7. On War: Clausewitz's "On War"

Of course, this is a must read for my inquiry into the topic. The book that inspired and shaped much of contemporary thought on the topic. In this post, I shall be touching on the various significant concepts that I picked up from this essential text.

Clausewitz puts forth his conceptualization of the operating levels of war. Politics or policy lies outside these operating levels but is the root cause of the existent of the resultant operating levels of war as Clausewitz puts it. It can take the form of hostile or peaceful.

Strategy is the overarching macro level. Its aim is the destruction of the enemy's spirit and cohesion by determining the enemy's center of gravity and focus upon it. Clausewitz speaks of war in its limited political scope since once the destruction of the enemy's spirit and cohesion is achieved, the killing should cease. Strategy takes two forms; offensive or defensive. Next comes a modern operating level of war: Operations. Strategy is perhaps the most important because it can lead directly to peace. Thus a general must be in tune with state policy and the military should be under the control of the political.

Operations was made possible with the Napoleonic invention of corps since this meant that the self-sufficient formations could successfully engage in operations by itself.

Next the last operating level of war exists in the "Lowest" tangible realm. But as Clausewitz puts it (and most do not see the existence of this important argument of his)since success in this operating level of war determines strategy. So strategy must always keep tactics in consideration.

Another essential point was what Clausewitz argued that light cavalry and infantry did more than screening the main body of troops. This adds onto my argument about individualism in the state of war since such troops in the era of gunpowder and marching armies needed to be more motivated, more tactically intelligent and needed to be more loyal (since they were absent from the constant scrutiny and command scope of their commanders). This traits of individualism were essential since they were engaged in independent operations and needed flexible tactics to survive and achieve their tactical aims. To add onto this aspect, Clausewitz also recognized the lethality of this modern way of warfare and stated that modern wars should vitalize individual energies as far as the weapon permits and cease to use men like simple machines. This was truly a step in increasing the scope of individualism in the state of war.