Strategy in the 21st Century

Lennart Souchon

Strategy in the 21st CenturyThe Continuing Relevance of Carl vonClausewitz

Lennart SouchonFaculty of Economics and Social SciencesUniversity of PotsdamPotsdam, Brandenburg, Germany

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Preface

Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) is said to have murmured the words Eppur si muoveduring the Roman inquisition trial in 1633. The heliocentric world view of NicolausCopernicus (1473–1543) is a scientific sensation in the Middle Ages and yet iscondemned by the Catholic Church as heresy. It is a source of great trouble for theastronomer Galileo, whose observations of the tides make him the first person able toprove this “mathematical model”, as the church calls it until 1822. He conceals hisphenomenal discovery that the earth revolves around the sun behind the Latin wordsin order to protect it. Galileo is not formally rehabilitated in religious doctrine untilOctober 1992, during the term of Pope John Paul II. This drawn-out developmentillustrates how difficult it is to fundamentally change ingrained ways of thinking anddoing things even if new findings compel them to be.

Nowadays, the view from a space station allows the earth to be identified on itsheliocentric orbit as a tiny element of the seemingly infinite universe, as an island oflife set in great complexity and galactic solitude. While ways of thinking, culturesand forms of rule have drifted apart in certain regions of the world throughouthistory, in Mesopotamia, Egypt, in the Indus Valley, in Central Asia and in China,the world today is closely connected due to global networks and worldwide travel,trade and services. The urban centres in Europe, the Americas, Africa, Asia andAustralia are linked in real time. The depletability of natural resources, the continuedgrowth of the world’s population and the horrendous possibility that man has todevastate the planet Earth with nuclear weapons are well-known facts. The prosper-ity and security enjoyed in some parts of the world tremendously contrast with theimmense poverty experienced in overpopulated regions. The air we breathe, thewater we drink, the rainforests, agriculturally used soil and the seas are elements andbridges that connect rich and poor zones around the world. At the same time,mankind faces a multidimensional threat consisting of international Islamist terror-ism, failing states, organised crime, human trafficking, cyberwarfare and the prolif-eration of weapons of mass destruction, which force us to rethink national securitypolicy.

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At the end of the twentieth century, the states of Eastern Central Europe becamemembers of the North Atlantic Alliance (NATO) and the European Union (EU). Forthem the prosperity, democracy and security in the North Atlantic Alliance appearhighly attractive. As in the period after the Congress of Vienna (1814–1815), theG20 states are seen nowadays as a broad concert of nations that may dominateinternational politics in future times.

The Western societies were attacked by the Islamist terrorists on 11 September2001. The world witnesses a strategic challenge that can ultimately take on apoca-lyptic dimensions if the tectonic peril of this precarious security situation fails to becomprehended and confined. The North Atlantic states are in agreement regardingthe operational level and unite in the fight against Islamist terrorist networks.However, comprehending this altered threat situation and bringing about a strategicrealignment in thinking and action are difficult processes comparable to GalileoGalilei’s discovery and the Catholic Church’s reaction to it. The metaphor “peace isthe emergency” frequently cited in the 1970s proves to be fitting for the day, thedangerous enemy being beyond grasp with traditional patterns of thought.

Another aspect renders peaceable optimism out of the question: Predominantnumber of crises and armed conflicts arise today within societies and at the sametime have transnational networks. The fight against international terrorism demandscompletely different ways of thinking, strategies and capability profiles to bedeveloped for modern armed forces. But political and military decision-makershave great difficulty in abandoning their outdated analytical methods and decision-making procedures for handling security policy issues and adapting to the require-ments of the present. Global conflicts involve different value systems and culturesand fundamentalist radicalisation. It must be doubted whether the bureaucraticinstitutions are indeed able and willing to change traditional ways of thinking.Regarding those challenges, there is a need for a complete overhaul in strategicthinking and action with the aim of defining new approaches to capability profilesand forces structures.

The Western military interventions in Central Asia, the Middle East and Africareveal a common pattern. They have been planned at the operational level without aprecise political purpose, holistic and intermediate goals or an appropriate allotmentof military and civilian resources and are shortsighted in the way they are beingconducted. They are not succeeding in establishing stable conditions of peace andthreaten to fail if foreign troops are withdrawn. This holds equally true for theRussian engagement in Syria or for the involvement of Saudi Arabia in Yemen.

An added factor in Germany is the moralising dimension in the basic attitudetowards international operations. It is enhanced in parliamentary committees forparty-political reasons by an invocation of ethics aimed at regimenting rationalgovernment decisions. A holistic management of Bundeswehr operations is onlypossible if security policy is based on a strategy. Long-term military operations at thebeginning of the twenty-first century call for clear objectives, appropriate militarycapabilities and an adaptable leadership culture. It is just as hard to imagineconsensus-based innovations and restructuring measures being implemented inmajor military organisations as it is in civil enterprises, even though conviction in

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management theory is that organisations with a hierarchical structure are moreadaptable and faster in bringing about change. Especially in organisations inwhich the management is innovative and flexible that new ways of doing thingscan be adopted quickly. These results also pervade the constant efforts theBundeswehr undertakes to bring about reform. While the security challenges growin complexity, there is a striking stoic reluctance to take innovative and decisiveaction.

Prudent policymakers develop a holistic strategy aimed at achieving a stable stateof peace before intervening in regional conflicts. They first define the politicalpurpose before ordering plans for a military operation to be developed and thenseek wide political support through discourse.

One important prerequisite for initiating future-oriented changes is that of under-standing the basic phenomena of our day. In Maxims und Reflections, Goethepostulates: “What is true, good and excellent is also simple and always the samein itself, however it makes its appearance” (Koopmann, 2006, 187).1 Clausewitzcondenses this contemporary finding in his empirical analysis of war and concludes:“Everything in war is very simple, but the simplest thing is difficult” (On War, 119).This sentence is a generalisation of a finding that Clausewitz applies exclusivelyto war.

The noted rise of national and collective responsibility for global developments ininternational politics, the likewise limited ability to comprehend matters holisticallywith the goal in mind and the continued operational use of armed forces overcomefrom the Cold War era are creating a dangerous situation in today’s polycentricworld. The declining power of the West unlocks a power vacuum which is filled byan expansionist China and aggressive Russia. Global threats such as mass migration,international terrorism and climate change are intensively discussed without leadingto determined measures of the international community to curb these developments.

The major threats in the twenty-first century are continuous regional wars as wellas terrorist attacks and the failure of international political cooperation due topopulist conservative nationalism.

The destruction of the World Trade Center and the infliction of damage on thePentagon on 11 September 2001, operations in which 19 suicide attackers killedmore than 3000 people and caused damage totalling more than a trillion US dollars ata cost of around USD 100,000 US dollars, must be rated as a benchmark of theprobable effectiveness of Islamist hyper-terrorist attacks.

1All German quotations from Vom Kriege refer to: Carl von Clausewitz. Hinterlassenes Werk. VomKriege. Achtzehnte Auflage mit erweiterter historisch-kritischer Würdigung von ProfessorDr. Werner Hahlweg (On War. Eighteenth edition with additional historical-critical commentaryby Prof. Dr. Werner Hahlweg), published by Dümmler in 1973. Page references for pages 1-1251are the same for the 19th edition, published in 1980. All English quotations are taken from On Warin the edition translated and edited by Michael Howard and Peter Paret. Princeton, N.J.: PrincetonUniversity Press, 1989. The individual books are referred to by Roman numbers and chapters byArabic numbers. All other German quotations are unconfirmed translations.

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Islamist terrorists use their clout as a means to counter the influences of Westernculture and the media-propagated fear as a weapon to achieve their goals. Genera-tions of Muslims are growing up in the Maghreb, Caucasus and Middle East, inCentral Asia, South Asia and Southeast Asia, in parts of Europe and in the USA in aclimate marked by poverty, a high population density and growth rate, poor educa-tion, a lack of prospects, high youth unemployment and corruption. These desolatesocial, economic and political conditions are further exaggerated by ethnic andreligious conflicts, aspirations for secession and civil wars. In such a politicalclimate, regional terrorist organisations such as Hezbollah and Hamas operatetactically with Islamic social welfare institutions and fund schools, kindergartens,hospitals and mosques. They provoke, polarise, mobilise and radicalise youngMuslims. The terrorists recruit their fighters from this reservoir, going on to indoc-trinate them, put them through terrorist training, provide them equipment and,finally, use them for their purposes. (Cf. Rice, 2005)

To break this vicious circle of poverty, a lack of prospects, violence and twistedIslamist doctrine effectively, it is necessary to develop a deeply founded understand-ing of this particular situation in the twenty-first century that takes account of thepolitical, economic, social, religious and historical circumstances. To do so, it ishelpful to pose leading questions about the power of Islamist doctrine, the socialreality in the states under the Islamic crescent, the primordial violence of the peoples,the elites that hold political power and their goals. A critical look must likewise betaken at the way the policies of Western democracies are perceived and at theinfluence they exert. The essential elements of terrorist indoctrination must first beunderstood in their entirety before methods can be developed to counter the ensuingthreats effectively. Every form of terrorist violence and every battle are characterisedby the actions and reactions of the actors involved. Thus, thoughts on cause andeffect, the influence of probability, chance, danger, effort and the relation betweenpurpose and means are of pivotal importance.

The forms, natures and intensities of war have all been in constant flux throughouthuman history. “The semibarbarous Tartars, the republics of antiquity, the feudallords and trading cities of the Middle Ages, eighteenth-century kings and the rulersand peoples of the nineteenth century—all conducted war in their own particularway, using different methods and pursuing different aims” (On War, 586). Theircharacteristics are blind instinct, the play of probability, chance and pure reason,which form a continuum, as well as the purposes and objectives in war, whichcombine with danger, physical effort, nebulous intelligence and other forms offriction.

It is trivial to demand postmodern nations to comprehend issues and their causes,to take prudent strategic action and to abandon a way of thinking that remains linkedto the dimensions of classical state wars and is getting bogged down in the hustle andbustle of events of the day. In addition, numerous difficult obstacles have to beovercome in the real world to ensure that the strategic political focus is on thefar-reaching employment of armed forces. This phenomenon can also be observed inthe long-term pursuit of purposes both in all fields of politics and in major businessenterprises. The majority of the current security challenges can be neither understood

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nor resolved in day-to-day politics. Having the courage to use one’s own mind, tosee things in a wider context and question them, to define one’s own positions and toconsider the big picture when structuring things is a pivotal demand of the philos-opher Immanuel Kant and an essential idea of the Enlightenment in the eighteenthcentury. Kant destroys the illusion that there is truth without thinking. “AlthoughClausewitz’s program of studies included Kant`s writings, and he subsequently readthe works of other systematic thinkers, he was anything but a trained philosopher”(Paret, 2015, 32). This observation must be heeded, especially since the challengesof the twenty-first century call for the political transformation process to begin now,the Cold War being history for more than a generation.

What is needed in the twenty-first century is a recollection and application ofstrategic thinking and acting, a renewal of the Enlightenment, so to speak, whichgenerates the courage required to focus one’s own mind and those of others on thefuture. There is no way of individual entities thinking about what tactics they canapply to optimise their own prospects of success anymore. Required is a prudentendeavour for a common strategy that provides for use of interdisciplinary intelli-gence and experience, for analytical searches for solutions to be conducted, forcareful consideration to be given to critical objections and, finally, for ideas,initiative and courage to be shown. Decisions must be focused on achieving lastingresults. An excellent way of developing strategies for solving complex sociopoliticaland international problems is the intense interplay of creative, knowledgeable andexperienced public figures, politicians, diplomats, business people and economicexperts, scientists and military leaders. This applies to all fields of politics andbusiness, though especially to security policy.

The author of this book proceeds from the political, military, economic and socialsituation in the beginning of the twenty-first century. He examines select principlesand insights of Clausewitz’s theory that can on the one hand serve as the basis forstrategic thinking and action in a general sense and on the other hand can beexploited in a course of studies for future executives. This strong focus on the realityconstitutes a new approach in the application of Clausewitz’s theory.

A strategist thinks in broad contexts and focuses on the picture as a whole ratherthan on its parts. For him progress is a synonym for successful action, that is to say,specific action to achieve a higher purpose using the available means. According toClausewitz, the ultimate purpose of every war is to achieve an advantageous peace.War encompasses the entire spectrum of military operations from armed observationin peacetime to total defeat of the enemy, and thus crisis, conflict and war as weconceive them today. This instrumental definition shall serve as the reference frameand the conceptual basis for this book.

Whenever major deficits are diagnosed in the areas of strategy, the relationbetween purpose and means and the use of the military instrument, there are twoways of achieving long-term improvements in the situation. One way is to compe-tently advise decision-makers so that they grasp what security challenges wereimportant in their entirety, understand what the central elements of a strategy areand thus can find appropriate guidance for making their decisions. The final stepinvolves presenting methods for making strategic decisions and ideas on how to

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organise and provide strategy consulting at the government level. The other is toprovide up-and-coming executive personnel education in strategic thinking andaction.

In philosophy, genius is a mental benchmark. It combines intelligent, holisticthinking on a broad education basis with the ability to act rationally in pursuit of aparticular purpose. Engaging in prudent, professional, creative and at the same timecritical dialogue with policymakers requires a few more qualities, such as courage,imagination, sound judgement and clear personal standpoints. The demands a personmust meet to be deemed a military genius or its business equivalent, a top executive,are very high. This is why theory-based education must be introduced for up-and-coming executive personnel. It, above all, requires a lot of persuading to be donewith the present-day decision-makers in armed forces, governments and the businessworld and the issue to be made the subject of a broad public debate.

As a Navy officer and scientist, the author was faced with the fundamentalquestion about the rationality of military planning and the use of armed forces andwas unable at first to find any convincing answers. What theoretical foundations andphilosophies govern strategic action? Is the essence of things understood? Is think-ing impartial and unprejudiced? How is criticism handled? Does reason rule? Arethere clear standpoints established and are there decisions based on them prudent,courageous and far-reaching? Do I defend my standpoint convincingly and arguecorrectly?

Given the fast pace of day-to-day life in that decade, most of these substantialquestions seem to be utterly secondary and thus remain unanswered. People have asense of deep-seated insecurity and dissatisfaction, but are also critical and curious.In his quest for theoretical foundations, the author has studied the works of Sun Tzu,Machiavelli, Hegel, Clausewitz, Jomini, Moltke, Mahan, Ruge, Liddell Hart andAron. Clausewitz is in the author’s view the only one who examines the essence andrationality of strategy, looking at the nature of things in his attempt to glean newinsights, and places his findings in a higher theoretical context, proceeding fromwhat he learns in practice. Nevertheless, even he encounters immense opposition andsubstantial criticism. His main work On War is not easy to decrypt due to theprofound and dichotomic way in which complementary pairs of terms and theirrelationships are presented. Despite this, the pith of his work is of exceptional valueand a basis of singular significance both for the study of strategy and for strategicthinking and action. Items of fascinating, timeless knowledge on the one hand andcontradictions and unclear or sketchy passages on the other constitute both aninspiration and an obstacle to studying the insights he gained almost 200 yearsago, but they must on no account be generalised apologetically, idealised as doctrineor indeed canonised.

My thoughts and doubts about the rationality of acts of policy lead to a practicalquestion: How can strategic thinking be exploited in government, the armed forcesand many other areas of society? In the mid-1980s, I served as an admiralty staffofficer at the German Ministry of Defence, bearing responsibility for drafting theKonzeption der Marine (Naval Concept) and providing input for the Konzeption derBundeswehr (Bundeswehr Concept), the Defence White Paper 1985 and the

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Militärstrategische Zielsetzung der Bundeswehr (Military Strategic Objective of theBundeswehr). I started my work on each of these tasks with a blank sheet of paper.Nobody around me was able to give me a convincing answer when I asked for adefinition of “concept”. Looking into it more closely, I realised that a concept was aclearly outlined basic idea, and nothing more. It is not a strategy, let alone a war plan.This vacuum with respect to strategic ideas and the deficits in strategic thinking arestill a problem today. For example, the White Paper 2006 on German Security Policyand the Future of the Bundeswehr was presented to the public as a strategy but incomparison with the equivalent American, British and French documents lacks thenecessary compelling logic and clear statements on the relation between purpose andmeans expressed in Clausewitz’s core ideas. The Federal Ministry of Defenceredefined the Federal Republic of Germany’s security policy interests in theVerteidigungspolitische Richtlinien (Defence Policy Guidelines, 2011). The degreeto which they are implemented in the country’s national security provision remainsto be seen.

It took hundreds of years for the geocentric Ptolemaic world view to be replacedby the heliocentric view of Copernicus and Galileo. Devising a course of study inwhich the focus is no longer on opportunistic improvisation but on strategic thinkingand action is also a long process, and one whose success is not assured at all. We canat any rate wonder when we will hear the words eppur si muove.

Potsdam, Germany Lennart Souchon

Bibliography

German Federal Minister of Defence. (2011, 18 May). VerteidigungspolitischeRichtlinien. Nationale Interessen wahren - Internationale Verantwortungübernehmen – Sicherheit gemeinsam gestalten, Berlin.

Paret, P. (2015). Clausewitz in his time: Essays in the cultural and intellectualhistory of thinking about war. New York: Berghahn Books.

Rice, C. (2005, December 11). The promise of democratic peace. In The WashingtonPost.

von Goethe, J. W. (2006).Maximen und Reflektionen. herausgegeben und mit einemNachwort von Helmut Koopmann. Munich.

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Acknowledgement

I want to express my deep gratitude to Dr. Klaus Olshausen for his tremendouslymotivating engagement and consistent excellent support and to Dr. Klaus Reinhardt,who helped me to navigate the project safely at all times.

The English translation of the manuscript was accomplished with the superbprofessional skills of Marina Schultz and the excellent interpreters Kevin Hodsman,Mareike Sedlmeier and several others in the Federal Office of Languages.

For more than 25 years, the University of Potsdam provided me with a grandsetting to teach Clausewitz’s theory and its application to conflicts in Europeand Asia.

I want to thank Oliver Heinicke, Prof. Dr. Yskert von Kodolitsch, Dr. MartinWolff, Sascha Zwick and Martin Prokoph of the Clausewitz Network for StrategicStudies (CNSS) for their constructive remarks and critical comments about theClausewitz’s theory.

I want to thank Thomas Bantle, Prof. Dr. Christopher Bassford, Prof. Dr. AntulioEchevarria II, Thomas Hambach and James E. Monroe for their encouragement andadvice.

Very special thanks go to Mr. Niko Chtouris and Mr. Abdus Salam Mazumder.Their outstanding work and diligence pushed my book to completion.

I wish to acknowledge the patience and assistance of my wife Ute. She has beenall the time a continuous source of inspiration. For their wonderful support I thankmy daughters Juliette countess of Erbach-Fürstenau, Babette Seule-Souchon andHarriet Souchon-Gresch.

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Contents

1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Works on Clausewitz . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11Further Literature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

2 Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13The German Term Politik . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13Strategy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16Military Strategy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17War . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

Works on Clausewitz . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23Further Literature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

3 The Belligerent Genesis of Europe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25The Phenomenon of War and Politics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25The European World and Its Formative Strategists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27The Strategic Situation in Europe in the Twentieth Century . . . . . . . . . . 35

Post-modern States . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39Pre-modern and Disintegrating States . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40Modern States . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

Clausewitz’s Works . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45Works on Clausewitz . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45Further Literature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

4 Prussia, Clausewitz and the Interpretation of His Works . . . . . . . . . 47Prussia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47Methods of Interpreting Clausewitz . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50Clausewitz from the Historical Perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52

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Clausewitz the Scholar of Military Science . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58Truth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62Understanding of War . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62

Holistic Interpretation of War with the Theory of Clausewitz . . . . . . . . . 64Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66

Clausewitz’s Works . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66Works on Clausewitz . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66Further Literature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68

5 On War: Basic Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69The Fascinating Trinity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71

The Exegesis of the Fascinating Trinity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73A Three-Dimensional Representation of the Fascinating Trinity . . . . . 80

Appropriateness of Means . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87

Relations Between Purpose, Objective and Means . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88Purpose . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89Objective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90Means . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92

Frictions, Probability and Chance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95Frictions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95The Fog of War . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97Probability and Chance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97General Friction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99Counteracting Frictions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99Opportunities Due to Friction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100

Moral Factors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102Military Genius . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103Soldier’s Courage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106Commander’s Boldness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107People’s Patriotic Spirit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108Military Virtues of the Army . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108

Holistic Evaluation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111Preliminary Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112

Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113Clausewitz’s Works . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113Works on Clausewitz . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113Further Literature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114

6 On War: Individual Aspects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116Method of Presentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120

Form . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121Content . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123

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Historical Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124Cause and Effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126Philosophical Consideration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127

Politics, War and Peace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129War, Little War and People’s War . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132

Absolute War and Limited War . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133The Little War and People’s War . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136

Primacy of Politics and War . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139War as an Instrument of Policy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139Energy and Effort . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141The Tasks of the Government and the Armed Forces . . . . . . . . . . . . 142The Political Purpose and the Military Objective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144Primacy of Politics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145

Theory and Practice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150Application of the Theory in Practice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153Clausewitz and Jomini . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154Theorists and Pragmatists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157

Strategy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160Strategy as a Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161Strategy as a Method of Action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162Strategy as a Method of Thinking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166

The War Plan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170

Clausewitz’s Works . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170Works on Clausewitz . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171Further Literature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172

7 War in the Twenty-First Century . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173Global Risks and War . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173War at Market Places . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176Collective Security Strategies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181

The United Nations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182The European Union . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183The North Atlantic Alliance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185

The German Bundeswehr . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189

Works on Clausewitz . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189Further Literature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190

8 Exemplary Implementation of Clausewitz’s Theory and StrategyConsulting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191Examples for the Application of Clausewitz’s Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194

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The Fascinating Trinity and the War in Afghanistan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195The First Actor: The Taliban . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196The Second Actor: Afghan Government . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198The Third Actor: Germany . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202

Appropriateness of Means in the 2003 Iraq War . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205

Relations Between Purpose, Objective and Means in the 2006Lebanon War . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206

Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208Frictions Concerning USS Vincennes in 1988 and ANACONDAin 2002 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209

Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210Clausewitz and Strategy Consulting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211

Methodology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212Strategy Consulting and War Plan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214Agenda . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215

Strategic Thinking and Action in the Twenty-First Century . . . . . . . . . . 216Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219

Works on Clausewitz . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219Further Literature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219

9 Epilogue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221

Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225Clausewitz’s Works . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225Works on Clausewitz . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226Further Literature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237

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List of Figures

Fig. 2.1 Vom Kriege—German Terms and their English Translations inOn War (Honig, 2007, 60) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Fig. 5.1 The fascinating trinity in three dimensions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81Fig. 5.2 The fascinating trinity as a tetrahedron . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83Fig. 5.3 The fascinating trinity as a tetrahedron . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84

Fig. 6.1 Structure of on war: strategy, engagement, and war plan . . . . . . . . . . . 117Fig. 6.2 Politics, war and peace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129Fig. 6.3 Purpose, objective, means and cooperation of government and

military forces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144Fig. 6.4 Relations between level of theory, purpose, means and warfare . . . 165Fig. 6.5 Strategy, war plan, campaign plan, battle plan and corresponding

responsibilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169

Fig. 8.1 Agenda for strategy consulting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216

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