Clausewitz: Master of War

The American Interest ^ | May 17, 2011 | Walter Russell Mead

[Quix]

THX THX

[Mr. Peabody]

Correct. Liddll Hart was a proponent of the indirect approach.

[pawdoggie]

Finding the “center of gravity” aint too easy when you’re dealing with homicidal/suicidal dingbats; unless you’re willing to get medieval on they ass.

[Tunehead54]

Which military genius recognized withering ambush’s efficacy from behind rocks and trees instead of set brigades marching across a field firing at each other? Just curious. Anyone? (Night!) ;-)

[DarthVader]

bookmark

[1010RD]

I agree. Clausewitz is stale.

[1010RD]

Excellent story and amazing that today we infantilize children to such a degree, no?

[RoadTest]

Good article.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!

[Texas Eagle]

Woe to the government, which, relying on half-hearted politics and a shackled military policy, meets a foe who, like the untamed elements, knows no law other than his own power!

Whew. Lucky we're not that country, huh?

[The_Reader_David]

Well, if you want to generalize, and read a notion backward into history, but it was Liddel-Hart whose vision of how to accomplish a Sherman-style operational plan by the use of massed armor was studied by the German General Staff and given the name Blitzkrieg when they implemented it.

[ctdonath2]

[SatinDoll]

“...we infantilize children to such a degree,..”

I agree.

[PapaBear3625]

Finding the “center of gravity” aint too easy when you’re dealing with homicidal/suicidal dingbats; unless you’re willing to get medieval on they ass.

The center of gravity of the jihadis is easy to find. We're just unwilling to touch it at the moment.

The center of gravity is their source of finance for Jihad. The money from Jihad comes from Saudi Arabia, the rest of the Arab oil states, plus Iran. Make that money source go away, and the rest will have to find paying jobs, and be too busy trying to keep themselves fed to think of Jihad.

[PzLdr]

Fuller was much more than an influence than Liddel- Hart. And there is the unfortunate problem of Liddel- Hart’s [according to Guderian’s family] ‘leaning’ on Guderian to magnify his influence on German theory [and Guderian] in the post-war era.

And noting that ‘blitzkrieg’ originated much before Liddel-Hart is not “read[ing] a notion back in history”. The history existed before the notion. And one wonders why the Soviet doctrine of deep penetration [Tuchachevsky et al], which was developed when the Germans and Soviets were working together before the ascent of Hitler, is not given any credit for influencing the Germans.

[arrogantsob]

She must have heard the story of Sun Szu and the concubines of the Emperor.

[arrogantsob]

There are some major differences relating to the backgrounds of the authors. Clausewitz seems to view war as a continuum of politics whereas Szu sees it as an exception to be avoided whenever possible.

In addition, what takes C a page to uncover S does in a couple of sentences. If a general had to read ONLY one there is no reason to read Clausewitz.

[rogator]

A guy named Arminius (Armin or Hermann) in Germania’s Teutoberg Forest used these tactics against three legions of Roman regulars led by a guy named Varus.
Julius Caesar wrote about this Roman defeat in De Bello Gallico a little more than 2000 years ago.

[rogator]

I take that back. Caesar did not write about this battle, since it happened about fifty years after he died. Tacitus, Suetoneus and others, however, did.
Amazing how rusty folks’ memory can get when they are almost fifty years out of college.

[SunkenCiv]

· GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother, and Ernest_at_the_Beach · · join list or digest · view topics · view or post blog · bookmark · post a topic · subscribe ·
	Antiquity Journal  & archive  Archaeologica  Archaeology  Archaeology Channel  BAR  Bronze Age Forum  Discover  Dogpile  Eurekalert  Google  LiveScience  Mirabilis.ca  Nat Geographic  PhysOrg  Science Daily  Science News  Texas AM  Yahoo  Excerpt, or Link only?	Thanks neverdem. Just adding to the catalog, not sending a general distribution. To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list.
· History topic · history keyword · archaeology keyword · paleontology keyword · · Science topic · science keyword · Books/Literature topic · pages keyword ·