Can Reading Clausewitz Save Us from Future Mistakes?
Abstract
Some works are so broad in scope, so inclusive, even of contradictions internal to themselves, that they can be used to justify almost anything. One such book is that patchwork written over many centuries and by many hands that we call the Bible. For the Renaissance, it was Virgils Aeneid, opened at random to provide divination. For the Victorian era, it was the works of Shakespeare, a mine of quotable quotes removed from their contexts. For theorists of war in the last several decades, it has been Carl von Clausewitz's "On War." The Weinberger Doctrine of 1984, considered by many strategists the template of the first Gulf War, is both drawn from and cites Clausewitz. Widely held to have summarized the lessons of the Vietnam War, former Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger's six points for committing troops called for broad public support before engagement and a clear definition of objectives, things that were presumably lacking in the case of Vietnam. Weinberger invoked Clausewitz to justify the necessity of defining objectives clearly: "No one starts a war -- or rather, no one in his senses ought to do so -- without first being clear in his mind what he intends to achieve by that war, and how he intends to conduct it." Clausewitz's most celebrated assertion, however, as almost all commentators point out, is that "war is a continuation of policy [or politics: the German is "Politik"] by other means." This is linked to his equally famous "trinity" of violence, chance, and subordination, which is commonly represented as the people, the military, and the government. In recent years this trinity has typically been invoked to justify the necessity of achieving the backing of the people. Weinberger refers to this in the fifth of his points. And his final point, that "the commitment of US forces to combat should be a last resort," seems a reasonable conclusion from Clausewitz's insistence that war is not separate from politics, but a continuation of it.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 01, 2004
- Accession Number
- ADA596940
Entities
People
- Bruce Fleming
Organizations
- United States Naval Academy