7
7
0
This is a theoretical discussion. Numerous military theorists from Sun Tzu, to Clausewitz (who is horribly misquoted more often than any other), to Colin Gray and Andrew J. Bacevich, Jr. have wrestled with this concept. I have noted in my research that there seems an overwhelming human desire to "impose rules" on war and disgust with those who choose to fight war outside those established "norms."
My question then to you all is what is your own personal definition and or hypothesis concerning war and how would you develop a theory from that? Can you state which other military and political theorists influenced your thought process, if any?
My question then to you all is what is your own personal definition and or hypothesis concerning war and how would you develop a theory from that? Can you state which other military and political theorists influenced your thought process, if any?
Warfare
Military science
Military Education
Posted 11 y ago
Responses: 12
1
1
0
Der Krieg ist eine bloße Fortsetzung der Politik mit anderen Mitteln (Clausewitz, 1832) (War is a mere continuation of policy by other means). This is Clausewitz’s use of sterilized dialectic analysis to characterize a condition of war as an activity distinct from a condition of peace. His characterization is useful when misinterpretation of the condition occurs, such as war frequently described as a hate competition, or an excuse to commit a crime, etcetera, when supported at the nation-state level.
There is a play between bounding war as an ephemeral discrete calculus, versus war as a grand continuum bounded only by divine fiat. My thoughts are that the condition of war is continual with the ability to experience foretastes of peace even during periods of formalized war, but nevertheless continual war with punctuations eventually leading to that promise of divine fiat. Mankind’s “war to end all wars” is unreliable and quite different from the given promise to end all wars.
The moral aspect of the condition of war is removed by a strict adherence to dialectics. War is an undesirable condition because it is the indirect result of the fallen nature of mankind. A good example of this is the American civil war, caused by the moral issue of slavery, but the first open hostilities of combatants manifesting itself from the economics. The unjust war lays bare the human soul for what it really is. The moral basis of war such as that described in Tranquilitas Ordinis (Weigel, 1987) provides a compelling series of arguments describing various means of keeping the peace via the pre-emption or avoidance of war as an overall theme.
War is not only a human condition. Tranquilitas Ordinis attempts to explain the general condition of war in the moral sense. When considering what is nothing less than a supernatural war between good and evil, Tranquilitas Ordinis challenges the rash inclination to formally declare war through a given political machinery. Saint Augustine’s sledgehammer-like logic under his exposition of a just war theory in De Civitate Dei envisions a fulfilling city of God, and simultaneously, a morally decaying city of Man. Saint Augustine provides criteria and a valid explanation for wartime as a continuum, supported by his personification of the good and evil society found in the world, as its history unfolds.
To its credit, Tranquilitas Ordinis does not rule out formal declarations of war, but reorders the priorities involved in arriving at the declaration of war. Tranquilitas Ordinis proposes that the vigilance needed to keep the peace involves maintaining or improving order to include a minimal use of force in a diminishing good-will scenario; something similar to using effects based operations or a re-prioritization of the Diplomatic, Information, Military Economic (DIME) power categories as instruments for keeping the peace. The analogy here is akin to spanking a misbehaving child to prevent the continuance of harm, a building up of the character, or the use of forceful means such as preventing a child from walking into rush hour traffic and causing self-injury out of youthful ignorance. To be effective, the assumption that Tranquilitas Ordinis builds upon requires a proper moral understanding of life in the first place.
Clausewitz was not oblivious to the moral underpinnings of war. His frequent uses of concepts such as an opponent’s center of gravity consisting of the economic and moral puzzle pieces that generate belligerent power are an identifiable aspect to his writing. The center of gravity defined as distinct constituent elements gives the impression that the adversary’s power is identifiable in a target set requiring different techniques for each target type within its overall interconnected center of gravity. Clausewitz’s approach would prove useful over time to improve strategizing and attacking a center of gravity’s constituent elements, particularly with its eye to the constraint of employing scarce resources that achieve the definable end-state, that is to say, a realized enforcement of policy.
To put all this initial reflection together, Clausewitz’s calculus for wartime activity is still the basic direction taken by most professionals upon a formal declaration of war because it seeks to leverage and focus applications of power in an efficient manner. An improvement upon Clausewitz’s contribution includes higher resolution and linkages between the strategic, operational, and tactical domains as well as an increased consideration and clarity to the moral question involved. The dialectic of war and peace as total commitments of a society are confounded by significantly divided democracies that attempt to formally prosecute their external conflicts. The effect of a society's moral ignorance is only more frequent, more costly, and more complex forms of war.
1. Clausewitz, C., Clausewitz, M. (1832) Vom Krieg, Berlin: Dümmlers Verlag.
2. Weigel, G.(1987), Tranquilitas Ordinis, Oxford University Press.
3. Augustine, A. (426), De Civitate Dei.
There is a play between bounding war as an ephemeral discrete calculus, versus war as a grand continuum bounded only by divine fiat. My thoughts are that the condition of war is continual with the ability to experience foretastes of peace even during periods of formalized war, but nevertheless continual war with punctuations eventually leading to that promise of divine fiat. Mankind’s “war to end all wars” is unreliable and quite different from the given promise to end all wars.
The moral aspect of the condition of war is removed by a strict adherence to dialectics. War is an undesirable condition because it is the indirect result of the fallen nature of mankind. A good example of this is the American civil war, caused by the moral issue of slavery, but the first open hostilities of combatants manifesting itself from the economics. The unjust war lays bare the human soul for what it really is. The moral basis of war such as that described in Tranquilitas Ordinis (Weigel, 1987) provides a compelling series of arguments describing various means of keeping the peace via the pre-emption or avoidance of war as an overall theme.
War is not only a human condition. Tranquilitas Ordinis attempts to explain the general condition of war in the moral sense. When considering what is nothing less than a supernatural war between good and evil, Tranquilitas Ordinis challenges the rash inclination to formally declare war through a given political machinery. Saint Augustine’s sledgehammer-like logic under his exposition of a just war theory in De Civitate Dei envisions a fulfilling city of God, and simultaneously, a morally decaying city of Man. Saint Augustine provides criteria and a valid explanation for wartime as a continuum, supported by his personification of the good and evil society found in the world, as its history unfolds.
To its credit, Tranquilitas Ordinis does not rule out formal declarations of war, but reorders the priorities involved in arriving at the declaration of war. Tranquilitas Ordinis proposes that the vigilance needed to keep the peace involves maintaining or improving order to include a minimal use of force in a diminishing good-will scenario; something similar to using effects based operations or a re-prioritization of the Diplomatic, Information, Military Economic (DIME) power categories as instruments for keeping the peace. The analogy here is akin to spanking a misbehaving child to prevent the continuance of harm, a building up of the character, or the use of forceful means such as preventing a child from walking into rush hour traffic and causing self-injury out of youthful ignorance. To be effective, the assumption that Tranquilitas Ordinis builds upon requires a proper moral understanding of life in the first place.
Clausewitz was not oblivious to the moral underpinnings of war. His frequent uses of concepts such as an opponent’s center of gravity consisting of the economic and moral puzzle pieces that generate belligerent power are an identifiable aspect to his writing. The center of gravity defined as distinct constituent elements gives the impression that the adversary’s power is identifiable in a target set requiring different techniques for each target type within its overall interconnected center of gravity. Clausewitz’s approach would prove useful over time to improve strategizing and attacking a center of gravity’s constituent elements, particularly with its eye to the constraint of employing scarce resources that achieve the definable end-state, that is to say, a realized enforcement of policy.
To put all this initial reflection together, Clausewitz’s calculus for wartime activity is still the basic direction taken by most professionals upon a formal declaration of war because it seeks to leverage and focus applications of power in an efficient manner. An improvement upon Clausewitz’s contribution includes higher resolution and linkages between the strategic, operational, and tactical domains as well as an increased consideration and clarity to the moral question involved. The dialectic of war and peace as total commitments of a society are confounded by significantly divided democracies that attempt to formally prosecute their external conflicts. The effect of a society's moral ignorance is only more frequent, more costly, and more complex forms of war.
1. Clausewitz, C., Clausewitz, M. (1832) Vom Krieg, Berlin: Dümmlers Verlag.
2. Weigel, G.(1987), Tranquilitas Ordinis, Oxford University Press.
3. Augustine, A. (426), De Civitate Dei.
(1)
(0)
COL (Join to see)
LTC Michael W. totally agree that this may be a new way to wage proxy wars, had not thought deeply about this before instead viewing them as a separate entity. Just reread Galula's book on COIN...seems challenge is going to be on cutting the external sources of support and power and reconnecting with the co-opted population.
(1)
(0)
LTC Michael W.
Awesome, ma'am. If Galula's assessment turns out to be the final course of action taken, it will be a challenging feat to accomplish. I too sense a challenging task ahead to even begin to defang ISIS/L, and then a long time after that to regain the trust and respect of the people that were overrun.
(1)
(0)
COL (Join to see)
Mike, his assessment assumes complete commitment to the population, by having troops live with them to protect them and cut off insurgent influences...not sure we (as a global community) have that kind of commitment to people we seem to pity but not respect.
(2)
(0)
LTC Michael W.
I have not read Galula, but if he references the British COIN in Malaya to route an armed communist guerrila insurgency (1948) as a reference point, that model is known to work in the long term and would be the ideal starting point to design some kind of response with the new variables and series of measured and timely objectives. I suspect local governments are considered already committed to a counterattack for imposing a military solution. The most important part of this effort is a coalition embedding plan for post-conflict reconstruction support, and the bigger question is can ISIS/L's effort to subjugate or eradicate the area's people be reversed. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malayan_Emergency
Malayan Emergency - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Clement Attlee (until 1951) Winston Churchill (1951-1955) Anthony Eden (1955-1957) Harold Macmillan (1957-1960) Harold Briggs Roy Urquhart Henry Gurney † Gerald Templer Tunku Abdul Rahman Henry Wells Sidney Holland
(0)
(0)
1
1
0
Simply put war is one of two things, in the modern sense:
1: Diplomacy through extreme measures
2: Failed diplomacy
1: Diplomacy through extreme measures
2: Failed diplomacy
(1)
(0)
COL (Join to see)
Generally in waging war there is no immediate negotiation as each actor believes they will win when entering into it... SGT Richard H. is expressing Clausewitz's concept that war is a means of accomplishing a political end....but this still does not explain its violent nature.
(2)
(0)
SGT Richard H.
COL (Join to see)
Ma'am the violent nature of war is just an extension of mankind's violent nature. If we can't get our way by stating what we want or trading for what we want, our nature is to resort to force.
Look at it from this angle: How many times in your own life have you been in a conversation where despite keeping your cool on the outside, on the inside, you were absolutely raging? Maybe even thinking "I wish I could just choke that #$%^& and be done with it"?
This is because our tendency to be diplomatic/negotiate is a learned tendency and we use it to overcome the natural ones. I think this applies both on an individual level and a societal level.
When you put that on a large scale level it becomes war. For example, let's say that a subculture of Mankind has an overwhelming desire to convert everyone to a given religion. For many years, this group overrides any violent nature....perhaps even unaware that they have one....and sends out missions, builds churches, and does everything they can think of to attract followers.
What happens when this bumps up against an area that already has a fervently followed religion? Well, the indigents refuse to be swayed...perhaps even try to sway the newcomers. The newcomers, of course, resist this, for they are fervent in their beliefs. Soooo...the indigents tell the newcomers to go away, only they don't. Now they burn a church or two...maybe kill a follower or even a priest.....this progresses....escalates....and BAM. Crusades. Hundred year war.
All for what? Man resorts to his violent nature to accomplish what he could not accomplish otherwise. You could apply this on any level, from as small as simply disciplining a child through a spanking on the hiney (which by the way, probably started with a simple "no"), all the way up to all out world war, and I don't think the root of it would miss the mark by much.
I am not a psychologist or a sociologist...these are just my observations based on....well....observations.
Ma'am the violent nature of war is just an extension of mankind's violent nature. If we can't get our way by stating what we want or trading for what we want, our nature is to resort to force.
Look at it from this angle: How many times in your own life have you been in a conversation where despite keeping your cool on the outside, on the inside, you were absolutely raging? Maybe even thinking "I wish I could just choke that #$%^& and be done with it"?
This is because our tendency to be diplomatic/negotiate is a learned tendency and we use it to overcome the natural ones. I think this applies both on an individual level and a societal level.
When you put that on a large scale level it becomes war. For example, let's say that a subculture of Mankind has an overwhelming desire to convert everyone to a given religion. For many years, this group overrides any violent nature....perhaps even unaware that they have one....and sends out missions, builds churches, and does everything they can think of to attract followers.
What happens when this bumps up against an area that already has a fervently followed religion? Well, the indigents refuse to be swayed...perhaps even try to sway the newcomers. The newcomers, of course, resist this, for they are fervent in their beliefs. Soooo...the indigents tell the newcomers to go away, only they don't. Now they burn a church or two...maybe kill a follower or even a priest.....this progresses....escalates....and BAM. Crusades. Hundred year war.
All for what? Man resorts to his violent nature to accomplish what he could not accomplish otherwise. You could apply this on any level, from as small as simply disciplining a child through a spanking on the hiney (which by the way, probably started with a simple "no"), all the way up to all out world war, and I don't think the root of it would miss the mark by much.
I am not a psychologist or a sociologist...these are just my observations based on....well....observations.
(2)
(0)
1LT Nick Kidwell
And I am expressing Anakin Skywalker's euphemism for violence in the Star Wars prequels in what now appears to be a lame attempt at a joke. Really, for me the West Point Cadet's reading list looks more like an exercise in the esoteric practice of military strategy and less like edifying reading.
Honestly, I never got into Clausewitz (aka "Dead Carl"), Douhet, or even Machiavelli. I was able to make my way through what is generally accepted as the writings of Sun Tzu, but it was well after I had left service. Made sense, though.
Honestly, I never got into Clausewitz (aka "Dead Carl"), Douhet, or even Machiavelli. I was able to make my way through what is generally accepted as the writings of Sun Tzu, but it was well after I had left service. Made sense, though.
(1)
(0)
Read This Next
Continue with Facebook 
Continue with Google