Clausewitz and the nature of w
Clausewitz and the nature of wClausewitz and the Nature of War
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 who sought intentionally (for propaganda purposes) to distort its content. The book's specific arguments are very clearly stated and rarely difficult to comprehend. The first of these misconceptions is the notion that Clausewitz considered war to be a "science."*1 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 early 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, while the object of art is creative ability. Of course, all art involves some science (the mathematical sources of harmony, for example) 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."*2 Most real events are driven by incomprehensible forces like chance, emotion, bureaucratic irrationalities, and intra�organizational politics, and a great 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.*3 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 not only reacts but 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 wrestling match--a contest between independent wills, in which skill and creativity are no more important than personality, chance, emotion, and the various dynamics that characterize any human interaction. When Clausewitz wrote...
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