Posted on 09/21/2006 8:23:21 PM PDT by neverdem
Interesting. Thanks for posting.
Some of my favortie Clausewitz quotes:
"War is the continuation of policy (politics) by other means."
“Given the same amount of intelligence, timidity will do a thousand times more damage than audacity”
"We must, therefore, be confident that the general measures we have adopted will produce the results we expect. Most important in this connection is the trust which we must have in our lieutenants. Consequently, it is important to choose men on whom we can rely and to put aside all other considerations. If we have made appropriate preparations, taking into account all possible misfortunes, so that we shall not be lost immediately if they occur, we must boldly advance into the shadows of uncertainty."
"There is only one decisive victory: the last."
"Blood is the price of victory"
Good post. Thank you.
The closing paragraph of Warfare in the Classical World, by John Warry (1998), might also be relevant and worthy of consideration:
If we choose to look back, the whole history of the Graeco-Roman world may be regarded as one long war against barbarism, in which the internecine conflicts of Greek city states, of Roman generals and imperial pretenders are merely frustrating and debilitating interludes. The Greeks and Romans sometimes saw war against barbarism as a war for liberty, yet liberty was necessarily sacrificed in order to wage it. It was, in fact, a war for literacy rather than for liberty, and were it not for the Romanized Christian clergy and the barbarian awe of religion in general, it would, in the West, have been completely lost. However, protraction of the struggle until such time as barbarism, like civilization, had been diluted, suggests a kind of victory -- at any rate, a draw.An unfortunate side note to this is that, unlike the Huns, the Islamofascist barbarians have no awe of religion in general.
Yes, my tagline contains puns.
Arguably? Pretty shocking considering it emanates out from our Congress...and lest we forget the Ditch Witch!
But by Borodino, he had exhausted his momentum, and stumbled into Moscow only because the Russians were convinced the city could not be defended. Once there, his troops descended into chaos, pillaging and sacking the town at will. Discipline broke down entirely, and then the Russian winter set in. In a panic, Napoleon ordered his men to retreat, and they did so, at first trying to transport the looted wealth of the city. But without adequate winter garments, and their supplies exhausted, they soon abandoned all their plunder, and eventually hope. They dropped like autumn leaves, and the Russian cavalry harrassed them every step of the way.
It is a classic example of military overextension, and certainly lends credence to von Clausewitz's theory.
With Oriana Fallaci gone (but not forgotten) we still have Michael Savage, also a warning voice in the night, that spotlights our adversaries and identifies them.
Thank God for watchdogs that bark.
The New Juristocracy. The Founders didn't intend for the judiciary to handle national security
Strained, Army Looks to Guard for More Relief
From time to time, I’ll ping on noteworthy articles about politics, foreign and military affairs. FReepmail me if you want on or off my list.
von CLAUSWITZ' premise in this piece seems reasonable, if not prudent. There is however, in my mind, at least one exception to it. It is that of most of the campaigns of General PATTON. For some reason that remains unknown to me, it seems that PATTON was invulnerable to this culminating point that CLAUSEWITZ references. I have spoken to soldiers who have served with PATTON in the European theater, and they to a man pledge even today that they would, if they could, serve with him once again. They exhibit an uncanny belief and trust in PATTON that is incredible. It seems PATTON merely defied the culminating point concept defined in this thread.
BTTT
Seems to me that if the free nations of the world would get series, it would not be much of a contest.
But for the moment, Europe has no heart for resistence, much of the US isn't paying attention, some of those of us who are (our media) actively encourage the terrorists, while a good bit of the Southern Hemisphere seems to be giving itself over to socialist dictatorships.
Still, defeating terror is eminently doable, if only the will for it could be aroused.
Patton had a country that was mobilized behind him. Almost one tenth of the U.S. population wore a uniform in WW II. If we activated all reserve components, our total Armed Forces, about 2.1 million is less than one percent of our current population, about 300 million.
Clausewitz in Wonderland
By Tony Corn
Tony Corn teaches European Studies at the U.S. Foreign Service Institute. The opinions expressed in this essay are the author's and do not necessarily reflect the point of view of the U.S. Department of State or the U.S. government.
http://www.policyreview.org/000/corn2.html
“Amateurs talk about strategy, professionals talk about logistics.” In the five years since the 9/11 events, the old military adage has undergone a “transformation” of its own: Amateurs, to be sure, continue to talk about strategy, but real professionals increasingly talk about — anthropology.
In Iraq as in Afghanistan, real professionals have learned the hard way that — to put it in a nutshell — the injunction “Know Thy Enemy, Know Thyself” matters more than the bookish “Know Thy Clausewitz” taught in war colleges. Know thy enemy: At the tactical and operational levels at least, it is anthropology, not Clausewitzology, that will shed light on the grammar and logic of tribal warfare and provide the conceptual weapons necessary to return fire. Know thyself: It is only through anthropological “distanciation” that the U.S. military (and its various “tribes”: Army, Navy, etc.) will become aware of its own cultural quirks — including a monomaniacal obsession with Clausewitz — and adapt its military culture to the new enemy.1
The first major flaw of U.S. military culture is of course “technologism” — this uniquely American contribution to the phenomenon known to anthropologists as “animism.” Infatuation with technology has led in the recent past to rhetorical self-intoxication about Network-Centric Warfare and the concomitant neglect of Culture-Centric Warfare. The second structural flaw is a Huntingtonian doctrine of civil-military relations ideally suited for the Cold War but which, given its outdated conception of “professionalism,” has outlived its usefulness and is today a major impediment to the necessary constant dialogue between the military and civilians.2
Last but not least, the third major flaw is “strategism.” At its “best,” strategism is synonymous with “strategy for strategy’s sake,” i.e., a self-referential discourse more interested in theory-building (or is it hair-splitting?) than policy-making. Strategism would be innocuous enough were it not for the fact that, in the media and academia, “realism” today is fast becoming synonymous with “absence of memory, will, and imagination”: in that context, the self-referentiality of the strategic discourse does not exactly improve the quality of the public debate. At its worst, strategism confuses education with indoctrination, and scholarship with scholasticism; in its most extreme form, it comes close to being an “intellectual terrorism” in the name of Clausewitz.
(snip)
The Muslim world continues to come to terms with modernity. Every adaptation of an element of the modern world puts another barrier between the everyday Muslim and the Jihadis. This process involves not only democracy and freedom of thought, but also the technical and social constituents that, whatever resistance may exist, carry the higher and more abstract concepts along with them. Every time a Muslim uses a computer, puts on a suit, or drives a Western car, another nail is driven into Osama bin Laden's dream reality. It's a slow process, but it's a definitive one - and there is no turning back. Yes, Jihadis may also use these tools in the short run, but in the long run the freedom they bring erodes the codes they seek to impose.
So yes - in the long run, time is on our side. We can make that run shorter through a full understanding of the nature of the conflict we're involved in, and careful efforts to assure that it develops to our advantage.
BINGO! We have a winner.
ping
bttt
Thanks for the ping!
Thanks for the ping!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.