howard/Paret translation, since that is the version most accessible to most readers.

2. The false conception of Clausewitz as an ivory tower intellectual with little practical experience is often repeated, even by writers whose view of Clausewitz's philosophy is quite positive, e.g., Philip B. Davidson, Vietnam at War (Novato, CA: Presidio Press, 1988), 15.

3. A chronology of Clausewitz's writings appears in Paret's Clausewitz and the State: The Man, His Theories, and His Times (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976), 330.

4. On War, Book Two, Chapter 2, section 15.

5. Clausewitz's approach has connections to Kant, Hegel, and Fichte. See esp. Paret, Clausewitz and the State, and W. B. Gallie, Philosophers of Peace and War: Kant, Clausewitz, Marx, Engels and Tolstoy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978). Azar Gat, The Origins of Military Thought: From the Enlightenment to Clausewitz (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), emphasizes the differing influences of the Enlightenment, Aufklärung, and Romantic intellectual movements. These connections are real but should not be over-stressed. Clausewitz was well (if self- ) educated and was certainly familiar with these writers, but the only philosopher to whom he made direct reference in discussing On War was Montesquieu. Although some of On War's abstractions sound vaguely dialectical, actual elements of Hegel's formal dialectic rarely appear. Clausewitz's philosophical methods are his own and appear to be quite empirical in origin.

6. See Stephen J. Cimbala, Clausewitz and Escalation: Classical Perspective on Nuclear Strategy (London: Frank Cass, 1992), 1-12.

7. See esp. Book Eight, Chapter 5, "Closer Definition of the Military Objective--Continued: Limited Aims."

8. E.g., On War, Book Three, Chapter 16.

9. This view of Clausewitz's use of history is not universally held. See, for example, John Gooch, "Clio and Mars: The Use and Abuse of History," Journal of Strategic Studies, v.3, no.3 (1980), 21-36. Gooch argued (although his points were somewhat inconsistent) that Clausewitz had used history to support his theories, rather than deriving his theories from history. In fact, he did neither: he derived his theories from experience (both his own and historical) and tested them against history. What makes Clausewitz remarkable as a military theorist is that he actually allowed the test results to modify his argument, sometimes in a radical manner. Gooch's view seems to be based on a rather purist idea of the historian's mission. This aspect of On War will no doubt remain a source of controversy, involving as it does fundamental disputes over the nature of history as a discipline and the values of professional historians.

10. See particularly Book Two, Chapters 5 ("Critical Analysis") and 6 ("On Historical Examples"), and Book Eight, Chapter 3.B. ("Scale of the Military Objective and of the Effort To Be Made").

11. "Operational" is a modern construction encompassing much of what Clausewitz discussed as "strategic."

12. Sun Tzu has been translated into English many times. Sun Tzu, trans. Samuel B. Griffith [Brigadier General, USMC], The Art of War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1963) provides much of the basis for the present discussion. See also Sun Tzu, The Art of Warfare, trans. Roger T. Ames (New York: Ballantine, 1993), an authoritative new translation based on ancient texts recovered by archaeologists.

13. A detailed comparison of Clausewitz and Sun Tzu is outside the boundaries of this study. See, however, Michael I. Handel, Sun Tzu and Clausewitz: The Art of War and On War Compared (Carlisle Barracks, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, 1991), which generally accords with my argument, or Handel's Masters of War: Sun Tzu, Clausewitz and Jomini (London: Frank Cass, 1992). John E. Tashjean, "The Cannon in the Swimming Pool: Clausewitzian Studies and Strategic Ethnocentrism," Journal of the Royal United Services Institute, June, 1983, 54-57, looks at some possibly fundamental dichotomies between strategic thinking east and west.

14. Jean Joseph Marie Amiot, Art militaire des Chinois (Paris: Didot l'ainé, 1772).

15. Henri Jomini, Traité de grande tactique (Paris: Giguet et Michaud, 1805). On Jomini, see Crane Brinton, Gordon A. Craig, and Felix Gilbert, "Jomini," in Makers of Modern Strategy: Military Thought from Machiavelli to Hitler, ed. Edward Mead Earle (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1943), 77-92; Michael Howard, "Jomini and the Classical Tradition," in The Theory and Practice of War, ed. Michael Howard (New York: Praeger, 1966), 3-20; John Shy, "Jomini," in Makers of Modern Strategy: From Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age, ed. Peter Paret (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986), 143-185. The best English-language discussion of Jomini's military career can be found in John R. Elting, "Jomini: Disciple of Napoleon?" Military Affairs, Spring 1964, 17-26. Unlike most biographical discussions of the Swiss, which are based on his own highly colored reminiscences to people he wished to impress, Elting's study is based on Xavier de Courville, Jomini, ou de le Devin de Napoleon (Paris: Plon, 1935): "Written by Jomini's descendants, from his personal papers, it is the most impartial of his biographies."

16. Elting, "Jomini"; Robert M. Johnston, Clausewitz to Date (Cambridge, MA: The Military Historian and Economist, 1917), 9-11.

17. On War, Book Two, Chapter 2.

18. For Jomini's theoretical writings in English translation, see Antoine-Henri Jomini, trans. Col. S.B. Holabird, U.S.A., Treatise on Grand Military Operations: or A Critical and Military History of the Wars of Frederick the Great as Contrasted with the Modern System, 2 vols. (New York: D. van Nostrand, 1865); Baron de Jomini, trans. Major O.F. Winship and Lieut. E.E. McLean, The Art of War (New York: G.P. Putnam, 1854). Important derivative works include Dennis Hart Mahan's instructional works for West Point; Henry Wager Halleck, Elements of Military Art and Science (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1846); Edward Bruce Hamley (1824-93), The Operations of War Explained and Illustrated (London: William Blackwood and Sons, 1866).

19. Most discussions of Jomini compare him to Clausewitz. For explicit efforts to do so, see Department of Military Art and Engineering, USMA, Clausewitz, Jomini, Schlieffen (West Point, 1951 [rewritten, in part, by Colonel [USA] John R. Elting, 1964]); J.E. Edmonds, "Jomini and Clausewitz" [a treatment extremely hostile to the German], Canadian Army Journal, v.V, no.2 (May 1951), 64-69; Joseph L. Harsh, "Battlesword and Rapier: Clausewitz, Jomini, and the American Civil War," Military Affairs, December 1974, 133-138; Major [USAF] Francis S. Jones, "Analysis and Comparison of the Ideas and Later Influences of Henri Jomini and Carl von Clausewitz," Paper, Maxwell Air Force Base, AL: Air Command and Staff College, April 1985; Colonel [USA] Richard M. Swain, "`The Hedgehog and the Fox': Jomini, Clausewitz, and History," Naval War College Review, Autumn 1990, 98-109.

20. These points are most easily found in the bibliographical essay which opened the original French edition of the Summary, "Notice: sur la théorie actuelle de la guerre et sur son utilité" ("On the Present Theory of War and of Its Utility"). This essay is missing from (or severely edited in) most English language editions, although it is present in the 1854 American translation.

21. On Moltke, see Gunther E. Rothenberg, "Moltke, Schlieffen, and the Doctrine of Strategic Envelopment," in Paret, ed., Makers of Modern Strategy (1986), 296-325; Lieut.-Colonel F.E. Whitton, Moltke (New York: H. Holt, 1921). Daniel J. Hughes [USAF School for Advanced Airpower Studies, Maxwell Field, Al.], has prepared a translation, unpublished at present, of several of Moltke's works.

22. Grand [German] General Staff, trans. Commander (USN) A.G. Zimmerman, Moltke's Military Works: Precepts of War (Newport: Department of Intelligence and Research, U.S. Naval War College, 1935), Part II, p1.

23. Quoted in Otto Pflanze, Bismarck and the Development of Germany, v.1 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990), 479.

24. E.g., William Manchester, The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill (Boston: Little, Brown, 1988), v.2, 135: "If Clausewitz saw war as a science, the chancellor [Neville Chamberlain] saw it as a business...."

25. Clausewitz, The Campaign of 1812 in Russia (London: J. Murray, 1843), 185.

26. On War, Book Six, Chapter 1.

27. My definitions; Clausewitz does not distinguish the two concepts.

28. For an example of the latter interpretation, see David Kaiser, Politics and War: European Conflict from Philip II to Hitler (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1990), 415.

29. See for example Burton I. Kaufman, The Korean War: Challenges in Crisis, Credibility, and Command (New York: Knopf, 1986). Kaufman, 150.

30. See Howard/Paret, eds., On War, fn., p608.

31. E.g., Arnold H. Price, "Clausewitz," Encyclopædia Britannica, 15th ed. (1985).

32. Clausewitz, "Betrachtungen über einen künftigen Kriegsplan gegen Frankreich" (written c.1830), first published by the Historical Section of the General Staff as an appendix to Moltkes Militärische Werke, Teil I: Militärische Korrespondenz, Teil 4 (Berlin, 1902), 181-197; reprinted in Clausewitz, ed. Werner Hahlweg, Verstreute kleine Schriften (Osnabrück: Biblio Verlag, 1979).

33. On War, Book Eight, Chapter 2.

34. Russell F. Weigley, "Military Strategy and Civilian Leadership," Klaus Knorr, ed., Historical Dimensions of National Security Problems (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1976), 70, citing Gerhard Ritter, The Sword and the Scepter (Coral Gables: University of Miami Press, 1969-1973), v.1, p65; cf., On War, Book One, Chapter 2.

35. On War, Book Eight, Chapter 2.

36. On War, Book One, Chapter 7.

37. On War, Book One, Chapter 4.

38. E.g., Colonel T.N. Dupuy [USA, ret.], Understanding War: History and Theory of Combat (New York: Paragon House, 1987).

39. Alan D. Beyerchen of Ohio State University was kind enough to let me read his then-unpublished paper, "Chance and

International Security, Winter 1992/1993_">Complexity in the Real World: Clausewitz on the Nonlinear Nature of War," International Security, Winter 1992/1993. My treatment accordingly reflects some of his insights.

40. James Gleick, Chaos: Making a New Science (New York: Penguin, 1987), 8.

41. See Randolph Roth, "Is History a Process? Revitalization Theory, Nonlinearity, and the Central Metaphor of Social Science History," Social Science History, Summer 1992.

42. Most natural phenomena are nonlinear. Dividing them along linear/nonlinear lines is similar to dividing the animal world into elephants and "non-elephant animals." Beyerchen, "Chance and Complexity in the Real World."

43. On War, author's preface.

44. On War, Book Eight, Chapter 4.

45. See On War, Book One, Chapter 2, "Purpose and Means in War" and Book Three, Chapter 1.

46. My example, not Clausewitz's.

47. On War, Book One, Chapter 2.

48. On War, Book Four, Chapter 11.

49. See esp. "On the Basic Question of Germany's Existence," in Clausewitz, Peter Paret and Daniel Moran, eds./trans., Historical and Political Writings (Princeton: Princeton University Press), 377-384.

50. On War, Book Three, Chapter 3.

51. As is pointed out by Wallach, Dogma, 21-22.

52. I owe this observation to Alan Beyerchen. For a creative misperception based on the use of the word "duel," see Michael Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument with Historical Illustrations (New York: Basic Books, 1977), fn, 25.

53. On War, Book Three, Chapter 8 (from the 1908 Graham/Maude version).

54. On War, Book Three, Chapter 9; Book Four, Chapter 8.

55. William McElwee, The Art of War from Waterloo to Mons (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1974), 29: "Essentially their work was imitative, based on the profound studies of Carl von Clausewitz into the system and methods which had enabled Napoleon almost to subjugate the whole of Europe." McElwee was speaking of Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, Clausewitz's mentors, not his disciples.

56. Bradley S. Klein, "The Politics of the Unstable Balance of Power in Machiavelli, Frederick the Great, and Clausewitz: Citizenship as Armed Virtue and the Evolution of Warfare" (Ph.D. dissertation [political science]: University of Massachusetts, 1984), sees the balance of power mechanism and the nation-state system as inevitably sources of war, a model "intolerable" given the total war experience and the existence of nuclear weapons.

57. On War, Book Six, Chapter 1.

58. Clausewitz, Paret and Moran, eds., Historical and Political Writings, 231.

59. Moran's treatment of Clausewitz's politics is excellent. See also C.B.A. Behrens, "Which Side was Clausewitz on?" New York Review of Books, October 14, 1976, 41-44.

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