“On War”

“… the “general message” of the book was that “the conduct of war could not be reduced to universal principles [and is] dominated by political decisions and moral forces.”^[11][12] These basic conclusions are essential to Clausewitz’s theory:

• War must never be seen as having any purpose in itself but should be seen as a political instrument: “War is not merely a political act, but a real political instrument, a continuation of the political process, an application by other means.”^[13]
• The military objectives in war that support one’s political objectives fall into two broad types: “war to achieve limited aims” and war to “disarm” the enemy: “to render [him] politically helpless or militarily impotent.”
• All else being equal, the course of war will tend to favor the party with the stronger emotional and political motivations, especially the defender.^[1]

Some of the key ideas (not necessarily original to Clausewitz or even to his mentor, Gerhard von Scharnhorst) discussed in On War include^[14] (in no particular order of importance):

• the dialectical approach to military analysis
• the methods of “critical analysis”
• the uses and abuses of historical studies
• the nature of the balance-of-power mechanism
• the relationship between political objectives and military objectives in war
• the asymmetrical relationship between attack and defense
• the nature of “military genius”
• the “fascinating trinity” (Wunderliche Dreifaltigkeit) of war
• philosophical distinctions between “absolute or ideal war,” and “real war”
• in “real war,” the distinctive poles of a) limited war and b) war to “render the enemy helpless”
• “war” belongs fundamentally to the social realm, rather than the realms of art or science
• “strategy” belongs primarily to the realm of art
• “tactics” belongs primarily to the realm of science
• the essential unpredictability of war
• simplicity: Everything is very simple in war, but the simplest thing is difficult. These difficulties accumulate^[15]…The strength of any strategy lies in its simplicity.^[16]
• the “fog of war“
• “friction”
• strategic and operational “centres of gravity“
• the “culminating point of the offensive”
• the “culminating point of victory”

Clausewitz used a dialectical method to construct his argument, which led to frequent modern misinterpretation because he explores various often-opposed ideas before he came to conclusions.”

Comment: This is the underlying bedrock of the study of war as a human phenomenon. It is written in heavy Kraut, even in translation, but its study is a science and art in itself. pl

On War – Wikipedia