Academic Paper Archive

Book Review: Clausewitz, Carl von: On War trs by Peter Paret and Michael Howard (Princeton UP: 1976).

Carl von Clausewitz’ magnum opus, On War, is considered one of the masterpieces of military philosophy along with such classical chef-d'œuvre as The Art of War by Sun Tzu and continues to exert enormous influence on military thinking to this day. Born in 1780, the Prussian general began his military career at the mere age of 13. From then onwards, he was to constantly confront Napoleon’s French Revolutionary Forces that played a crucial role in shaping his life and intellect. In 1816, he embarked upon theorising war based upon his experience at the Napoleonic Wars, the type of war that had not only altered the common knowledge of war itself, but had also forever changed the course of the Occidental Civilization. In 1827, having exposed his theory to the test of history, the Prussian general became convinced of the necessity of thoroughly revising his manuscript. Nonetheless, already at this point, he sensed that his hour was drawing near and left the following due warning to his future readers:“[i]f an early death should terminate my work, what I have written so far would, of course only deserve to be called a shapeless mass of ideas. Being liable to endless misinterpretation it would be the target of much half-baked criticism”.[1] His untimely death due to cholera in 1831 lamentably left behind his work largely unfinished, rendering the new revisions, such as Book VIII contradicting with his original ideas. Moreover, Clausewitz himself admitted that “[t]he first chapter of Book One alone I regard as finished.”[2] Coupled with On War’s sheer philosophical difficulty for laymen, his unfinished business continues to this day to trouble a number of readers. Therefore, when deciphering Clausewitz, the reader of On War is advised to take into account this historical background. Due to this incompleteness and his self-criticisms of his initial ideas, we deem it suffice to confine our present inquest to giving an insight into the significance of Clausewitz’ fundamental views of war instead of summarising the entire book, which Christopher Bassford is rightly justified in admitting simply as being “an impossible task.”[3] Then, as strategists, we shall inquire into the question of strategy in relation to his treatise.

In On War, Clausewitz attempted to unveil the true nature of war through the application of Hegel’s dialectical contrast between essence and phenomenon. Beatrice Heuser recognizes this approach well by differentiating between “at least two permutations, the wars of Clausewitz the Idealist and the wars of Clausewitz the Realist.”[4] Unlike Hegel, who continues to be criticised for being a pure idealist, Clausewitz, however, clearly understood the limits, if not the danger, of idealism and warned that “[j]ust 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.”[5] Instead, he recognized the importance of balance between theory and practice, which must always support each other.[6] Moreover, acknowledging the complex nature of war, he commenced his inquiry from parts to the whole. Unlike Jomini, who sought to ascertain the eternal principles of war and, as John Shy indicates, “wrote to publish and he published to impress”[7], Clausewitz remained focused on the heart of the object of his inquiry. This owes greatly to Prussia’s philosophical foundation established before the Napoleonic Wars by such philosophers as Kant and Hegel. By contrast, France utterly lacked such an intellectual basis because philosophy per se in that late-ancien regime and later revolutionary republic witnessed considerable stagnation despite the contributions to political and social ideals by Encyclopédistes, such as Rousseau. As a result, while Jomini focused largely upon topographical and physical factors and produced nothing more than another field manual aimed to offer an absolute recipe for military victory, Clausewitz successfully unmasked the nature of war by shedding light upon “the essence of the phenomena of war and to indicate the links between these phenomena and the nature of their component parts.”[8]

Based upon this methodology, the Prussian general sought to unite the social moment[9] and its natural counterpart in order to understand war, and we may ascertain here the single most important legacy of On War. First, Clausewitz argued that “war is nothing but the continuation of policy with other means.”[10] Here, he revealed the reality of war, whose planning, course, and objectives, inter alia, are ultimately determined by politics. Second, Clausewitz did not fail to take into account the natural aspect of war because, according to the Hegelian philosophy, social phenomena are a product of the sublation of natural laws by the society. Based upon this logic, he found that war might be reduced to the most fundamental level, that is, a duel between two persons. Here, he proposed his second notable proposition that “[w]ar is thus an act of force to compel our enemy to do our will.”[11] This would inevitably lead to the highest stage of violence where “a clash of forces freely operating and obedient to no law but their own.” Hence, war was to be both dictated and terminated by absolute violence.[12] The potential for such a great surge in violence originated in the human nature itself, thus excluding any socially constructed factors, such as mores. Nevertheless, “[o]nce”, cautioned Clausewitz, “the antagonists have ceased to be mere figments of a theory and become actual states and governments, when war is no longer a theoretical affair but a series of actions obeying its own peculiar laws, reality supplies the data from which we can deduce the unknown that lies ahead.”[13] Hence, the reality reappeared, and politics would regain the control of war. Again, the above quote is a vindication that Clausewitz perspicaciously understood the significance of reality and thus was no mere pure idealist. For this reason, we may even argue that the Prussian general even intellectually departed from the conventional Hegelian dialectic, which, according to Karl Marx, is “standing on its head” because, for Hegel, “the life process of the human brain, i.e., the process of thinking, which, under the name of ‘the Idea,’ he even transforms into an independent subject, is the demiurgos of the real world, and the real world is only the external, phenomenal form of ‘the Idea.’”[14] . These two types of war as discussed above are a product of the Clausewitian dialectic and may be referred to as Absolute War and Real War, respectively. The significance of On War, therefore, lies in Clausewitz’ understanding of war within the synthesis of the two moments of conflict, namely natural and social, and the following words may further aid our insight into the Prussian’s view of war:

War is more than a true chameleon that slightly adapts its characteristics to the given case. As a total phenomenon its dominant tendencies always make war a paradoxical trinity――― composed of primordial violence, hatred, and enmity, which are to be regarded as a blind natural force; of the play of chance and probability within which the creative spirit is free to roam; and of its element of subordination, as an instrument of policy, which makes it subject to reason alone. The first of these three aspects mainly concerns the people; the second the commander and his army; the third the government.[15]

In short, for Clausewitz, war was a “constant dialectic” of the two moments, “each penetrating and acting upon the other.”[16] Hence, when reading his treatise, one is expected to comprehend the dichotomy between the two types of war――― Absolute War and Real War――― first and foremost in order to grasp the nature of war.

Against this backdrop, he developed ideas that have hitherto greatly contributed to our interpretation of strategy. Before Clausewitz, a number of so-called strategists had attempted to yield strategic principles that would guarantee victory. Of those pseudo-strategists, again, Jomini, who have sought to provide formulae for strategy, stands out. Clausewitz’ French contemporary succinctly rendered his view of strategy, which epitomised the prevalent military thinking of the time:

That strategy is the key to warfare;
That all strategy is controlled by invariable scientific principles; and
That these principles prescribe offensive action to mass forces against weaker enemy forces at some decisive point if strategy is to lead to victory.[17]

As the above dicta demonstrate, the Jominian thinking reflected his obsession with ascertaining eternal principles, which, as the later history was to witness, would prove “to extol the Napoleonic model of massing, attacking, and quickly winning decisive victories. Anything less or different was reckoned as failure.”[18] Yet, we may soon detect the fundamental shortcoming of such a sweeping generalisation of as complex a human activity as war. It only treated war as phenomenon; the opposite dialectical end, essence is gravely ruled out in the above maxims. Indeed, Clausewitz, harshly denounced such a prescriptive approach for being “an oversimplification that would not have stood up for a moment against the realities of life.”[19]

Defining strategy as “the use of engagements for the object of the war”[20], he instead contended that “in war everything is uncertain, and calculations have to be made with variable quantities.”[21] He then went on to add that, in war, “all action takes place, so to speak, in a kind of twilight, which, like fog or moonlight, often tends to make things seem grotesque and larger than they really are.”[22] This pessimistic, yet critically realistic interpretation of the reality of battlefield led Clausewtiz to conceive of the idea, namely friction, which causes the disparity between the two types of war. Noting that “[e]verything in war is very simple, but the simplest thing is difficult”, the general explained that “[t]he difficulties accumulate and end by producing a kind of friction that is inconceivable unless one has experienced war.”[23] Coupled with the fog of war, friction deeply affects human psychology on the battlefield. Hence, it is moral, not physical strength at which any strategy must be directed.[24] In the words of the general: “[a]ll war assumes human weakness and seeks to exploit it”.[25]

The moral factor is one of the key attributes of a military genius, who has the ability to overcome friction in war and consist in “a harmonious combination of elements,” including intellect and unswerving courage inter alia, “in which one or the other ability may predominate but none may be in conflict with the rest.”[26] Based upon these elements, Clausewitz proposed coup d'œil and determination as the required criteria for a military genius. The latter quality, as Michael Howard points out, is different from “mere obstinacy”; rather, it is “rooted in intellectual insight and composed of a rare blend of intellect and moral courage.” [27] Here, too, morale plays a crucial role. Therefore, the significance of Clausewitz as a strategist is attributed to his emphasis upon the essence of strategy as well as the moral factor, which was largely ignored by such thinkers as Jomini, who sought to prescribe absolute formulae for military victory.

These Clausewitzian concepts continue to endure the test of time as they find their increasing relevance to the contemporary debate over the influence of changing external factors upon strategy. Such is most explicitly evident in the field of technology, whose revolutionary breakthroughs have traditionally almost always attracted military leaders to sanguine views that often disregard the reality of battlefield, such as the fog of war. For example, the advent of telegraph prior to the WWI paralysed the thinking of the German general Rudolf von Caemmerer to such an extent that he even claimed that the “dangers of failure in the preconcentrated action of widely separated portions of the army is now almost completely removed by the electric telegraph.”[28] Even as recent as in 1995, Admiral William Owens commented that the new technology would “dissipate the fog of war.”[29] Just as Jomini and other strategists who focused merely upon physical facets of war, these strategists also failed to take into account the essence of strategy, which is dictated by the fog war and friction inter alia. Rather, just as the established Clausewitian Colin Gray points out, we are never saved from “the difficulties that impede strategic excellence” because any innovation in technology always is received as a “poisoned chalice.”[30] The essence of strategy, therefore, remains, by and large, static; rather, new external factors, including technology, further complicate the situation the strategist faces. Indeed, “every new devise and mode of war”, cautions Gray, “carries the virus of its own technical, tactical, operational, strategic, or political negation.”[31] Stressing that strategy is difficult, he concludes that “planning for the future, like deciding to fight, is always a gamble.”[32] The lessons from On War are still well alive in this complex world, in which strategists are all the more afflicted than ever not only by technology, but also by such new types of war as global terrorism and cyber warfare.

Our heretofore appraisal of On War has revealed Clausewitz’ immeasurable contributions to our understanding of war and strategy with his unprecedented attempt to bring to light the essence of war through the application of dialectic. Nevertheless, the Prussian general has, by no means, been free from criticism. We shall consider here Clausewitz’ definition of policy[33]. He prescribed the following definition to the word:

It can be taken as agreed that the aim of policy is to unify and reconcile all aspects of internal administration as well as of spiritual values, and whatever else the moral philosopher may care to add. Policy, of course, is nothing in itself; it is simply the trustee for all these interests against other states. That it can err, subserve the ambitions, private interests, and vanity of those in power, is neither here nor there. In no sense can the art of ever be regarded as the preceptor of policy, and here we can only treat policy as representative of all interests of the community.[34]

Seen through the lens of modern political standards, the above definition may appear nothing more than an oversimplification of as complex a phenomenon as politics. Indeed, it is noteworthy that while he successfully applied dialectic to the identification of the essence of war, he failed to do politics the same justice and seemed to judge it only by its appearance, or to borrow Hegel’s terminology, phenomenon.

Critics have accused Clausewitz for such a definition. Soviet critics, for example, charged the Prussian general with having “a wrong, idealistic notion of politics, which he saw as the rationality of a personified state. Moreover, he thought of all politics as foreign policy.”[35] Erich Ludendorff also complained of the vagueness of the Clausewitzian interpretation of policy. According to him, Clausewitz merely considered “foreign politics, which regulate the relations between States, declare war, and conclude peace.” Ludendorff went on even to argue that “[j]ust as the essence of war has changed since the time of Clausewitz, that is, since a century or so ago, so the relation existing between politics and the conduct of war has also changed, and politics, too, ought to have changed.” [36] By this he meant the total mobilization of both “spiritual and physical forces of the nation”[37] in order to “serve the preservation of the people” through war, which is “the highest expression of the national ‘will to live’.”[38] Yet, is the essence of war subject to change under different circumstances? To be sure, Clausewitz once said that “[e]ach period, therefore, would have held to its own theory of war, even if the urge had always and universally existed to work things out on scientific principles.”[39] While this statement justifies Ludendorff’s attempt to conceive of a new theory to meet the dictates of the time, it, nevertheless, makes no reference to the essence of war. Indeed, for Clausewitz, the essence of war was nothing more than one end of his dialectic of the nature of war. Just as observed above, it represented the natural moment of war, which is hardly susceptible to any changes at all because it is the reflection of both psychological and biological facets of human nature. Such a rudimentary misinterpretation, however, could have been avoided had Clausewitz treated the nature of politics equally in his discourse.

On War was truly a groundbreaking treatise of war as well as strategy and continues to endure the test of time. It was revolutionary in the sense that it attempted to unmask the nature of war by giving an insight to its essence and phenomenon through dialectic. Its synthesis, then, rendered the importance of the superiority of politics to war and the aim of war as forcing the enemy to acknowledge one’s will. Finally, it held that, in reality, war would never become absolute due to the political restraints. This logic of war directly influenced the principles of strategy, such as the fog of war, friction, and military genius. Rather than prescribing absolute formulae for strategy, Clausewitz instead exposed the essence of strategy, recognising its difficulty. Thus, he placed great emphasis upon the importance of the moral factor to guide strategists in the execution of their plan. Moreover, the apparent amelioration of external factors, such as technological breakthroughs, does not help; rather, it only further complicates the strategic environment. Yet, Clausewitz was by no means omnipotent. He clearly failed to expound upon the nature of politics. Ludendorff, for example, attributed this failure to the inapplicability of On War to his time. He was, however, mistaken in that he had modified the essence of war itself. Nevertheless, Ludendorff greatly influenced the military thinking of his time. History has shown us that he played an undeniable role in propagating the subjugation of politics to war, which contributed to the Third Reich’s ultimate demise.

Reading On War is difficult, but renders every potential to serve strategists as their indispensible torchlight to guide their way. It is, therefore, the job of the thinking people not to repeat the same blunders of the past and always toil to commit themselves to the accurate appreciation of Clausewitz’ wisdom.































Bibliography

Bassford, Christopher: “Review Essay: Carl von Clausewitz, On War (Berlin, 1832)”, Defense Analysis (June 1996)
Caemmerer, Rudolf von: The Development of Strategical Science During the Nineteenth Century, trs by Karl von Donat (London: Hugh Rees, 1905)
Clausewitz, Carl von: On War trs by Peter Paret and Michael Howard (Princeton UP: 1976)
Heuser, Beatrice: Reading Clausewitz (London: Pimlico, 2002)
Howard, Michael: Clausewitz: A Very Short Introduction
Jomini, Antoine H.: Traité Des Grandes Opérations Militaires, Contenant L'histoire Critique Des Campagnes De Frédéric Ii, Comparées À Celles De L'empereur Napoléon; avec un recueil des principes generauz de l’art de la guerre, 2d ed., 4 vols. (Paris, 1811)
Kowalke, Klemens: “Die Funktionale Bedeutung der Clausewitzschen Methodologie fur die Formierung der sowjetischen internationalen Politik mit besonderer Berucksichtigung des Einsatzes militarischer Macht” (MS Dr. phil. Mannheim, 1989/1990)
Koyama, Hirotake: Gunji shiso no kenkyu (Tokyo: Shinsensha, 1970)
Ludendorff, Erich. The Nation at War, trs by A S. Rappoport (London: Hutchinson & Co, 1938)
Mahnken, Thomas G, and Joseph A. Maiolo: Strategic Studies: A Reader (Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2008)
Marx, Karl: Capital: A Critique of Political Economy - Vol. I-Part I: The Process of Capitalist Production: 1 (New York: Cosmio, Inc., 2007)
Murry, Williamson: “Does Military Culture Matter?” Orbis, vol. 43, no. 1 (Winter 1999)
Paret, Peter, Gordon A. Craig, and Felix Gilbert: Makers of Modern Strategy: From Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age (Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 1986)


[1] Clausewitz, Carl von: On War trs by Peter Paret and Michael Howard (Princeton UP: 1976), p. 70.
[2] Ibid., p. 70, Italics mine.
[3] Bassford, Christopher: “Review Essay: Carl von Clausewitz, On War (Berlin, 1832)”, Defense Analysis (June 1996), viewed on 1 Dec, 2010.

[4] Heuser, Beatrice: Reading Clausewitz (London: Pimlico, 2002), p. 43. (Italics mine)
[5] Clausewitz, Carl von: On War, p. 61, Italics mine. In this sense, we may draw a striking similarity between the Clausewitizian dialectic its Marxist counterpart.
[6] Ibid., p. 61.
[7] Ibid., p. 158.
[8] Clausewitz, Carl von: On War trs by Peter Paret and Michael Howard (Princeton UP: 1976), p. 61.
[9] Koyama, Hirotake: Gunji shiso no kenkyu (Tokyo: Shinsensha, 1970), p. 74. Here, I owe Koyama the use of the Hegelian terminology, namely “moment.”
[10] Clausewitz, Carl von: On War. p. 69.
[11] Ibid., p. 75.
[12] Ibid., p. 77-78.
[13] Ibid., p. 80.
[14] Marx, Karl: Capital: A Critique of Political Economy - Vol. I-Part I: The Process of Capitalist Production: 1 (New York: Cosmio, Inc., 2007), p. 25.
[15] Ibid., p. 89.
[16] Howard, Michael: Clausewitz: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), p. 35.
[17] Jomini, Antoine H.: Traité Des Grandes Opérations Militaires, Contenant L'histoire Critique Des Campagnes De Frédéric Ii, Comparées À Celles De L'empereur Napoléon; avec un recueil des principes generauz de l’art de la guerre, 2d ed., 4 vols. (Paris, 1811), 2:312n. quoted in Paret, Peter, Gordon A. Craig, and Felix Gilbert: Makers of Modern Strategy: From Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age (Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 1986), pp. 146.
[18] Paret, Peter, Gordon A. Craig, and Felix Gilbert: Makers of Modern Strategy: From Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age, pp. 179.
[19] Clausewitz, Carl von: On War. p. 135.
[20] Ibid., p. 128.
[21] Ibid., p. 136, Italics mine.
[22] Ibid., p. 140, Italics mine.
[23] Ibid., p. 119.
[24] Howard, Michael: Clausewitz: A Very Short Introduction, p. 27.
[25] Ibid., p. 185.
[26] Clausewitz, Carl von: On War. p. 100.
[27] Howard, Michael: Clausewitz: A Very Short Introduction, p. 27.
[28] Caemmerer, Rudolf von: The Development of Strategical Science During the Nineteenth Century, trs by Karl von Donat (London: Hugh Rees, 1905), p. 171-71, quoted in Mahnken, Thomas G, and Joseph A. Maiolo: Strategic Studies: A Reader (Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2008), p. 393.
[29] Murry, Williamson: “Does Military Culture Matter?” Orbis, vol. 43, no. 1 (Winter 1999), p. 37.
[30] Mahnken, Thomas G, and Joseph A. Maiolo: Strategic Studies: A Reader, p. 393.
[31] Ibid., p. 393.
[32] Ibid., p. 396.
[33] The German word, “politik,” has no differentiation between politics and policy in English. Hence, we shall use both terms interchangeably hereafter.
[34] Clausewitz, Carl von: On War. p. 606-607.
[35] Quoted in Kowalke, Klemens: “Die Funktionale Bedeutung der Clausewitzschen Methodologie fur die Formierung der sowjetischen internationalen Politik mit besonderer Berucksichtigung des Einsatzes militarischer Macht” (MS Dr. phil. Mannheim, 1989/1990), p. 85. Also quoted in Heuser, Beatrice: Reading Clausewitz (London: Pimlico, 2002), p. 190.
[36] Ludendorff, Erich. The Nation at War, trs by A S. Rappoport (London: Hutchinson & Co, 1938), p. 17, Italics mine.
[37] Ibid., p. 20.
[38] Ibid., p. 24.
[39] Clausewitz, Carl von: On War. p. 593.

• Check
• Tweet

• URL |
• Comment [0]