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On Clausewitz: A Study of Military and Political Ideas, by H. Smith
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Clausewitz is often quoted but more often misunderstood. On Clausewitz presents his central ideas about war and politics - such as war as an instrument of policy, the concept of Absolute War, friction and the fog of war - in a clear and systematic fashion. It also presents the man, his life and the military and intellectual environment in which he produced his great work On War . A final section considers Clausewitz's relevance to the rapidly changing nature of war today.
- Sales Rank: #9800137 in Books
- Published on: 2005-03-02
- Released on: 2005-02-10
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.90" h x .92" w x 5.22" l, 1.08 pounds
- Binding: Hardcover
- 303 pages
Review
' On Clausewitz is a thorough survey of all of Clausewitz's most important insights, drawn not only from On War but also from his voluminous writings on military history and international politics. Smith is particularly good at outlining the intellectual influences on Clausewitz...Far from being the bloody-minded apostle of total war portrayed by detractors, Smith's Clausewitz is a complex and fully rounded thinker.' Ian Garrick Mason, Times Literary Supplement
About the Author
HUGH SMITH is a graduate of the London School of Economics and Political Science and the Australian National University. He has taught officer cadets in Australia for over three decades and was the Founding Director of the Australian Defence Studies Centre. His publications cover many aspects of military affairs, from nuclear strategy to conscientious objection.
Most helpful customer reviews
20 of 20 people found the following review helpful.
Great Work in Strategic Theory
By seydlitz89
This book is an excellent campanion volume to On War. I would rate it at the same level of Michael Handel's Masters of War, but below Raymond Aron's Clausewitz and Uwe Hartmann's Carl von Clausewitz.
Professor Smith's work is well written and organized. He presents not only Clausewitz's views but also those hoping to replace his paradigm of war which has been the dominate one for the last 200 years. In addition I find his work to be far better in describing the current Global War on Terror, although that is not its main intention, than recent works by Colonel Hammes for example. While Hammes loses himself in a maze of his own and others' reified concepts, Smith knows what strategic theory is, the natural tension between it and praxis and the danger of attempting to make the reality fit the subjective doctrinaire model and thus "falling short".
In fact On Clausewitz presents the tensions associated with Clausewitzian theory very well, with one exception.
First we have the tension between analysis and doctrine. War does have a rational element, and that rational element ought to make war into an instrument of policy. So analysis becomes when dealing with this rational element fused with doctrine. The same is true concerning political - military relations, conflicts between which Smith sees as "a serious omission" since Clausewitz fails to discuss this (page 219). He assumes that the state will treat war as a policy instrument and will not expect from war something outside its nature to achieve. Yet this happens, as in Bush's plan to remake the Iraqi political identity into an American (and Israeli) friendly anti-traditional arab state with only a limited investment of military resources to carry it through. I see this "omission" more the nature of a warning since the nature of war as political instrument remains, if one side loses control of the instrument it can mean that the other side gains control and thus uses the war to achieve its own policy goals. Notice how this describes well the current situation in Iraq in regards to Iran and Iranian goals in Iraq. . .
Clausewitz remains silent as to what the military should do when the political leadership botches a war, but his own actions at Tauroggen in 1812 indicate his subjective response in this matter. I think Clausewitz was unable to deal with this difficult situation in a theoretical manner, dealing with as it does personal values, which leaves each officer to find his own way should he find himself serving a strategically incompetent political leadership or a leadership which wages war for its own interests and not those of the nation it represents..
The next tension that Smith brings out beautifully is the tension between theory and praxis. He goes through Clausewitz's Kritik methodology and introduces praxis as the third step where of course it belongs. Theory for Clausewitz is used to understand history and in understanding current reality. Clausewitz's theory is not a grand system of reality (this is where he is definitely not tied to Hegel, but actually anti-Hegelian) but a flexible and tension filled framework of concepts and principles used to sort out the important events from the unimportant.
The third tension I would mention is that associated with Clausewitz's concept of cohesion. Cohesion acts as the force that keeps a state together, forms its center of gravity(ies) and forms the basis for its alliances. A lack of state cohesion detracts from the advantages otherwise associated with being on the defense. On the international level, states pursue policies equal to their own weight and cohesion. The international balance of power is maintained by the cohesion of international relations and interests which tend towards equilibrium, to the detriment of a single state that attempts to gain power over all. This flexible concept is very applicable to the international situation today in the Middle East and elsewhere where mineral resources are becoming contested. So cohesion works at all three levels - the tactical, the strategic (or operational) and that of war plans.
However it is this fourth and last tension I will mention where Smith's excellent book falls a bit short. Had he been familiar with Hartmann's work (unfortunately not available in English) he would have been aware of the Schliermacher dialectic, or rather the three types of this dialectic that run all through On War. Instead, Smith mentions Clausewitz's thinking as "dualistic rather than genuinely dialectic" (page 61), since for him there is only the dialectic associated with Hegel that comes into question. Rather as Hartmann, and indirectly Aron, have pointed out, Clausewitz.deals with conceptual pairs that exist in a sort of constant tension that is never resolved. Instead of a synthesis, this version of Schliermacher's is a reverse dialectic which returns to the source of the conflict between the two types - thus the Weberian ideal types of Absolute and Real War when "reduced" reveal the "remarkable trinity" as the unifying and tension-causing element able to explain both.
This shortcoming does little to affect the overall worth of the book, is more the nature of a specialist's comment.
In all I recommend this book to all readers of On War and or those with an interest in cultivating an effective strategic analysis of the current the Global War on Terror.
Smith's work shows Clausewitz's applicability to the full spectrum of warfare, including Nuclear War (strangely similar to Clausewitz's concept of Absolute War) and what he describes as "Anti-Modern Warfare" or Guerrilla Warfare along with Terrorism. Smith's comments at the end of this chapter are particularly useful in lifting the conceptual fog surrounding "Terrorism". Although in connection with this latter type, I think retaining the Clausewitzian terms of Kleiner Krieg and "People's War" along with a discussion of Clausewitz's seminar of 1811 would have been very useful.
Contrary to the current 4th Generation Warfare view of Mao as the father of this "art of warfare", as Smith shows, he must be placed in a larger context of revolutionary war which would include Lenin and the Comintern. The connection between Clausewitz on the one side and Lenin and Mao on the other is clear and historically proven: Lenin having extensively commented on Clausewitz and Mao having read On War in translation in 1938. Aron has detailed the entire connection between communist strategic thought and Clausewitz well in the work I mentioned above.
Hopefully this book will not only shed light on a complex subject for students of On War, but also for those followers of the currently popular anti-Clausewitzian faddish concepts which only achieve in clouding the waters ever more thoroughly.
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