NEW! from Clausewitz.com Carl von Clausewitz and Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington. On Waterloo: Clausewitz, Wellington, and the Campaign of 1815. Ed./trans. Christopher Bassford, Daniel Moran, and Gregory W. Pedlow. Published 2010 by Clausewitz.com through CreateSpace.com. ISBN-10: 1453701508 ISBN-13: 9781453701508 Paperback, 318pp. List price: $18.00.   This book is built around a new and complete translation of Clausewitz's study of the Waterloo campaign (Berlin: 1835), which is a strategic analysis of the entire campaign (not just the Battle of Waterloo), and the Duke of Wellington's detailed 1842 response to it. It contains Wellington's initial battle report; two of Clausewitz's post-battle letters to his wife Marie; correspondence within Wellington's circle concerning Clausewitz's work; Clausewitz's campaign study; Wellington's memorandum in response; and enlightening essays by the editors. Also available through Amazon.com.

CLAUSEWITZ CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS Judging by the recent increase in published discussion, it appears that we are entering yet another of the periodic upsurges in the study of Clausewitz and his theories regarding war. This is a bad sign from the standpoint of world peace, since we seem to think seriously about war only when the beast is upon us. But it is also, by that same token, an encouraging omen. An important reflection of this renewed interest was "Clausewitz in the 21st Century" – a conference held in the Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Oxford, 21-23 March 2005, sponsored by the Oxford Leverhulme Programme on the Changing Character of War (CCW). For further details, please visit the conference webpages at http://ccw.modhist.ox.ac.uk/events/archives/tt05_clausewitz.asp. Conference report by Andreas Herberg-Rothe (in German) Conference report by Ulrike Kleemeier (in German -- see pp.187-91) Conference report by Claus Eskild Andersen, cand.phil. Danish officer (Major) (in Danish) Clausewitz in the Twenty-First Century, edited by Hew Strachan and Andreas Herberg-Rothe (Oxford University Press, September 2007). ISBN: 0199232024. This is the proceedings of the March 2005 Oxford University conference on Clausewitz in the 21st Century. This is a stellar, multidisciplinary collection of essays that defines the current state of the art in Clausewitz studies.

CHRISTOPHER BASSFORD [Professor, National War College, Washington, DC]

Tiptoe Through the Trinity, or, The Strange Persistance of Trinitarian Warfare. Working draft, May 2007. Understanding the trinity is key to understanding how all of Clausewitz's ideas hang together. Understanding the ways in which it has been misrepresented by various popular writers is key to being an effective communicator on the subject.

Reclaiming the Clausewitzian Trinity. Co-authored with Edward J. Villacres. Parameters, Autumn 1995.

Teaching the Clausewitzian Trinity. January 2003.

The Relationship Between Political Objectives and Military Objectives in War. Co-authored with Col B.A. Andrews, USAF, as a teaching guide for faculty at the National War College. PowerPoint slideshow, September 2005. This addresses the core strategic-analytical model in On War and tries to deal with some of the terminological and conceptual stumbling blocks to using it effectively.

Original Draft of MCDP 1-1: Strategy, the US Marine Corps' Strategy manual. (The published version is Here.)

Clausewitz in English: The Reception of Clausewitz in Britain and America, 1815-1945 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994). FULL TEXT

John Keegan and the Grand Tradition of Trashing Clausewitz. War in History, November 1994.

Clausewitz and His Works. An extensive introduction to the man, his key writings, and his ideas. Derived from Chapter 2 of Christopher Bassford, Clausewitz in English: The Reception of Clausewitz in Britain and America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), this version was written as courseware for the Army War College, 1996, then somewhat modified in 1998, 2000, 2002, and 2008.

A Response to Bruce Fleming, 'Can Reading Clausewitz Save Us from Future Mistakes?' The Clausewitz Homepage, 1 March 2004. A shorter version, along with responses from Tony Echevarria and Rutgers University's Professor Michael David Rohr, is here, as is Fleming's somewhat irritated attempt at rebuttal. Last word from The Clausewitz Homepage is here.

Corn, Cracked: A Response to Tony Corn's 'Clausewitz in Wonderland.' September 2006.

A Modest Proposal, an only partly tongue-in-cheek, radical proposal to update Clausewitz for the 3rd Millenium (1999, mod.2006,2008, 2010).

Book Review of Clausewitz's On War. Defense Analysis, June 1996.

Jomini and Clausewitz: Their Interaction. Paper presented to the 23rd Meeting of the Consortium on Revolutionary Europe at Georgia State University, 26 February 1993; slightly edited in June 2000.

A Word Index to On War. Find that quote you're looking for! A computer-generated index to c.1200 words and phrases in Clausewitz's magnum opus. 

Historical Perspectives on Future War Military Review, March-April 1997 

"Clausewitz, Nonlinearity and the Unpredictability of War," International Security, 17:3 (Winter, 1992), pp. 59-90. This is perhaps the most important article published on Clausewitz in the past thirty years. (Here's the Abstract.) This article is also available in French: "Clausewitz: Non Linéarité et Imprévisibilité de la Guerre," Theorie, Littérature, Enseignement, 12 (1994), pp165-98.

Clausewitz, Nonlinearity, and the Importance of Imagery. Paper delivered at National Defense University, November 1996. [See PDF]

Note: See our "Clausewitz and Complexity" section.

"Clausewitz in the Age of Al-Jazeera: Rethinking the Military-Media Relationship," Paper, Harvard Symposium "Restless Searchlight: The Media and Terrorism," 21 August 2002.

Cultural Wars (from LM: THE MARXIST REVIEW OF BOOKS, later simply LM, now defunct) issue 73, November 1994.

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

CHICAGOBOYZ

The Chicagoboyz Clausewitz Roundtable is a free-for-all web discussion of Clausewitz. The discussants don't claim any particular expertise, and this is not the place to start learning about Clausewitz. However, if you are familiar with Clausewitz, and particularly if you are interested in teaching other people about Clausewitz, this discussion can tell you a lot about the ways in which Clausewitz comes across to intelligent, energetic seekers-after-truth who have not seriously encountered him before.

Here's a useful backgrounder by ChicagoBoyz discussant Joseph M. Guerra, "The Clausewitz Roundtable at Chicagoboyz."

Also by Joe Guerra:

"The Clausewitzian Concept of Cohesion as a Theory of Political Development" (Paper)

"Martin Luther King, American Strategist: A Clausewitzian Analysis," blog entry, 24 March 2010.

EXCERPT: "If a Colin Gray—arguably the smartest living Clausewitzian today—can be so blind as to the nature of the challenges facing the West, one can easily guess the damage done by Clausewitzology on less talented minds."

Despite the poor logic revealed in the excerpt above, this is an interesting piece. For some reason, Corn has chosen to pretend that Carl von Clausewitz is behind the scientific, historical, and anthropological ignorance, the political naiveté, and the smothering political correctness that underlie the remarkably dysfunctional national strategic culture that the United States displayed throughout the era of the G.W. Bush administration. This article may be a clever critique of that strategic culture or merely a particularly poignant example of it.

The Clausewitz Homepage responds HERE.

"Clausewitz and the ethics of armed forces," Journal of Military Ethics, Volume 2, Number 3/November 2003.

ABSTRACT: The work of Carl von Clausewitz continues to provoke heated debate. For some scholars, Clausewitz's On War remains indispensable to serious thought on the resort to war in the modern period. Others, however, see Clausewitz's work as either outdated, or a morally repellent argument for unlimited, unrestrained and brutal warfare. This essay argues not only that Clausewitz's work continues to be relevant to discussions on the use of armed force, but also that On War provides a framework for ethical reflection on war and its conduct. Two main preoccupations of western military academies and staff colleges--Clausewitz on the one hand, and the just war tradition on the other--can complement, rather than rival each other. On War creates a space for reflection on the use of armed force, and for that reason if no other, should still be considered an important resource for contemporary students and practitioners of strategy.

Levels of War: Just a Set of Labels? Australia:

RESEARCH AND ANALYSIS: NEWSLETTER OF THE DIRECTORATE OF ARMY RESEARCH AND ANALYSIS, No.10, Oct 1996. 

War and Politics: The Revolution in Military Affairs
and the Continued Relevance of Clausewitz Joint Forces Quarterly (Winter 1995-96)

Borrowing from the Master: Uses of Clausewitz in
German Military Literature before the Great War War in History, 3 (July 1996)

Clausewitz: Toward a Theory of Applied Strategy Defense Analysis, Vol 11, No. 3, (1995)

Clausewitz's Center of Gravity: Changing Our Warfighting Doctrine—Again! Strategic Studies Institute, September 2002. Over the last 30 years, the center of gravity concept has grown increasingly central to the U.S. military's warfighting doctrine.  This monograph cuts through the myriad interpretations surrounding the concept and returns to the original idea as conceived by Carl von Clausewitz.  In doing so, the author reveals that Clausewitz intended the center of gravity to function much as its counterpart in the mechanical sciences does—as a focal point.  He argues that the Clausewitzian center of gravity is not a strength, nor a weakness, nor even a source of strength, but rather the one element within a combatant's entire structure or system that has the necessary centripetal force to hold that structure together.  This is why Clausewitz wrote that a blow directed against a center of gravity will have the greatest effect.  The monograph concludes with recommendations for revising Joint and Service doctrine so that they will reflect a more accurate and coherent definition of a center of gravity. [If the primary URL is unavailable, click HERE for backup copy.]

Clausewitz's Center of Gravity: It's Not What We Thought. Naval War College Review, Winter 2003

Can Reading Clausewitz Save Us from Future Mistakes? Parameters, Spring 2004, pp. 62-76. Another effort to expose Clausewitz's essential foolishness.

See also Christopher Bassford, "A response to Bruce Fleming, 'Can Reading Clausewitz Save Us from Future Mistakes?'" The Clausewitz Homepage, 1 March 2004. A shorter version, along with responses from Tony Echevarria and Rutgers University's Professor Michael David Rohr, is here, as is Fleming's somewhat irritated attempt at rebuttal. Last word from The Clausewitz Homepage is here.

Clausewitz and His Impact on Strategy Pointer: Journal of the Singapore Armed Forces, Vol.25 No.1 (Jan - Mar 1999).

"Resurrecting the 'Icon': The Enduring Relevance of Clausewitz’s On War," Strategic Studies Quarterly, Spring 2009, pp.119-133. A very capable response to Phillip Meilinger's "Busting the Icon: Restoring Balance to the Influence of Clausewitz," Strategic Studies Quarterly (Fall, 2007), pp.116-145 (listed below). Many thanks, Nik: You have spared The Clausewitz Homepage the task of swatting this particular fly.:-)

"Clausewitz Rules, OK? The Future is the Past—with GPS." In Michael Cox, Ken Booth, and Tim Dunne, eds., Interregnum: Controversies in World Politics, 1989-1999. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999, 161-182.

Defining and Achieving Decisive Victory. Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, April 2002.
In this post-9/11 monograph, Gray explores the concept of victory in the war in terrorism, but he does so by placing it within the larger currents of change that are sweeping the global security environment. He contends that the time-tested idea of decisive victory is still an important one, but must be designed very carefully in this dangerous new world. To do so correctly can provide the foundation for an effective strategy. To fail to do so could be the first step toward strategic defeat. Though this is not an essay specifically on Clausewitz, Gray--as usual--explicitly utilizes Clausewitzian ideas and shows how they apply in the evolving strategic environment.  [If the primary URL is unavailable, click HERE for backup copy.]

"Clausewitz, History, and the Future Strategic World," prepared for the Strategic and Combat Studies Institute Conference "Past Futures," Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, 3-4 July, 2003 and Marine Corps Command and Staff College, Quantico, VA, USA, 9-10 September, 2003. Strategic and Combat Studies Institute Occasional Paper No 47.

War Isn't a Rational Business Naval Institute Proceedings (July 1998). The information revolution notwithstanding, war will continue to be a brutish, chaotic, and emotional battle of wills. Network-centric warfare will not change that. 

Who Is Afraid of Carl von Clausewitz? A Guide to the Perplexed
Courseware, U.S. Naval War College, 1997 

The Uses of Force in the Post-Cold War World

Excerpt: "[T]here were two people who taught the Western world to think about politics, strategy, and ethics. They were a strange combination—a 19th century Prussian general and a 5th century African saint. It was Clausewitz and Augustine that helped us to relate politics, strategy, and ethics." This is a presentation delivered on June 3, 1996, at a conference at the Woodrow Wilson Center.

*On the topic of Just War theory as a practical theory of statecraft, with some meaningful references to Clausewitz, see also George Weigel, "Moral Clarity in a Time of War," the Second Annual William E. Simon Lecture, Thursday, October 24, 2002. [Posted on the "Ethics and Public Policy Center" website.]

"Primacy of Politics or Culture in a Modern World? John Keegan's Critique Demands a Sophisticated Interpretation." Defense Analysis, Volume 2, August 2001.

"Ein Preuße in den USA."  Europäische Sicherheit, October 2003. See rough translation, "A Prussian in the United States."

"Carl von Clausewitz today—the primacy of politics in war and conflict." World Security Network Newsletter, reporting from Berlin, February 21, 2009.

"Clausewitz’s ‘Wondrous Trinity’ as General Theory of War and Violent Conflict." Paper. This essay is an extended and revised version of a lecture of the same name given at the Gewaltlast (Burdens of Violence) Congress at the University of Zurich in 2005, and at the University of Hildesheim in 2003.

"Clausewitz’s 'Wondrous Trinity" as a Coordinate System of War and Violent Confict." International Journal of Conflict and Violence, Vol. 3 (2) 2009, pp. 204 – 219.

"Planning versus Chaos in Clausewitz’s On War."
The Journal of Strategic Studies, Vol. 30, No. 1 (February 2007), pp.129 – 151.
(Posted to The Clausewitz Homepage with permission of the publishers.)

Holmes takes on some writers who argue that Clausewitzian theory is somehow inimical to practical military planning. This excellent exploration of the subject of planning in On War may somewhat miss the point of Alan Beyerchen's brilliant nonlinear interpretation of Clausewitz, but that's a good subject for debate.

"Beyond Vom Kriege: The Character and Conduct of Modern War." Parameters, Summer 2005, 4-17.

Hooker takes on the issues of whether Clausewitzian theory is limited to state-on-state warfare and, if so, whether that is a problem—which depends to a great extent on how we define "the state."

The Present Theory of War and Its Utility
Preface to Jomini's Summary of the Art of War (1838)

Jomini is frequently portrayed as Clausewitz's most influential competitor as a military theorist and, misleadingly, as his "opposite." This essay is reproduced (with minor changes) from the 1854 American translation of Jomini's The Artof War, trans. Major O.F. Winship and Lieut. E.E. McLean (New York: Putnam, 1854). It is a somewhat clumsy translation and a bit difficult to read, which is of course why it has been entirely superseded by the better 1862 Mendell/Craighill translation. Unfortunately, the latter translation omits this revealing essay on the state of military theory as Jomini perceived it around 1838. A close reading of this essay will reveal both overt sneers at Clausewitz and many adaptations to the arguments made in On War. 

MARY KALDOR [Director of the Centre for the Study of Global Governance at the London School of Economics]

"PURPLE PATCH: Total Wars," The Daily Times ("A new voice for a new Pakistan"), 16 JAN 2000. This is an intelligent piece, reflecting a more nuanced understanding of Clausewitz than is reflected in Kaldor's more recent discussions, which are drivel.

"Five Books." c.8 March 2010. Kaldor lists her top five books about war. Not a bad selection, but we have no idea why she bothered to list Clausewitz's On War. The man sounds like an idiot.

An Instructor's Guide to Teaching Clausewitz

The faculty teaching guidance provided to instructors at the National War College, located at Fort Lesley J. McNair in Washington DC, in teaching Clausewitz during Course 5602, "Fundamentals of Military Thought," during academic year 2000-01.

EUGENIA C. KIESLING [Professor of History, United States Military Academy, West Point]

Review of Jon Tetsuro Sumida, Decoding Clausewitz: A New Approach to On War (University Press of Kansas, 2008), Army History, Summer 2010, pp.46-48. We don't usually list book reviews on this page, but this is a thoughtful, witty, and balanced piece that actually offers a good handle on the issues under dispute: "Decoding Clausewitz is fun, elegant, thought-provoking, and sometimes convincing. [Sumida's] description of On War 'as a set of instructions on how to engage in serious learning of a highly personal nature rather than an impersonal representation of the totality of that which is to be learned' is as intelligent an explanation of the book as one is likely ever to read. Those of us who teach military history in an effort to educate soldiers will find in Decoding Clausewitz an inspiring explanation of what we ought to be doing."

Category: Clausewitz

Includes:

"Warriors: Politicians by other means"
by Kenneth Payne on February 1, 2010 · 2 comments

"The Cognitive Challenge of War: Great Britain 2010"
by Kenneth Payne on January 29, 2010 · 15 comments

"Porter rides again"
by Kenneth Payne on January 27, 2010 · 2 comments

"Jihad and Clausewitz"
by Thomas Rid on January 9, 2010 · 13 comments

"Strategies, analogies and Luttwak"
by Patrick Porter on January 2, 2010 · 7 comments

"Iran’s Date with Destiny"
by Thomas Rid on December 30, 2009 · 18 comments

"The Social Science of Carl von Clausewitz." Parameters, Spring 2006, pp.79-89. Overall, this is a very high quality appreciation of Clausewitzian theory. There are a few problems in detail, of course. For instance, Klinger may have misunderstood the implications of Clausewitz's actions in 1812/13. And if "social science" was really "science" in the sense of the modern physical sciences, her discussion on that point would be useful as well.:-)

PHILLIP S. MEILINGER [Colonel, USAF, ret.]

"Busting the Icon: Restoring Balance to the Influence of Clausewitz," Strategic Studies Quarterly (Fall, 2007), pp.116-145.

This a critique of the use and misuse of Clausewitz in Western military thought generally and by the US military in particular. It is similar in some respects to other recent critiques by Tony Corn and Bruce Fleming (also listed on this page), and contains plenty of arguable propositions (as well as some classic bits of hoary Airpower theology).

The Clausewitz Homepage would have responded "at a time and place of our choosing," but Nik Gardner's capable "Resurrecting the 'Icon': The Enduring Relevance of Clausewitz’s On War," Strategic Studies Quarterly, Spring 2009, pp.119-133 (listed above), has saved us the trouble.

See also Patrick Porter, "Clausewitz and his critics," on Kings of War [a blog of various faculty and research students of the Department of War Studies, King's College London], September 15, 2008. See also the commentary page for Porter's piece, e.g., "Clausewitz-hatred: the signature tune of the blowhard."

Review Essay: A Wake for Clausewitz: Toward a Philosophy of 21st-Century Warfare. Parameters, Winter 1994-95

This review essay looks foward to the replacement of Clausewitz's theories by those of recent writers like Martin van Creveld, John Keegan, Alvin and Heidi Toffler, and Ralph Peters. 

Strategic Theory and the History of War. Paper, 2001.
A short (17pp) survey of the development of strategic theory from its emergence in the 17th century through the era of the World Wars.

Clausewitz Out, Computer In: Military Culture and Technological Hubris

The New Strategic Trinity, Parameters, Winter 1998

Like Steve Metz's article (above), this piece seems to argue for Clausewitz's obsolescence. Instead, as some behind the scenes discussion reveals, Peters' comments on Clausewitz reflect the writer's need for a provocative "hook" assailing Clausewitz and his conviction that this is a harmless fiction, since no one understands Clausewitz properly anyway. 

WILLIS G. REGIER [Director, University of Illinois Press]

The Essence of War: Clausewitz as Educator, review article, The Chronicle of Higher Education, August 3, 2009.

"Clausewitz was a general, yes, but he spent most of his career as an educator. He was tutor to a prince, a teacher of cadets, director of a military academy, and a gifted military historian. He wanted to write a war book of a much higher order than existing maxims and manuals, a book that would combine experience, historical examples (the more recent the better), and exact analysis in a clear and emphatic fashion. A careful scholar, Clausewitz revised drafts of his books again and again, On War among them.... "Disputes about Clausewitz—Is he vicious? Contradictory? Obsolete?—heat up the scholarship about him. His attackers (like the military historians Martin van Creveld, B.H. Liddell Hart, and John Keegan) have been met with fierce defense and counterattack by younger scholars (Christopher Bassford, Antulio J. Echevarria II, Andreas Herberg-Rothe, Hew Strachan), who seem to be winning."

Here's an argumentative but reasonably civilized exchange between two scholars on the meaning of some important ideas in Clausewitz's On War.

Jon Tetsuro Sumida, “The Relationship of History and Theory in On War: The Clausewitzian Ideal and its Implications,” Journal of Military History, April 2001

Cliff Rogers, "Clausewitz, Genius, and the Rules," The Journal of Military History, October 2002

Jon Sumida replies to Cliff Rogers The Journal of Military History, October 2002 

Here's a very interesting discussion thread on Clausewitz, initiated by the best Sun Tzu site on the web. 

FMFM 1: Warfighting (1989) (HTML) [c.118Kb]

Click on the button to view on-line versions of the following new publications, all of which draw heavily on Clausewitz.

MCDP 1: Warfighting (1997)

MCDP 1-1: Strategy (1997) [See the Original Draft, by Chris Bassford.]

MCDP 1-2: Campaigning (1997)

See also Christopher Bassford, "Doctrinal Complexity: Nonlinearity in Marine Corps Doctrine." 

Thomas Waldman [Ph.D. candidate, University of Warwick]

"War, Clausewitz, and the Trinity," Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Politics and International Studies, University of Warwick, June 2009. Recommended.

"This study is an attempt to analyse Clausewitz’s central theoretical device for understanding war – the ‘remarkable trinity’ of politics, chance, and passion. It aims to present a more accurate conception and one which is truer to Clausewitz’s intentions." One endearing line: "It has been written that, in order to avoid ... endless misunderstanding, On War ‘has to be studied repeatedly, seriously, and in depth.’ The irony that this was written by one of Clausewitz’s most mistaken interpreters [i.e., Martin van Creveld] should not detract from the wisdom of the injunction."

Clausewitzian Friction and Future War

(National Defense University: McNair Paper Number 52, October 1996; revised as McNair Paper Number 68, 2004) 

Strategy in the NavyThe Morning Post, 3 August 1909. This essay is essentially an attack on the influential British naval theorist Julian Stafford Corbett's interpretation of Clausewitz and on Corbett's influence on the Royal Navy. It serves as one demonstration that the pre-World War I debate concerning the implications of Clausewitzian theory was a good deal more energetic than most standard treatments of the issue would indicate. Wilkinson's debate with Corbett is discussed in a larger treatment of Clausewitz's role in pre-WWI British naval theory, pp.94-103 of Bassford, Clausewitz in English.

Killing No Murder: An Examination of Some New Theories of War Army Quarterly 14 (October 1927). This is a critical response to Basil Liddell Hart's book, The Remaking of Modern Armies (London: J. Murray, 1927).