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Carl von Clausewitz (1780-1831)

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Prussian general

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in his book "On War" tried to distill a concept of war

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a book that would have lasting influence on thoughts about war in the 19th century and beyond

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On War

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unfinished masterpiece

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a collection of puzzle pieces that don't add up to one unified image

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struggled in his life to come to terms with the profound changes in warfare that he experienced in the Napoleonic wars

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died in the cholera epidemic

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tried to arrive at a systematic understanding of warfare

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on the other hand, the fragmentary structure reflects the difficulty to write about the concept of war

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war is on the one hand a chameleon, meaning it has different shapes, forms, and manifestations

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war is a total phenomenon

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encompasses a society

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a unity phenomenon

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can be brought under a single concept

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a tension to arrive at a concept of war

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yet has many various facets

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five of the most important definitions of war

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1. a duel

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an antagonism in which two parties act on their will in order to compel the other to act in some way

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an act act of force to compel the enemy to do our will

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therefore is fundamentally an instrument of politics

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2. distinction between absolute war and relative war

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war is the organized application of violence, and there is no logical limit to the amount of violence that can be applied

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in the concept of war as an antagonism, there is a natural dynamic which tends toward escalation of ever more extreme uses of force and violence

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a. reciprocity

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b. loss of control

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sets up the idea of friction

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c. mimetic principle

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antagonistic parties will imitate each other because they are in a competitive relationship and by imitating each other this will have a natural escalation of violence towards an extreme

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counterpoises

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inhibit this tendency to the extremity towards violence

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1. human psychology

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human frailties and finitudes

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bad judgement

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lack of courage

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2. asymmetry between attack and defense

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3. anti-escalation

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to break the cycle of mimetic imitation

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3. war is the continuation of politics by other means

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ambiguity of how to understand the word Politik

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broad definition

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existential meaning

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the realization of the political

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narrow definition

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policy

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legitimate and rational instrument of policy

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war is rational to the extent that it serves rational means

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4. war as the holy trinity

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a sociological organization

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involves three different forms of agencies within a nation-state

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1. professional army

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2. national-state and sovereignty

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declares the state of war and sends the army

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3. the people

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has to support the effort of war

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dysfunctions

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people are not on the side of war

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only the military is active but not the government

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5. the importance of chance and fiction

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war is the rational activity of the state

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war is fundamentally predicated by friction and chance

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war is a rational activity that tries to master chance

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the form of war is to be a game, a war game

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the attempt for different parties to master the game