The Resurrection of Carl von Clausewitz: Part 1
How one German philosopher explains why NATO fell behind
“No one starts a war--or rather, no one in his sense ought to do so--without first being clear in his mind what he intends to achieve by the war and how he intends to conduct it.”-Carl von Clausewitz
Carl von Clausewitz was a Prussian general and military theorist born in 1781. He spent his entire life as an officer, first attending the Prussian Staff College in 1801. There, alongside his military studies, he read the works of political philosophers such as Immanuel Kant and Johann Gottlieb Fichte.
Frichte was the real inventor of what would eventually become known as the Hegelian Dialectic, a philosophical method which sought to overcome contradictions between ideas and create a new, better synthesis. This idea would eventually be refined by Georg Hegel and then famously reformed by Karl Marx and Fredreich Engels into Dialectical Materialism, which is best understood as the application of the scientific method to the study of politics.
These political philosophers left a mark on the young officer, and at the academy he began to slowly formulate a dialectical military theory, a synthesis of political and military science combined together, rather than being viewed as separate entities.
Clausewitz was captured by the French in October of 1806 while serving as an aide-de-camp1 to Prince August of Prussia. With two battles in a single day, Napoleon inflicted a mortal blow on the Prussians near Jena, destroying nearly half their army in what was later known as the Battle of Jena–Auerstedt. The victorious French marched on to capture Berlin, and by the end of the year Prussia surrendered.
In his two years of captivity, Clausewitz realized that although the Prussian army was strong and well equipped, disunity and chaotic planning among the Prussian military and political leaders led to their defeat. Generals and politicians spent most of their time fighting over who would get credit for the battle, with rival factions in the army constantly sabotaging one another for personal gain. Of course, these personal gains came at the expense of the Prussian state and the Prussian army, the glory of the generals was paid for in the blood of soldiers. The only way to correct the problem was with wholesale reforms to both Prussian politics and it’s army.
Clausewitz was released in 1808 and moved to Russia to continue the fight against Napoleon. In 1815, he found his way back into the service of Prussia where he served as a staff officer during the decisive Waterloo campaign. After the war, he became director of the Prussian Staff College, developing his ideas for many years before he was appointed chief of staff of the Prussian Army in late 1830.
His task was to respond to the twin crises gripping Europe, both a massive, continent wide outbreak of a then novel disease called Cholera and revolutions in Prussia’s neighbors Poland, France, Italy and Belgium.
Clausewitz never got his chance to reform the Prussian army. The Prussian attempts to construct a cordon sanitaire at the Polish border failed. Europeans did not understand that the disease was waterborne and can still spread from asymptomatic carriers, so they believed that simply keeping the sick out would prevent the spread. However, the waterborne bacteria that causes Cholera had already entered Germany through it’s ports in Hamburg and it cut through the Prussian army like a scythe. The disease did not discriminate between soldiers and officers and soon found it’s way to Clausewitz himself, who died in November 1831.
After his death, his wife edited and published his nearly-finished magnum opus, a book called “Vom Kreige”, translated into English as On War. It would eventually become one of the most heavily read and influential works on military science ever written. It is still mandatory reading at nearly every military academy in the world, and even worked it’s way back into the politics it sought to synthesize. Both Vladimir Lenin and Mao Zedong were major advocates of Clausewitz and worked to adapt “Vom Kriege” into their own ideologies.
The first skirmishes
It can therefore be said that politics is war without bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed - Mao Zedong
“On War” was a revelation. While many have heard the famous (mistranslated) quote from Clausewitz that “war is a continuation of politics through other means”, this is not a correct understanding of vom Kreige. Clausewitz understood that war was not just a continuation of politics, but that the two were in fact the same thing.
Prior to Clausewitz, the realms of war and politics had been viewed as two separate realms. Clausewitz changed that perception by arguing that in the era of modern nation states, war must be understood as a political action. After all, war is but a political body (a state, party, or organization) carrying out violence against another political body to achieve political goals. War is inherently political in nature, it can be nothing else.
Prior to the modern era and the emergence of the nation-state, as we understand it now, rulers had to manage the interests of a large number of lords, vassals or other administrators, many of whom had goals contrary to those of the upper leadership. This meant that the power and authority of the state to put all their strength towards a clear and decisive goal was limited at best. In the modern era, with state power solidified and centralized, a faster and more decisive method of decision-making is not only possible, it should be the goal.
While “vom Kriege” is a long and complex work, in broad terms Clausewitz advocates for a few simple ideals.
First and foremost, war IS politics. It cannot be separated from politics. A war must be fought for clear, well-articulated, and realistic political goals. All decisions and strategies must be in the service of those goals. The idea of war being politics must permeate and inform every decision made by a commander. Things like the conduct of soldiers in occupied territory, the placement of bases and outposts, army policies regarding requisition and logistics and much more are deeply political choices which will have political ramifications. Political ramifications are military ramifications.
Secondly, war is ruinous to a country and should be avoided at all costs. Beyond the cost in blood and damage to industry, wars rapidly drain the state’s coffers and productive ability. They waste money and resources that could be used to create peace and stability at home. The longer a war goes on, the worse it becomes for both sides. Eventually the costs of fighting the war exceed any possible gains from it. Therefore, war should only be fought when all peaceful means have been exhausted and no alternative remains.
Thirdly, if a war is fought, it should be fought with the only one goal: ending the war as quickly as possible. This can come either through overwhelming force, simply crushing the enemy with all means until they can no longer resist, or through clear and reasonable political settlements. If a settlement cannot be reached, or the terms for one are not acceptable, then Clausewitz recommends that all available political, economic and military strength be mobilized towards a single goal: winning the war, as soon as possible.
In Clausewitz’s view, if a war is not worth fighting with all your strength, it is not worth fighting at all.
It took some time for Clausewitz’s theories to reach the English speaking world. The first translation in 1873 sold fewer than 1000 copies and "On War” did not become a major topic among British staff officers until WW1. Ironically, the British staff turned towards Clausewitz during the World War because they believed that his works formed the basis of Imperial German strategy, an idea that could not be farther from the truth.
In reality, the German strategy contradicted Clausewitz’s advice entirely. While their performance on the battlefield was one thing, they failed utterly from a political standpoint. Germany’s aims fluctuated throughout the years, depending on which faction was dominating the state. When concrete goals did emerge, they bordered on complete fantasy.
To wit, the first German strategy, known as the “September Plan” was put forth in 1914. It called for massive concessions from Russia and France. Large swathes of Eastern Europe would fall under German control, along with Belgium, Alsace-Lorraine and most of France’s African colonies.
German economic domination of France would be solidified through the forced payment of 20 billion marks in war reparations, and preferential treatment of German firms. The goal was to make France into little more than Germany’s export market, wholly subservient to German capital and economic aims.
Furthermore, a war indemnity, to be paid in installments. It is to be so high that France will be unable in the next 18 to 20 years to expend major sums on armaments.
In addition: a commercial treaty that makes France economically dependent on Germany, transforms it into our export market, and enables it to exclude English commerce from France. This commercial treaty must secure financial and industrial freedom of movement for us in France – so German firms can no longer be treated differently from French firms.- The September Memorandum
France and Russia would never accept these terms unless they were utterly defeated, and the intransigence of the Germans meant that they were motivated to fight to the end.
As the war went on, Germany’s chances of victory only diminished with time and yet the increasingly militaristic German state grew more unreasonable with their demands. Eventually they even started demanding huge concessions from the British as reparation. By 1917, the Germans claimed almost all of sub-Saharan Africa, despite the fact that by this point they were clearly losing the war.
If the German general staff was truly Clausewitzian in outlook, they would have negotiated in 1915 when the bloody stalemates of Ypres showed the hellacious cost of advancement for both sides. When the Germans refused to negotiate for anything less than a total victory, the Entente was forced into a total war, a strategy which heavily favored them. The simple reality is the Entente would always win a war of attrition.
Despite their misconceptions, the Entente was much closer to Clausewitz than the Germans were. Although some historians remembered him as a butcher, the strategy implemented by Field Marshall Douglas Haig was much more Clausewitzian in nature than his German counterparts. Haig took a sober accounting of the Entente’s advantages, chiefly more manpower, stronger industry and a vastly more powerful navy, then devised a strategy which would allow the Entete to choke the life out of the Germans.
Haig’s strategy was quite simple, in essence it was based around massive, constant attrition of the German army and an ever-tightening naval blockade.
The British and French could rely on their colonial possessions to keep their army and society afloat, while the Germans slowly starved and ran out of supplies. For example, prior to the war, Germany imported 90% of its supply of the nitrates necessary for both fertilizer and explosives from South America. This source was cut off by the British Navy blockade. Eventually the Germans developed an artificial process to manufacture nitrates but there was only enough for artillery, not agriculture.
By the end of the war, German soldiers would stop their advances to gorge themselves on allied supply dumps full of bread, jam and coffee. Many of them had not eaten real food in weeks. The situation was even worse on the home front, where widespread shortages of nearly everything caused the German state to collapse into a state of revolution..
The refusal of the German ruling class to take what they could get in 1915 led to them losing everything in 1918.
Regardless of the reasons, after the First World War, most of the world’s military academies at least taught Clausewitz, although the adoption of Clausewitzian ideals was limited in the west for one major reason.
Western governments lack the ability to truly mobilize the economy towards a common goal. Economics, like war, is also politics. If you don’t believe me, look at how many bills pass through each legislature regarding the economy. Economics is molded by, and in turn molds politics.
In a capitalist society, the government can’t compel a corporation to produce the equipment and material they need to fight a war or any other large project. They can offer lucrative contracts and use tax incentives to make it more worthwhile, but ultimately it is the corporations that decide what is produced and to whom it is sold. In the system imagined by Clausewitz of a total mobilization of society, the government would need to exercise a much higher level of economic control.
To give an example of what I’m talking about, we can examine the one time in history when the US military was explicitly organized in a Clausewitzian manner, with a unified military and political command structure, set up by a general who cited “On War” as second only to the bible in the influence it had on his life.
By the dawn of the Second World War, Clausewitz had finally come to America through the leadership of General Dwight Eisenhower.
A personal assistant to a high ranking officer, essentially a mix between a secretary and a courier.