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Clausewitz in the age of

technology
a
Michael I. Handel
a
Professor of National Security Affairs , US
Army War College , Carlisle, Pennsylvania
Published online: 24 Jan 2008.

To cite this article: Michael I. Handel (1986) Clausewitz in the

age of technology, Journal of Strategic Studies, 9:2-3, 51-92, DOI:
10.1080/01402398608437259

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 Clausewitz in the Age
of Technology
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MICHAEL I. HANDEL
As water has no constant form
there are in war no constant conditions.
- Sun Tzu, The Art of War (c. 500 BC)

I. CLAUSEWITZ AND THE STUDY OF WAR

Any early nineteenth-century textbook or theoretical work in chemistry,

physics, or geology would be of little more than anecdotal value for the
same profession's contemporary practitioners. It would certainly not be
looked to as a source of important relevant insights, nor would it have
value for the instruction of modern students, let alone be expected to
represent the state of the art in an important profession. In many fields, in
fact, the pace of change is so rapid that a major theoretical work can
become obsolete within a generation or a decade, and textbooks must be
updated or replaced every few years. Yet in the study of w a r - a subject of
the utmost importance for the survival of modern civilization, and an area
in which even one mistake can be disastrous for a whole society or
generation — no theoretical work has yet surpassed Carl von Clausewitz'
unfinished study, On War (1832), in its richness of wisdom and heuristic
value.
This situation stems from the extremely complex nature of modern
warfare with its seemingly infinite number of variables, ranging from the
quantifiable to the intuitive, from the moral to the material. Since modern
warfare therefore is not readily subject to scientific analysis, complete
mastery of this subject is extremely difficult for a single scholar. Who can
study, in depth, even a fraction of the topics considered relevant today for
the understanding of modern war? Under the rubric of modern warfare,
one can study psychology; anthropology; politics; political, military
and economic history; the extremely wide variety of modern military
technologies; measures and countermeasures of all sorts; intelligence;
 52 CLAUSEWITZ AND MODERN STRATEGY

arms control; civil—military relations; military—industrial potential; the

origins and terminations of wars; bureaucratic behavior; management;
leadership; and decisionmaking processes — to mention only a few.
Modern studies of war are often either specialized monographs (focus-
ing on a particular, narrowly-defined subject area or historical period)
and abstract 'transhistorical' studies of less than general scope, ' or very
broad encyclopedic surveys, such as Quincy Wright's Study of War,1
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which include every detail but often explain very little.

Clausewitz was fortunate to live during the last era in which it was
still feasible for one person to create a comprehensive and simplified
framework for the study of war; that is, to incorporate almost all the
relevant knowledge existing in his time without being superficial. Con-
sequently, he could reasonably limit his analysis of politics, strategy,
and the essence of war to the actual conduct of war. For the most part, he
ignored the origins of war, its moral and economic aspects, domestic or
internal politics, and many other subjects now indispensable to a com-
prehensive theory: war has become too complicated to be studied in the
methodological isolation of an amoral, apolitical, 'non-economic', non-
technological 'black box'.
It is, then, not surprising to find that all recent attempts to capture the
'essence' of the conduct of war in a comprehensive and succinct form
have not been entirely satisfactory. They have oscillated between con-
trived simple generalized formulas on the one hand and encyclopedic
surveys on the other. Clausewitz avoided both extremes. He succeeded in
being abstract without going theoretically overboard; in developing
powerful concepts while avoiding the temptation to develop 'laws',
'rules', and 'practical' recommendations for action;3 in providing apt
examples to demonstrate his points while avoiding the quagmire of
excessive trivial detail, including too many case studies. In his work there
is not a single cliché to be found on a subject about which others cannot
write without clichés.
One hundred and fifty years after his death, Clausewitz' contribution
to the study and understanding of war remains unsurpassed. Still relevant
today are his ideas on the primacy of political control in war; on the
roles of friction, uncertainty, and chance; on danger and boldness; on
historical examples ; on war as an art; on the need to avoid dogmatic and
positive theories, given the existence of several correct solutions to any
military problem; and on the nature of war in general. Concepts such as
tension and rest, the culminating point of victory, his critical discussion of
maneuver, and the psychology of the defense and offense are perhaps even
more relevant today than when they were written. Like that of other great
men who were ahead of their time, Clausewitz' genius was not recognized
by his contemporaries, although he had indeed, as he suggested in his note
 CLAUSEWITZ IN THE AGE OF TECHNOLOGY 53

of 10 July 1827, '[brought] about a revolution in the theory of war'

(p. 70)/
Despite the wealth of original ideas and concepts that make the most
important aspects of Clausewitz' theory applicable today, many other
facets of his theory have grown obsolete or remain valid only by virtue
of modification and revision. Other dimensions that are important today,
but which remained nascent during his lifetime, are simply not addressed
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in his writings.
Clausewitz' theories and observations on war that require modification
can be classified in four major categories:
First, the differences in modern warfare resulting from technological
innovations he could not have foreseen and therefore could not take into
account;
Second, problems that existed in a relatively simple form in the nine-
teenth century but which are manifested today in a much more compli-
cated form as a result of technological changes : for example, problems in
strategic policy-making and in civil-military relations, and in improving
the reliability of military intelligence (in which he had little confidence) ;
Third, topics such as the causes of war, moral/ethical questions related
to war, and war's economic dimension. Clausewitz did not focus on these
areas because he was concerned exclusively with the conduct of war itself.
These topics are, however, of great interest to today's student of warfare,
and are essential to any modern theory of war.
The fourth category consists of theories or observations that were
wrong or inaccurate even for his own time. But my purpose is not to
look for flaws in Clausewitz; rather, I will focus on those modifications
required by the passage of time, primarily as a function of material
changes, in order to give Clausewitz his proper place in the Age of
Technology.

II. THE IMPACT OF THE INDUSTRIAL-TECHNOLOGICAL REVOLUTION

ON WAR
With the benefit of hindsight it is apparent that Clausewitz lived and
created during one of the most decisive transitional periods in the evolu-
tion of warfare — at the crossroads of two of the greatest revolutions in
history, the French and Industrial Revolutions. The first revolution radi-
cally changed the nature of war from its formerly rather limited and
moderate scope—in terms of both means and aims—into a matter of total
mobilization and immoderate goals. After the powers of nationalism and
revolutionary ideology were unleashed, war became, for the first time,
not only the business of kings and the military, but also that of every
citizen in the state. Democracy and nationalism released a large amount
of heretofore latent energy for the pursuit of war. Although Clausewitz
 54 CLAUSEWITZ AND MODERN STRATEGY

clearly identified this new trend in warfare, he was not completely sure
that the change it had wrought was irreversible:
Very few of the new manifestations in war can be ascribed to new
inventions or new departures in ideas. They result mainly from the
transformation of society and new social conditions. But these, too,
while they are in the crisis of fermentation, should not be accepted as
permanent. There can therefore be little doubt that many previous
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ways of fighting will reappear, (p. 515)

Ironically, at approximately the same time as Clausewitz' death, a new
revolution which he could not have identified was in its formative stage:
in combination with the trends established by the French Revolution, the
Industrial and Technological Revolution changed the world in numerous
irreversible ways. Since Clausewitz' time the military/technological
environment has undergone at least two major revolutions, one in the
conventional realm, the other in the nuclear realm, which have caused a
paradigmatic shift in the nature of war. Numerous smaller military-
technological and organizational revolutions have occurred as well (for
example, the revolution in mobility, the revolution in firepower, the
creation of war in the air as a third dimension of warfare, the revolution in
communication from the invention of the radio and telegraph to that of
'smart weapons', computers and satellites).
Whereas in Napoleon's era, geography, time, and space were major
environmental constraints on strategy, technology has to a large extent
modified the imperatives of environment. The radio made distance
irrelevant for the transmission of information; the submarine destroyed
the British sense of geographic isolation; and ICBMs have threatened the
security of 'Fortress America'. Technology has liberated the military
strategist from some concerns of the past, while posing new problems in
other areas.
The 'element of uncertainty' which — according to Clausewitz — domi-
nates warfare has now been compounded by the introduction of a new
dynamic variable. Many factors, including: the performance of new and
untested weapons systems on the battlefield; these systems' interaction;
their impact on military doctrines, tactics, strategy, as well as on the
development of measures and countermeasures and on the military (and
political) decision-making process — all have caused a quantum jump in
the complexity of warfare. 5
In war and its preparation, every technological change touches off
a chain reaction that is not only technological, but also social, political,
bureaucratic, managerial, and psychological. Such changes can be clear
or subtle, short term or long term, critical or marginal — but they will
occur with each technological innovation. When hundreds or thousands
 CLAUSEWITZ IN THE AGE OF TECHNOLOGY 55

of changes occur simultaneously there is a corresponding increase in the

uncertainty involved in predicting the shape of modern warfare and of the
battlefield of the future.
Within less than a year following Clausewitz' death (16 November
1831), a major new element in warfare was introduced to Europe in the
form of the first railways ('... the accelerator of nineteenth century
warfare').' No sooner had the ink dried on the first edition of his magnum
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opus, On War, than the appearance of this new element of military

technology began to render some dimensions of his theory obsolete.7
As early as 1833, a German by the name of Friedrich Wilhelm Harkort
made 'the first definite proposals for the use of railways for strategical
purposes'.8 The first actual use of railways for a military operation
occurred in 1846 when the Sixth Prussian Corps of 12,000 men with their
horses, weapons, and ammunition, was dispatched by rail to subdue the
independent Republic of Cracow.' By the time of the French campaign in
Italy, the American Civil War, and the wars of German unification,
railways constituted a major element of military mobility and were of
decisive importance in warfare.
Clausewitz could still justifiably argue that 'today, armies are so much
alike in weapons, training, and equipment that there is little difference in
such matters between the best and worst of them' (p. 282) [my emphasis].
But the wars of the 1860s irrefutably demonstrated that a new force
multiplier — to resort to modern jargon — had been introduced. Techno-
logical innovation could now, when all other things were equal, make a
decisive difference, a fact that could hardly have been recognized in
Clausewitz' time. For instance, the battle of Koniggratz proved the
superiority of the Prussian Dreyse rifle over the Austrian rifle, when 'the
rate of fire of the Dreyse rifles inflicted appalling losses on the advancing
Austrians: they suffered 45,000 casualties to the Prussians' 9,000'.'°
The advent of the new technological age was unmistakable when
European military observers during the American Civil War focused their
interest not on the study of military doctrines or new tactics, but on the
performance of new weapons.11 This new emphasis on the study of
weaponry would have made little sense to Clausewitz only fifty years
earlier.
By the latter half of the nineteenth century, military technology was an
autonomous force capable of influencing the shape of war in a decisive
way. Man had created a Frankensteinian monster that could no longer be
controlled. That battlefield decision, which Clausewitz made central to
his theory, had rapidly shifted from the battlefield to the rear; from war
to pre-war preparations in peacetime; from the soldier to the worker,
inventor, and scientist. In the aftermath of the Industrial Revolution, the
outcome of war was to be determined as much by the existence of an
 56 CLAUSEWITZ AND MODERN STRATEGY

industrial base and war potential as by performance on the battlefield. As

William James wrote : ' . . . the intensely sharp competitive preparation for
war by the nation is the real war, permanently increasing, so that the
battles are only a sort of public verification of mastery gained during the
"peace" intervals'. 12
Correspondingly, for military leaders in the technological age, the
destruction of the enemy's army — so central to Clausewitz' theory —
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became only as important as, or less important than, the destruction or

occupation of the industrial centers necessary for the maintenance of
enemy forces in the field.13 In the American Civil War, the industrial
superiority of the North, despite the equal or superior generalship of the
Confederacy, was critical. Such a development would certainly have
been strange to Clausewitz (unless of course industrial might could simply
be translated to mean much larger armies, a quantitative advantage which
his theory clearly recognized).
Although the foregoing changes took place rapidly after the 1860s, they
were also difficult to perceive. The signals were still mixed. Prussia's
rapid and clear victory over France in 1870 may have diverted attention
from the growing importance of economic and industrial factors for
performance on the battlefield. Even as late as the First and Second World
Wars, the various general staffs and political leaders hoped to outflank
material and economic imperatives by achieving quick and decisive
results against the enemy's armed forces, as Clausewitz recommended. By
devising brilliant new strategies, they hoped to escape the longer-term
consequences of economic contraints.
Thus, although Clausewitz recommended a war of annihilation when-
ever possible, a strategy emphasizing the ultimate decisive clash between
opponents, modern warfare is not only a clash between two armies, but
also between the opponents' industries, economic resources, and entire
populations. This situation has rendered the search for the decisive battle
of annihilation futile - at least in the non-nuclear realm. In this respect
Hans Delbrück's distinction between a strategy of annihilation {Nieder-
werfungsstrategie) and a strategy of attrition or exhaustion {Ermattungs-
strategie) is an important theoretical addition to Clausewitz.
Modern conventional wars, when not decided in a single blow, tend to
deteriorate into wars of attrition. 14 The German military which selectively
extracted those passages in Clausewitz' work that emphasized the need
for quick and decisive victories, thus misunderstood in two world wars
the environment in which total modern warfare is conducted. 15
As the two world wars demonstrated, the nature of war has altered
irreversibly. While becoming more capital-intensive, war has changed
materially at an ever-accelerating pace. Thus, while the modern student of
warfare can certainly learn much from wars of the distant past, he will be
 CLAUSEWITZ IN THE AGE OF TECHNOLOGY 57
better off concentrating on the immediate past and more so on the
present. Clausewitz could still recommend, however, with much practical
as well as theoretical benefit, that his readers study the eighteenth-century
wars of Frederick the Great. Certainly, from the material and 'techno-
logical' points of view, these earlier wars resembled the wars of his own
time. Until then, military-material and technological change had been
slow and gradual. Continuity rather than change had been the norm.
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Because he expected all future wars to resemble these past wars, Clause-
witz indeed had a good reason for drawing on the past to formulate his
theories. He did recognize political, ideological, and social changes in his
eras, but he viewed them as reversible.
Although Clausewitz could not and did not predict these imminent
changes in the nature of war, his theory could accommodate change.
After all, he did say that 'war is more than a true chameleon that slightly
adapts its characteristics to the given case' (p. 89). The essence of war is
change and adaptation to change.
Raymond Aron is unfair when he suggests that Clausewitz 'paints a
fixed picture of the world'.16 It was, in fact, Clausewitz' recognition of
radical changes in the nature of warfare caused by the French Revolution
which prompted him to develop a new theory of war:
Clearly the tremendous effects of the French Revolution abroad
were caused not so much by new military methods and concepts as
by radical changes in policies and administration, by the new
character of government, altered conditions of the French people,
and the like .... It is true that war itself has undergone significant
changes in character and methods, changes that have brought it
closer to its absolute form.... They were caused by the new political
conditions which the French Revolution created both in France and
in Europe as a whole, conditions that set in motion new means and
new forces, and have thus made possible a degree of energy in war
that otherwise would have been inconceivable.
It follows that the transformation of the art of war resulted from
the transformation of politics, (pp. 609-10)
Clausewitz' theory emphasized the tendency oí war to drive to extremes,
to pursue immoderate unlimited goals. In fact, he developed an almost
Marxist analysis in his sophisticated periodization of the history of war-
fare. He points out that warfare is conducted differently according to the
nature of states and societies as they are determined by their times
and prevailing conditions The semibarbarous Tartars, the
republics of antiquity, the feudal lords and trading cities of the
Middle Ages, the eighteenth century kings and the rulers and
 58 CLAUSEWITZ AND MODERN STRATEGY

peoples of the nineteenth century — all conducted war in their own

particular way, using different methods and pursuing different aims.
(p.586)
Clausewitz' world was therefore far from fixed and unalterable. As we
have seen above, change for him even worked in reverse. His very
emphasis on uncertainty and dialectical method also implies change. But
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the sort of change he recognized was primarily political and social - not
material. He also assumed a static world when he ignored the possibility
of material and military technological changes which he could not have
foreseen in detail but might have anticipated in a general way. His picture
of warfare is as accurate as it could have been for his own time. In
addition, those aspeas of his theory which deal with human nature, with
uncertainty and friction, with the primacy of politics, and with the need to
conduct war in a calculated rational fashion, will remain eternally valid.
In all other respects technology has permeated and irreversibly changed
every aspect of warfare.
Technology has altered the nature of international politics by intro-
ducing destabilizing weapons systems and intense qualitative arms races;
it has continuously affected the relationship between the defense and
offense; it has transformed strategic surprise from a course of action
'highly attractive in theory' to an ever-present possibility. These develop-
ments in turn led to a rise in the importance of intelligence organizations
and have increased the likelihood of preemptive attacks. They multiplied
the number and types of special military branches and supportive
organizations, thus triggering the unprecedented growth of military
bureaucracies and the bureaucratization of military life, with all the
attendant consequences. Technological developments also created the
circumstances in which the 'military genius' may need to be replaced by a
'managerial genius'. Since greater professional knowledge and skills are
required to comprehend military affairs, technology has undermined
the capacity of political leaders to understand and control the military
and the course of warfare. Technology created new opportunities for
command and control and centralizing the conduct of war; it expanded
warfare from the battlefield to the civilian rear; it blurred the differences
between combatant and non-combatant - and it otherwise changed the
shape and nature of modern war. All of these changes will be discussed in
sections IV to XII below.

III. SQUARING THE TRIANGLE

In trying to construct the simplest possible analytical framework for the
study of war, Clausewitz reduced the infinite number of variables and
 CLAUSEWITZ IN THE AGE OF TECHNOLOGY 59

their complex interactions to the lowest common denominator. Thus he

developed his famous triad — as he called it, his 'paradoxical trinity'. The
three basic groups of variables were the people (or primordial violence,
hate, and enmity - the blind natural forces) ; the military (the commander
and his army who must manage the elements of chance and uncertainty
and make the creative decisions and choices before and during a battle);
and the government (which must introduce the rational calculus of war in
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order to protect the interests of the state, provide the goals for war,
maximize and preserve the strength of the state relative to other states,
and devise the overall strategic direction, including the matching of
resources and expenditures to anticipated gains). Clausewitz sought 'to
develop a theory that maintains a balance between these three tendencies,
like an object suspended between three magnets' (p. 89). We have seen
that, although complete for his time, Clausewitz' triad does not account
for modern military technology, one of the most principal elements of
contemporary warfare.
In fact all three elements of his trinity are non-material in nature.
In view of the central importance of military technology to all aspects of
contemporary warfare, we can assume that if Clausewitz were alive
today, he might well propose a four-variable analytical framework with
the material realm as the fourth dimension (see Figure 1).
Trying to reduce his argument to its essence, Clausewitz chose not to
emphasize material considerations in the explanation of war. 'It is clear
that weapons and equipment are not essential for the concept of fighting,
since even wrestling is fighting of a kind' (p. 127). If he were solely
interested in explaining the logic of conflict he may have been right, but in
reality the philosophical and psychological explanation of war is not
enough. Without going so far as to adopt a Marxist interpretation of

FIGURE 1
CLAUSEWITZ' DESCRIPTION OF WAR MODIFIED
CLAUSEWITZ DESCRIPTION OF WAR MODIFIED

THE COMMANDER. THE PARADIGM SHIFT TECHNOLOGY

THE MILITARY: IN CLAUSEWITTS AND
THE REALM OF DEHNtnON OF ECONOMY:
' PROBABILITY WAR
THE MATERIAL
AND CHANCE. REALM. THE NEW
.COURAGE ANO QUALITATIVE
TALENT DIMENSION
THE GOVERNMENT"]

POLITICAL AIMS, THE

RATIONAL DIRECTION
OF WAR
 60 CLAUSEWITZ AND MODERN STRATEGY

history or politics, we still must realize that the philosophical, political,

psychological, social — not to mention the military — aspects of warfare
are influenced by material circumstances and developments.
Thus, while the bare essence of war may be explained without resort to
the material/technological environment in which wars are fought, any
detailed discussion must take that environment into account. Clausewitz
himself does, following Book I of On War, discuss many issues that
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cannot be properly understood outside the material context (for example,

intelligence, strategic surprise, mobility, military organization, civil-
military relations, and the relationship between the offense and defense).
Living in an era of slow material progress, Clausewitz naturally viewed
the material military environment as relatively static.
It could be argued that had he written On War fifty years before,
following the wars of Frederick the Great and before the French Revo-
lution, the rise of nationalism and democracy, and the levée en masse, he
would not have developed his ideas on absolute war. He might not have
discussed the differences between absolute war and limited war, for it was
the French Revolution which revealed the possibility of a war in reality
which approximated the absolute war in theory (p.593).
Similarly, it can be argued that if Clausewitz had written On War fifty
or a hundred years later, he could not have ignored the forces released by
the industrial/technological revolution. He would probably have adapted
his theory to the radically changed material environment, probably dedi-
cating special sections to the economic, technological, and material
environment of war. 18
Theory is meaningful, as Clausewitz has recognized, only in contrast to
reality, and is no more important than reality. Clausewitz' most original
concepts, such as friction and uncertainty, intervene between theory and
reality. On War is not merely a philosophical treatise, but a book of
practical heuristic value.
To simplistically project contemporary interpretations of certain con-
cepts on the past is anachronistic. For example, we have a different
understanding of the concept and role of intelligence in war from that of
Clausewitz and his contemporaries (see section V below). We also have a
different understanding of technology. Although in its basic purpose
technology may have remained the same since the beginning of warfare, it
has changed in many of its aspects. From a psychological point of view,
technology has become the modern military's panacea, used to solve
problems previously solved by non-material means. Modern technology
has acquired a momentum, an importance of its own, which explains the
changing nature of modern warfare.
Therefore, if Clausewitz' trinity is indeed both unchanged and change-
less, technology must be the additional factor required for our under-
 CLAUSEWITZ IN THE AGE OF TECHNOLOGY 61

standing of contemporary and future warfare. Without it, we will fail to

see the new problems and opportunities that it may present. After all,
Clausewitz himself, by developing in Book VIII a historical periodization
of warfare, does distinguish between.the various environments in which
war takes place. Thus, although the essence of war is unchanging, in many
ways change is the essence of war.
In the final analysis, the decisive Clausewitzian factor in winning wars
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and battles was quantitative. True, the 'military genius', the leader who
was better able to find a solution to the need 'always to be very strong;
first in general and then at the decisive point' (p. 204), appears to be a
qualitative element. But the qualitative superiority of a commander was
aimed at acquiring a quantitative edge on the battlefield. In spite of the
attention Clausewitz pays to moral and other qualitative factors directly
altering the outcome on the battlefield, he basically believed that battles
were won by larger armies. Technology has, however, introduced a new
qualitative dimension — which is not based on the 'quantity idea', as
J. F. C. Fuller called it — but instead concerns an element which could
compensate for a disadvantage in numbers, serving as a 'force multi-
plier'.1' When Clausewitz devised his theory he could still compare the
different European armies of his time and assume that 'all other things
could be held equal' and that the 'biggest battalions' led by the military
genius would win. In today's world of high technology all things are not
equal, and unexpected technological military innovations, technological
surprises and breakthroughs may (among other elements) make the size
of armies less critical for victory. A smaller but technologically more
advanced army has frequently won against a larger army.
Having extended Clausewitz' trinity by adding technology and other
economic and material considerations, we must recognize the importance
of this fourth element as simply equal to that of the other three elements
for the theoretical understanding of war. For under varying circum-
stances, one or more elements may gain in importance relative to others :
for example, in guerrilla warfare the people will play a more critical role
than will technology; while in modern conventional warfare weapons
may be relatively more important than people. Clausewitz of course
recognized this variability:
These three tendencies are like three different codes of law, deep-
rooted in their subject and yet variable in their relationship to one
another. A theory that ignores any one of them or seeks to fix an
arbitrary relationship between them would conflict with reality to
such an extent that for this reason alone it would be totally useless,
(p. 80, my emphasis)
Yet Clausewitz' caveat concerning the need to maintain a balance among
 62 CLAUSEWITZ AND MODERN STRATEGY

all three (or in our case four) groups of variables has not always been
heeded. Theorists or creators of military doctrines tend to overemphasize
those elements which seem to support their particular biased perspective
(for example, overemphasizing the people factor in guerrilla warfare can
lead to what Mao has called 'guerrillism' and thus to serious defeats). The
temptation is to exaggerate the importance of modern technology in
technologically- and materially-oriented societies. Technology may be
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viewed as a panacea, as it was by the US in Vietnam. The very idea of a

trinity or a 'square' is in the search for an equilibrium or a balance
between all groups of variables. They exist only in relation to each other—
not independently.
Exaggerating the importance of technology is as dangerous as ignoring
it. For example, J. F. C. Fuller, author of one of the first and still one of the
most interesting books on the role of technology in modern warfare, went
too far when he stated that 'tools, or weapons, if only the right ones can be
discovered, form 99 percent of victory — Strategy, command, leader-
ship, courage, discipline, supply, organization and all the moral and
physical paraphernalia of war are nothing to a high superiority of
weapons—at most they go to form the one percent which makes the whole
possible'. 20 According to this logic the United States should never have
lost the war in Vietnam, nor would any type of guerrilla warfare ever
succeed. Fuller ought to have read Clausewitz more carefully.21 To be put
in its proper context, military technology must be studied in juxtaposition
to the other three elements of Clausewitz' theory. Having examined the
logic of adding another dimension to Clausewitz' triad, we should con-
sider the impact of military technology and other material factors on
some of Clausewitz' basic theoretical assumptions.

IV. MOBILITY AND STRATEGIC SURPRISE

Perhaps the greatest revolutionary change in warfare was the tremendous
increase in mobility with, first, the introduction of the railway and, later
the combustion engine and aviation. Increased mobility compressed time
and space, quickened the movement of supplies, altered the relationship
between offense and defense on the strategic level, and created a need for
much better intelligence and faster mobilization. It did all this by increas-
ing the possibility for strategic surprise. Thus, increased mobility intro-
duced a major destabilizing element into the international system.
Although Clausewitz believed that surprise was a very important ele-
ment of warfare, he was also convinced that its use was largely confined to
the tactical level seldom feasible. For him, therefore, strategic surprise
was of greater theoretical interest than practical value:
While the wish to achieve surprise is common and, indeed, indis-
 CLAUSEWITZ IN THE AGE OF TECHNOLOGY 63

pensable, and while it is true that it will never be completely ineffec-

tive, it is equally true that by its very nature surprise can rarely be
outstandingly successful. It would be a mistake, therefore, to regard
surprise as a key element of success in war. The principle is highly
attractive in theory, but in practice it is often held up by the friction
of the whole machine Basically, surprise is a tactical device,
simply because in tactics, time and space are limited in scale. There-
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fore in strategy surprise becomes more feasible the closer it occurs to

the tactical realm, and more difficult, the more it approaches the
higher levels of policy Preparations for war usually take months.
Concentrating troops at their main assembly points generally
requires the installation of supply dumps and depots, as well as
considerable troop movements, whose purpose can be assessed soon
enough.
It is very rare therefore that one state surprises another, either by
an attack or by preparation for war. (pp. 198-9)
Indeed, Clausewitz was certain that strategic surprise lacked the power
to overcome the inherent advantages of the defense.
The immediate object of an attack is victory. Only by means of his
superior strength can the attacker make up for all the advantages
that accrue to the defender by virtue of his position, and possibly by
the modest advantage that this army derives from the knowledge
that it is on the attacking, the advancing side. Usually this latter is
much overrated : it is short-lived and will not stand the test of serious
trouble. Naturally we assume that the defender will act as sensibly
and correctly as the attacker. We say this in order to exclude certain
vague notions about sudden assaults and surprise attacks, which are
commonly thought of as bountiful sources of victory. They will only
be under exceptional circumstances. (p.545) a
Initially, the development of railway networks, particularly in
Germany, seemed to enhance the strategic capabilities of the defense.
Gradually, however, it became evident that a secret or even open con-
centration of large numbers of troops could, under the guise of conduct-
ing maneuvers, employ railway networks and, later on, combustion
engine mobility and air power, to launch a strategic surprise of decisive
impact. Under certain circumstances the aggressor could overwhelm
the defender who would be unable to mobilize his troops in time. As
mobility increased, the warning time available for counter-mobilization
decreased: from months or weeks in the early nineteenth century, to
weeks and days in the railway and combustion engine days, to days and
hours in the age of air power, and finally to hours and minutes in the
nuclear age (see Figure 2).
 64 CLAUSEWITZ AND MODERN STRATEGY

Modern states and alliance systems had therefore to develop intricate

hair-trigger mobilization systems. By 1914 those systems became so
complex and difficult to control that mobilization also meant war.23
Technological change has thus made a major contribution (not for the
last time) to the destabilization of the international system. The possi-
bility of a strategic surprise has become one of the most worrisome
problems facing heads of state and general staffs.24
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Clausewitz could not have anticipated the development of this recipro-

cal fear of strategic surprise into a crucial if not dominant factor in inter-
national politics. Now the side which possesses a unilateral advantage is
tempted to achieve a quick and decisive victory, while the side with
inferior technology could launch a preemptive strike in order to acquire a
decisive advantage over its better-armed adversary.25 For example, when
the Japanese attacked the Russians in 1904, they disrupted the construc-
tion of the Trans-Siberian railway — the completion of which would have
been catastrophic for the Japanese.26
Whereas in the past surprise was confined to the tactical and grand
tactical levels, and was thus a relatively simple phenomenon, the advent
of strategic surprise introduces many complexities: The choice of one's
time, place, mode and speed of movement, as well as of the particular
weapon or weapons system to be deployed, must be made quickly
and simultaneously on several levels. New weapons produce fresh oppor-
tunities, new doctrines, as well as new problems for the strategist and
military planner.
FIGURE 2
STRATEGIC SURPRISE IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
- THE DECLINE OF WARNING TIME
VERY I
HIGH NUCLEAR WEAPONS* c CONVENTIONAL
=3
CO ICBM'S. SLBM'S j WAR IN THE
NUCLEAR AGE
CJ
cs
LLJ
ACCELERATED
TECHNOLOGICAL
fe 'DEVELOPMENTS.
HIGHLY
i HIGH SECRETIVE.
COMBUSTION ENGINE BEGINNING OF FAST
TANKS. AIR POWER TECHNOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENTS
AND SECRETIVE TECHNOLOGY
vor INDUSTRIAL AGE SLOW TECHNOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT,
C/3
LU OPEN TECHNOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENTS
A
LOW
MONTHS - WEEKS ' WEEKS - DAYS ' DAYS - HOURS
THE PERIOD AND REDUCTION OF WARNING TIME
 CLAUSEWITZ IN THE AGE OF TECHNOLOGY 65

The fact that strategic surprise has now become an integral part of
warfare contributes in yet another way to the need to modify Clausewitz'
theory. Clausewitz emphasized the superiority of the defense over the
offense on both the strategic and tactical levels. He viewed the inherent
advantages of the defense as a permanent feature of warfare. One of the
few offensive advantages that Clausewitz recognized was on the strategic
level: the holding of the initiative, that is, the attacker's ability to exploit
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the element of surprise in the initial phase of the attack to his advantage :z?
As regards surprise and initiative, it must be noted that they are
infinitely more important and effective in strategy than in tactics.
Tactical initiative can rarely be expanded into a major victory, but a
strategic one has often brought the whole war to an end at a stroke.
He qualifies this observation by adding that, 'On the other hand, the use
of this device [that is, surprise] assumes major, obvious and exceptional
mistakes on the enemy's part. Consequently it will not do much to tip the
scales in favor of attack' (pp.363—4, his emphasis).28 He also remarks
that:
... an aggressor often decides on war before the innocent defender
does, and if he contrives to keep his preparations sufficiently secret,
he may well take his victim unawares. Yet such surprise has nothing
to do with war itself [that is, it is a political decision preceding war],
and should not be possible, (p. 370, my emphasis)
As we have seen, revolutionary changes in mobility made possible
surprise on the strategic level and therefore also contributed to a change in
the relationship between the strategic defense and offense. The offense
gained a unilateral advantage, which has expanded with the concomitant
growth in mobility, range, speed, and firepower of modern weaponry.
This is especially true in the opening phase of any modern war. The
attacker can decide the time, place, and methodof the attack, concentrate
superior forces at the point chosen for the attack, and at least temporarily
paralyze and overwhelm the defender. Strategic surprise in the opening
phases of war is therefore the most powerful force multiplier in con-
ventional war.
Clausewitz could not have foreseen the unmistakable evidence of
modern military history, which affirms that regardless of the defender's
excellent intelligence capabilities, it is almost impossible for him to pre-
vent a strategic surprise (that is, to receive a timely warning).29 If the
attacker can learn to exploit fully the initial impact achieved by strategic
surprise and to calculate carefully the culminating point of the attack, he
can then move over to enjoy the benefits of the defense; thus the attack
becomes, on the strategic level, the more powerful form of warfare. (For
 66 CLAUSEWITZ AND MODERN STRATEGY

more regarding the impact of technological change on the relation

between the defense and attack, see section VI below.)

V. INTELLIGENCE: FROM FRICTION TO PANACEA

The transformation of strategic surprise from a theoretical possibility
to a practical reality necessitated the establishment of better military
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intelligence organizations. Since military intelligence is a key factor in the

discovery of the adversary's mobilization plans and procedures, actual
preparations for war, and troop concentrations, its increasing importance
— as evidenced by the fact that European general staffs in the last quarter
of the nineteenth century began to establish special sections for the
collection and analysis of intelligence—was closely linked to the emergence
of modern military technology. Thus, the development of military intelli-
gence was related not only to the need to warn against strategic surprise,
but also to the need to gather information about the development and
production of new weapons systems, their effectiveness and performance,
their integration into the military doctrine and so on. The independence
of intelligence as a military activity was one aspect of the growing pro-
fessional specialization and differentiation of military organizations
created in response to the technological revolution.
Like surprise, intelligence interested Clausewitz primarily on the tacti-
cal and grand tactical levels as a command and control problem. He wrote
little that was relevant to intelligence on the strategic level. Nevertheless,
although his observations on intelligence must be understood in the
tactical context, they can also be seen as part of his general discussion of
the problems of warfare, primarily in the context of the key concepts of
friction and uncertainty.
Clausewitz had little appreciation of the potential contribution of
intelligence for the commander in charge of the conduct of war and to his
decisions on the battlefield. Instead of viewing intelligence as we do today
— as an element that could potentially reduce the degree of uncertainty,
chance, and friction in war — Clausewitz actually saw intelligence as a
source of friction, and a possible cause of failure:
By 'intelligence' we mean every sort of information about the
enemy and his country — the basis, in short, of our own plans and
operations. If we consider the actual basis of this information, how
unreliable and transient it is, we soon realize that war is a flimsy
structure that can easily collapse and bury us in its ruins. The
textbooks agree, of course, that we should only believe reliable
intelligence, and should never cease to be suspicious, but what is the
use of such feeble maxims? They belong to that wisdom which for
 CLAUSEWITZ IN THE AGE OF TECHNOLOGY 67

want of anything better scribblers of systems and compendia resort

to when they run out of ideas.
Many intelligence reports in war are contradictory; even more are
false, and most are uncertain One report tallies with another,
confirms it, magnifies it, lends it color, till [the officer] has to make a
quick decision - which is soon recognized to be mistaken, just as the
reports turn out to be lies, exaggerations, errors, and so on. In short,
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most intelligence is false, and the effect of fear is to multiply lies and
inaccuracies (p. 117).... The general unreliability of all information
presents a special problem in war: all action takes place, so to speak,
in a kind of twilight, which like fog or moonlight, often tends to
make things seem grotesque and larger than they really are.
Whatever is hidden from full view in this feeble light has to be
guessed at by talent, or simply left to chance. So once again for lack
of objective knowledge one has to trust to talent or to luck (p. 140)
Consider the unreliable and fragmentary nature of all intelli-
gence in war. Remember that both sides fumble in the dark at all
times (p. 462)
The unreliability of most intelligence or what he calls 'imperfect know-
ledge' plays a central role in the Clausewitzian theoretical construction by
providing one of the most important explanations for the 'interruption of
military activity', or the 'suspension of action' (pp. 81-5). This in turn
explains the need to modify the definition of war in theory to that of war
in reality.
In general Clausewitz' pessimistic views on the value of intelligence to
command and control and on the availability of reliable information and
intelligence were correct, reflecting the objective conditions of his own
time. Modern technology, however, while far from providing us with
any panacea for the problems of uncertainty and imperfect information
in war, has nevertheless radically altered our views on intelligence.
Despite its flaws, intelligence is viewed today as an indispensable source
of support in warfare, providing hope for the reduction of friction and for
better control by both political and military leaders over events as they
unfold.
The development of the telegraph had an immediate influence on
the command and control of troops moving about on the battlefield.
(Prussian military field telegraph units were established as early as 1856.)
The telephone and radio further improved the transmission of infor-
mation, and most recently the introduction of electro-optical sensors on
mini-RPVs allows the transmission of real-time visual information on the
battlefield.30
The development of such technological means of communication has in
 68 CLAUSEWITZ AND MODERN STRATEGY

turn led to the establishment of special organizations to deal with them,

as well as to the need to monitor the adversary's transmission and
reception of this voluminous information. This in turn accelerated the
growth of the intelligence bureaucracy, just one aspect of the continuous
differentiation of the military bureaucracy.
Undoubtedly, the invention of these varied means of communication
revolutionized the ability of commanders to receive information from and
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on the battlefield, allowing them to dispatch their orders and decisions

much more effectively than in Napoleon's time. Clausewitz' (and even
more so Tolstoy's) pessimistic view of the commanders' lack of effective
control over the course of events on the battlefield is no longer justified —
certainly not from the technical point of view.31 While the difficulties in
receiving and transmitting information on the battlefield have not been
completely eliminated, they have been considerably reduced. Today
almost all failures of command and control and inappropriate uses of
intelligence do not stem from a lack of adequate communication instru-
ments or information, as was the case earlier in history, but instead from
human error and problems of perception. Similarly, technological
developments including radio interception, computer-assisted crypto-
analysis, high-altitude photographic aircraft reconnaissance, and satellite
intelligence-gathering have all contributed to the tremendous progress in
the collection of intelligence. Yet despite these improvements on both the
tactical and strategic levels, many of the problems inherent in intelligence
procedures as pointed out by Clausewitz have found no satisfactory solu-
tion. As he put it, 'We now know more, but this makes us more, not less
uncertain' (p. 102). In the final analysis, intelligence problems are human
- problems of perception, subjectivity, and wishful thinking - and thus
are not likely to disappear no matter how much the technological means
of intelligence improve. 32 Therefore the suggestion that war since the time
of Napoleon and Clausewitz has lost much of its 'friction' is baseless.33
Were Clausewitz to rewrite On War today, he might identify different
problems. While continuing to emphasize the complexities and uncertain-
ties of the human factor in intelligence, he would probably acknowledge
that technological means have changed the nature of friction and the
command and control problems on the tactical level. But today's com-
mander may suffer from psychological overdependence on the availa-
bility of intelligence, and hesitate to take action without it even when
necessary. Modern intelligence may have become an addictive disincen-
tive to the development of the 'military genius' intuition and readiness to
accept risks, the qualities of great commanders.
While a lack of intelligence can create indecision and delays in action,
the 'overdevelopment' of the technological means of intelligence and its
increased availability may cause other serious problems. The modern
 CLAUSEWITZ IN THE AGE OF TECHNOLOGY 69

commander will be so deluged with intelligence that he may become

paralyzed trying to sift the relevant data from the trivial information.
Such an overabundance of intelligence, like its absence, may cause serious
delays in decisions. If a dearth of information was the major cause for
friction in the past, the surplus of information in the present has given rise
to a new form of friction. Thus while friction and uncertainty continue to
exist, their causes and origin have changed with time. Another modern
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danger is that less-important decisions will be made at higher echelons as

political and military leaders attempts to centralize the management of
war by removing authority from lower-level commanders on the battle-
field. Field commanders will thus become agents inspecting the imple-
mentation of orders from the rear, rather than military decision-makers
grappling with the dangers and uncertainties of war. Technology has
changed the nature of intelligence by eliminating some problems while
creating others.

VI. THE DYNAMICS OF THE OFFENSE-DEFENSE RELATIONSHIP

For Clausewitz, unlike most military writers of his time, the superiority
of the defense over the offense was axiomatic on both the tactical and the
strategic levels.34 This assumption is central to his theory. The inherent
asymmetry between the strength of the defense and that of the attack is
one of the most important intervening variables between war in theory
and war in practice.
Even had Clausewitz been convinced of the perfect equality between
the defense and attack, he might still have been tempted to present them as
inherently unequal as a 'methodological trick' necessary to make this
transition from theoretical to real war. Such a 'methodological trick' was
not essential to the development of Clausewitz' argument, however, for
he made a very convincing case for his time that the defense is stronger:
It is easier to hold ground than take it. It follows that defense is easier
than attack, assuming both sides have equal means. Just what is it
that makes preservation and protection só much easier? It is the fact
that time which is allowed to pass unused accumulates to the credit
of the defender. He reaps where he did not sow. Any omission of
attack - accrues to the defender's benefit.... Another benefit, one
that arises solely from the nature of war, derives from the advantage
of position, which tends to favor the defense, (pp. 357-8)
As mentioned earlier, Clausewitz was also convinced that on the tacti-
cal level the defender could make better use of the element of surprise.
The attack, unlike the defense, also suffers from its very success, which
may contain the seeds of its defeat:
 70 CLAUSEWTZ AND MODERN STRATEGY

By initiating the campaign, the attacking army cuts itself off from
its own theater of operations, and suffers by having to leave its
fortresses and depots behind. The larger the area of operations that
it must traverse, the more it is weakened — by the effect of marches
and by the detachment of garrisons. The defending army, on the
other hand, remains intact. It benefits from its fortresses, nothing
depletes its strength, and it is closer to its sources of supply, (p. 3 65)
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In the majority of cases the defense will also benefit from the support of
the population. Furthermore, frequently the defender will benefit from
the support of friendly states, interested in maintaining the balance of
power and the stability of the system. In a paragraph that could easily
have been taken from any modern textbook on the systems theory
approach to the study of international relations, Clausewitz wrote:
It may be objected, of course, that history offers examples of single
states effecting radical changes that benefit themselves alone, with-
out the slightest effort by the rest to hinder them. There have been
cases in which a single state has managed to become so powerful
that it could virtually dictate to the rest. We would reply that this
does not disprove the tendency on the part of common interests to
support the existing order We therefore argue that a state of
balance tends to keep the existing order intact - always assuming
that the original condition was one of calm, of equilibrium. Once
there has been a disturbance and tension has developed it is certainly
possible that the tendency toward equilibrium will shift direction
[But] such a change can affect only a few states, never the
majority, (p. 374)
Clausewitz concludes that this 'common effort toward maintenance of
the status quo' explains 'the fact that Europe, as we know it, has existed
for over a thousand years' (p.374).
Finally, Clausewitz even went so far as to deny the possibility of a
change in the relationship between the defense and attack when he
argued:
If the offensive were to invent some major new expedient — which
is unlikely in view of the simplicity and inherent necessity that
makes everything today — the defensive will also have to change its
methods. But it will always be certain of having the benefit of
terrain, and this will generally ensure its natural superiority; for
today the peculiarities of the topography and the ground have a
greater effect on military action than ever. (p. 362)
This static view of the relationship between the defense and offense has
 CLAUSEWITZ IN THE AGE OF TECHNOLOGY 71

been modified in contemporary history. Many contemporary analysts

have argued that Clausewitz' emphasis on the superiority of the defense
was wrong even for his own day, in light of Napoleon's military successes
based primarily on offensive tactics and strategy. Inasmuch as Clausewitz
was a great admirer of Napoleon, on this point he may seem inconsistent.
This apparent inconsistency resolves itself if we compare his argument for
the superior strength of the defense to his concept of the culminating point
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of victory. The attacker (that is, the offense) can have the best of two
worlds. He can enjoy the advantages of the attack (for example, the time,
the place, the method, the element of surprise), and at the point where the
attack exhausts itself he can move over to the defense and benefit from its
inherent advantages. Of course, his success hinges upon his moving over
to the defense at the optimum point in time, that is, at the culminating
point of victory. On how to identify this point, unfortunately, Clausewitz
gives no clues. (But see text, pp.527, 528, 566-73.) Paradoxically, then,
one of the major advantages of the attack lies in its ability to move over to
the defense.
It is still true that when all other things are equal, the defense is the
stronger form of warfare. In reality, however, things can never be kept
equal. Modern military technology, even more so than in the past, causes
frequent changes in the relative strength between the defense and offense.
The relationship between the two forms of war is cyclical — not static as
Clausewitz assumed. Such cyclical changes add to the uncertainty as to
which of the two modes of war is stronger, both on the strategic and
tactical levels.
Clausewitz cited the influence of imperfect knowledge to explain the
frequent suspension of action in war - mentioning especially the human
tendency to make worst-case, over-cautious estimates under conditions
of uncertainty (p. 117). Yet, even if there was full knowledge as to the rela-
tive strengths of both sides, certainty regarding the inherent superiority of
the defense was by itself enough to cause inaction. Today inaction may
result from another cause: namely, the uncertainty of the relationship
between the offense and defense.
The cycle of modern weapons development, of weapons and counter-
weapons, measures and counter-measures, has shifted the advantage
from the defense to the offense, and back, a number of times since the start
of the technological revolution. Such changes are not always perceived
before the outbreak of war. For example, despite numerous indications
from the Boer War and Russo-Japanese War, in which the growing
advantage of defensive over offensive weapons was clearly demonstrated,
most European armies before the First World War emphasized the
development of exclusively offensive doctrines ; similarly, the Israeli army
before the 1973 war misread the technological trends favoring the defense
 72 CLAUSEWITZ AND MODERN STRATEGY

in anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons and consequently relied on an

exclusively offensive doctrine. Conversely the French, before the Second
World War, learned the lessons of the First World War so well that they
overestimated the power of defense.
Despite the critical importance of technology in military affairs, very
little theoretical work has dealt with this subject. J. F. C. Fuller developed
two important analytical concepts that help us to describe and under-
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stand the cyclical nature of the relationship between the offense, defense,
and technology in modern warfare. The first is the dominant weapon, the
second the constant tactical factor.3S The first concept suggests there is
always a more effective type of weapon (that is, better protected, and/or
with greater firepower and/or greater speed, etc.) which dominates (that
is, has a greater impact on) the battlefield. Most other weapons as well as
the tactical doctrine will therefore have to be organized around that
weapon, as will the counter-weapons and counter-doctrine. (The domi-
nant weapon need not be a single weapon excluding all others.) His
second concept, that of the constant tactical factor, suggests that in the
age of rapid technological change (as in earlier times) no dominant
weapon will remain dominant for too long. This is the concept of change,
to a large extent absent from Clausewitz' work. While Fuller's concepts
are of great heuristic and analytical value, they usually have little or no
predictive value. Thus the importance of uncertainty, an element empha-
sized by Clausewitz and further complicated by technology, remains
unchanged.

VIII. TECHNOLOGY AND DOCTRINE: THE GAP WIDENS

As the rate of technological progress accelerates, resulting in a larger
variety of weapons whose synergistic or systemic interaction is unclear,
the gap between military technology and strategic/tactical military
doctrines is constantly widening. Military organizations adapt even more
slowly to change than individuals. Therefore, the gap that has opened up
between the birth of a new technology and its proper absorption into
military doctrine and practice is likely to be permanent.
Even those armies which are more open to change, frequently as a result
of a defeat or a sense of vulnerability, still never completely succeed in
matching technology's potential with its actual use on the battlefield.
Thus, for instance, Nazi Germany's offensive blitzkrieg represented the
culmination of an evolutionary trial-and-error process rather than an
inspired flash from the mind of some military genius. The blitzkrieg took
a considerable time to perfect in the face of resistance and lack of under-
standing — a lack clearly demonstrated in the war against Poland and the
attack on the West in May 1940.
 CLAUSEWITZ IN THE AGE OF TECHNOLOGY 73

Another interesting example is the development of naval and air

strategy between the two world wars — an excellent case study of the
uncertainty involved in the development of new technologies. A com-
parative analysis of the major navies of the world (those of the US, Great
Britain, Germany, Italy and Japan) in the 1920s and 1930s indicates that
all committed similar errors in the perception of technology. Although all
parties recognized the importance of air power, they had no realistic way
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of testing aircraft against battleships. The result was that all major powers
conservatively chose to invest by 1939 in approximately a 2:1 ratio of
battleships to aircraft carriers. The Second World War quickly proved the
superiority of air power over traditional sea power, so that by the end of
the war the procurement ratio of battleships to carriers had been reversed.
Likewise, although submarines were the only First World War weapon
to come close to being decisive, they were neglected between the wars. No
major technological improvements occurred in the design of submarines
or their main weapons, the torpedoes. Assuming the technological success
of British counter-measures, both Germans and British grossly under-
estimated the full potential of the submarine. The initial German success
in U-Boat warfare against Great Britain was not attributable to any new
weapons or technology, but rather to new submarine deployment tactics
(for example, night attacks on the surface and later wolf pack tactics).
In regard to the blitzkrieg, air power, and the submarine, the strategists
of the Great Powers failed to perceive the trends in military technology,
developed inappropriate military doctrines, and were, once the Second
World War started, slow to modify these doctrines even when they
proved inadequate. In many cases, the weapons and the doctrines were
mismatched. At times, well-tested weapons such as the submarine or
tank could have been better used by the application of more innovative
doctrines. Then again, sometimes new weapons rendered older ones
obsolete, requiring the invention of completely new doctrines. In any
event, weapons and doctrines, technology and its intellectual understand-
ing, were rarely in harmony.
The reason for the gap between technology and doctrine is obvious. It
has never been possible in modern times to test the full effectiveness of
newly-developed weapons/counterweapons under realistic conditions in
peacetime. Frequently the answer as to who is superior, the defense or the
attack, is given only on the battlefield when it is too late.

VIII. THE UNITY OF COMMAND IS BROKEN

Although Clausewitz made a clear distinction in his trinity between the
political and military direction of war, elsewhere, particularly when he
describes his models of 'military genius' (for example, Frederick the Great
 74 CLAUSEWITZ AND MODERN STRATEGY

and Napoleon), he seems to prefer the unity of the two types of leadership
in one person:
A prince or a general can best demonstrate his genius by managing a
campaign exactly to suit his objectives and his resources doing
neither too much nor too little (p. 177) To bring a war, or one of
its campaigns, to a successful close requires a thorough grasp of
national policy. On that level strategy and policy coalesce: the
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commander-in-chief is simultaneously a statesman, (p. I l l )

Furthermore, he asserted that
In the highest realms of strategy ... there is little or no diffeience
between strategy, policy and statesmanship (p. 178) We argue
that a commander-in-chief must also be a statesman, but he must
not cease to be a general. On the one hand he is aware of the entire
political situation. On the other, he knows exactly how much he can
achieve with the means at his disposal, (pp. Ill—12)36
The growing complexities of modern warfare caused not only by techno-
logical but also by political developments, make it increasingly difficult to
find a leader who possesses a high degree of both political and military
skills. There are two reasons for this difficulty:
First, modern warfare requires a much higher level of professional
education (for example, general staff work) and familiarity with military
technology than can usually be claimed by any political leader - unless, of
course, he had a military career before entering politics. Then, too, the
growing demands of military expertise create a universal tendency in all
military establishments, to claim a monopoly on military knowledge in
order to minimize the participation of civilian leaders in the actual con-
duct of war. This tendency runs counter to the most important of all
Clausewitz' theoretical assumptions : the primacy of politics in the con-
duct of war. In his work on total war, Ludendorff developed an opposing
theory emphasizing the primacy of the military leadership over the politi-
cal in war:
All the theories of Clausewitz should be thrown overboard. Both
warfare and politics are meant to serve the preservation of the
people, but warfare is the highest expression of the national 'will to
live', and politics must, therefore, be subservient to the conduct of
war.17
He continues,
The World War has already removed any possible doubts as to the
necessity of the nation's armed forces to be subordinated to the
 CLAUSEWITZ IN THE AGE OF TECHNOLOGY 75

Commander-in-Chief, and his standing above the war minister as

the chief of military administration and above the political chiefs. In
a word, the position of the Commander-in-Chief must be as high
and as unlimited in war as was that of King Frederick the Great.38
The second reason that political and military leadership are rarely
combined is that in the era of modern total war the political leader must
direct almost all his energies to the mobilization of political, economic,
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and popular support for fighting the war. This activity leaves him less
time and energy to deal with the conduct of military operations.
Reflecting upon the bygone era of political and military unity of leader-
ship in war, General Sir Archibald Wavell stated:
The friction between civil and military is, comparatively speak-
ing, a new factor in war, and is a feature of democracy, not of
autocracy .... The interchangeability between the statesman and
the soldier passed forever, I fear, in the last century. The Germans
professionalized the trade of war, and modern inventions, by
increasing its technicalities, have specialized it. It is much the same
with politics, professionalized by democracy. No longer can one
man hope to exercise both callings, though both are branches of the
same craft, the governance of men and the ordering of human
affairs.39
The friction between the political and military professions to which
Wavell refers has increased in the age of technology, when many mili-
tary leaders feel that 'amateur' civilians are not qualified to deal with
the growing complexities of modern warfare. Defeat, or simple lack
of success, has led military leaders to pin the blame on 'interfering'
politicians. Such accusations, ranging from suspicion of 'a stab in the
back' to the notion that 'there is no substitute for victory', appear during
and following every modern war. This universal problem has prompted
other military leaders to express views similar to those of Ludendorff and
opposed to those of Clausewitz. For example, after the First World War
Lieutenant General Sir Gerald Ellison wrote that Churchill was wrong in
asserting, 'At the summit true politics and strategy are one'. 'Ergo, quite
obviously', says Ellison, 'the politician is fully qualified to deal with
strategy ?
Hence Amateur Strategy?
Hence Gallipolli!'
He continues, with heavy irony, to explode the popular belief that
every politician is a heaven-born naval and military strategist, that
the man who produces a weapon is necessarily the right man to use
 76 CLAUSEWITZ AND MODERN STRATEGY

it, that the administrator automatically becomes the commander

The politician, unfortunately, either cannot, or will not, recog-
nize limitations in the scope of politics which ordinary common
sense would seem to dictate.40
The good general then concludes that 'Politics and strategy are radically
and fundamentally things apart from one another. Strategy begins where
politics end' (his emphasis).
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The record of modern warfare makes one thing very clear: the need to
keep the two types of military leadership separate, not united. Many
cases in which the civilian leaders tried either to control or to intervene
excessively in the conduct of military operations (for example, Kaiser
Wilhelm, Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin and at times Churchill) ended in
disaster. Attempts on the part of the military to control the political and
grand strategic goals of wars ended equally badly (for example, the
Schlieffen plan, the decision to launch unrestricted submarine warfare,
and the German high command's literally taking over the political con-
duct of the First World War).
Clausewitz did not go into detail concerning the problems of co-
ordination between the political and military leadership in war. Given the
frequent unity of the two during his lifetime and the relative simplicity of
both political and military affairs, this is not altogether surprising. Never-
theless, the technological and political complexities of the modern world
have necessitated a degree of 'fine tuning' unthought of by Clausewitz
in order to achieve a workable balance between the civilian and mili-
tary leadership in modern war. Clausewitz offers few insights into the
problem, beyond his brief comment in Book VIII that
If war is to be fully consonant with political objectives, and policy
suited to the means available for war, then unless statesman and
soldier are combined in one person, the only sound expedient is to
make the commander-in-chief a member of the cabinet, so that the
cabinet can share in the major aspects of his activities. But this, in
turn, is only feasible if the cabinet - that is the government - is near
the theater of operations, so that decisions can be taken without
serious loss of time What is highly dangerous is to let any soldier
but the commander-in-chief exert influence in the cabinet. It very
seldom leads to sound vigorous action, (pp.608—9)
Although in emphasizing the primacy of politics Clausewitz was ahead
of his time, he could not foresee the complications of civil-military
relations and their impact on the political supremacy necessary to the
conduct of war.
 CLAUSEWITZ IN THE AGE OF TECHNOLOGY 77

IX. THE DIFFERENTIATION AND BUREAUCRATIZATION OF THE MILITARY

When Clausewitz discussed friction in war he was primarily referring to
the uncertainties generated by the collision of two opposing armies on
the battlefield. His 'friction' was chiefly the result of the adversary's
unexpected actions and their impact on one's own forces and on the
outcome of battle. Friction was thus created by external causes. He tacitly
assumed that one's own army and leader behave as what is called a 'uni-
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actor', that is, a single unit making decisions vis-à-vis other such units.
While this may have approximated reality in the days when the king was
also the commander-in-chief, it certainly does not describe current reality.
In today's military environment it is useful to make a distinction between
external friction, created as a result of conflict between two opposing
sides, and internal friction, generated by the growing specialization and
compartmentation of the military.
Clausewitz did not think it was important for military leaders to deal
with issues of management and organization: 'One would not want
to consider the whole business of maintenance and administration as
part of the actual conduct of war. While it may be in constant interaction
with the utilization of troops, the two are essentially very different'
(p. 129, his emphasis). The distinction between leading troops to war and
administration would appear even more pronounced today. Just as the
political leader and military leader are now separate individuals, the
military leader may be a manager or even a technocrat, rather than a
warrior.
Coordinating many military and civilian organizations requires careful
calculation and diplomatic skill, rather than the courage, daring, and
acceptance of risks required on the battlefield. In all likelihood the
optimal temperament and character required for managing and fighting
cannot be found in one military genius, as Clausewitz proposed. The
requirements are contradictory. Frederick the Great and Napoleon, the
models for Clausewitz' military genius, were very different from Carnot
(whom Clausewitz never mentions), Marshall and Eisenhower. Were
Clausewitz alive today, he would recognize the need to describe, besides
the 'military genius', the 'military-organizational genius'.41
Just as there are now several different types of military leader, there are
also many different military organizations, set up to maximize the utility
of the multiple dimensions of military technology. The military manage-
ment of technology (for example, organizational decisions concerning the
research, design, and choice of weapons; the procurement cycle; the
relationship with the scientific and industrial communities ; the inspection
of production; the testing and maintenance of equipment; the writing of
instruction manuals; and training) has created a military bureaucracy of
immense proportions that continues to grow with technology.
 78 CLAUSEWITZ AND MODERN STRATEGY

Furthermore, the basically simple structure of the Napoleonic armies

(that is, primarily infantry, cavalry, and artillery) has been greatly compli-
cated, and can no longer be controlled by a single leader.42 Far more
specialized, today's armies are made up of numerous organizations —
infantry, artillery, signal, armor, engineers, anti-aircraft, transportation,
intelligence, etc. — each having its own weapons, doctrines, school, and
unique expertise. Each one of these military organizations enjoys a certain
degree of autonomy, and fights to protect its own parochial-professional
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interests, including its share of the military budget. Thus, although all of
these organizations exist in order to contribute to the achievement of the
same goal and support each other in the process, they also have many
conflicting interests that separate them. The desire to maintain their
autonomy and articulate their various perceptions has generated con-
siderable friction within each military organization.
The anonymous, capital-intensive character of modern war led J. F. C.
Fuller (with his usual knack for bringing things ad absurdum) to reverse
Clausewitz' emphasis on the importance of the military genius in war.
The outstanding lesson of the [Franco-Prussian War of 1870] was
that a conflict of masses is a war of conflicts in which genius is out of
place. Though the general can still plot and plan, and increasingly
must do so, he can no longer lead or command because the masses
are too vast to grasp. Command now passes to the General Staff, its
foremost problem being the development of firepower/3
The truth obviously lies somewhere in between Clausewitz and Fuller.
Fuller, like Adam Smith and the Marxists, tends to move the focus to the
invisible hand of economic forces or the role of the masses in war.
Ultimately, however, much depends upon what Michels has termed 'the
Iron Law of the Oligarchy', that is, that a single individual inevitably
exists at the top of the decision-making ladder, who, whether a political,
military, or managerial-organizational leader, must make the final
choice.
Meanwhile, important decisions concerning both peace and war
require greater efforts at political compromise and a more intensive
search for consensus than they did in Clausewitz' time. Such complica-
tions of coordination between different organizational perceptions and
interests have offset the advantages gained from great technological
advances in command and control. Thus while friction has been reduced
in some ways since Clausewitz' time it has increased in others.
 CLAUSEWITZ IN THE AGE OF TECHNOLOGY 79

X. THE DEMOCRATIZATION OF WAR AND THE NEW PROMINENCE OF

DOMESTIC POLICY

Today, both historians and military strategists are concerned about the
causes of war and the extent to which war can be waged without popular
consent. Clausewitz, however, wrote the greatest book on the logic and
conduct of war without devoting much attention to its causes. He does
mention two important causes, but fails to develop them in any depth.
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The first is human nature, or what he refers to as 'hostile feelings and

hostile intentions', the 'primordial violence, hatred and enmity, which are
to be regarded as a blind natural force ... passions ... inherent in the
people' (pp.76, 89). The second cause of war is the need to restore the
'balance of power', to return the international system to equilibrium
(p. 374). The transition from peace to war, international crises, mobiliza-
tion as a destabilizing factor, preventive and preemptive war, ideological
and economic causes of war—all of these did not really concern him. This
lack of interest can be explained, but not justified, by two factors. The
first is that Clausewitz, as a military man who accepted war as a 'fact of
life', focused on the specific task of bringing war, once begun - for
whatever reason — to a successful conclusion.44 The second is that, since
his time, the technological revolution and political/ideological changes
have made the causes of war inherently more interesting and important.
In modern times mobility and the accelerated pace of war have made the
specific circumstances under which war breaks out much more relevant to
military planning, the preparation of contingency plans, the choice of
weapons, and the design of a strategic doctrine.
Nevertheless, even for his own time, the absence of a discussion of the
causes of war in a general treatise on war is quite striking. It was, after all,
Clausewitz who first emphasized the primacy of political control in war—
and the outbreak of war and the decision to go to war are indeed
political decisions that bear directly on military planning. Thucydides, for
example, devoted considerable space to a discussion of the origins and
causes of the Peloponnesian wars.45 Clausewitz' attitude is all the more
puzzling given the unique circumstances that preceded the outbreak of the
French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars.
Clausewitz' attitude to war was amoral. For him, war was an inevitable,
legal, and acceptable part of the relationship between states. He felt that
'wars are the willful creation of the state, that wars are made and that they
do not "break out" '.4S He believed in 'the absolute priority of foreign
affairs over domestic considerations'.47 For him, therefore, the decision to
go to war was a rational choice made exclusively on the basis of external
considerations and was intended to maximize the power and interests of
the state vis-à-vis all others in the international system. The decision itself,
 80 CLAUSEWITZ AND MODERN STRATEGY

the last resort of kings, was taken by the head of state who knew (pre-
sumably) what he wanted and could prepare his army, while largely
disregarding domestic considerations.
This simplified raison d'état model may have been realistic during the
ancien regime, but it is less than adequate in an age of democracy and
mass mobilization. In fact, it was also Germans like Ludendorff and
Eckhart Kehr who emphasized the primacy of domestic politics {Der
Primat der Innern Politik) over foreign policy.48 In addition, of course, the
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Marxists emphasized even earlier the need to examine domestic economic

(and political) considerations when seeking the major causes for war.49
Thus, starting with Marxist theories, very powerful explanations for
the causes of war were shifted from the international system to the
domestic environment. This is not the context in which to discuss Lenin's
theory of imperialism, Schumpeter's criticism of his theory, the 'military-
industrial complex' explanation, or numerous other relevant theories. It
is, however, necessary to discuss briefly the contemporary domestic
environment in which the decisions concerning the initiation and conduct
of war are made. Certainly in a modern democratic society, but in fact in
any society, there is a need to explain and justify a war to the people to be
mobilized for the supreme effort and the sacrifices it entails. Ludendorff
has recognized, for example, that in fighting the modern total war it is
essential to mobilize the moral support of the masses:
It is a mistaken assumption that a war must begin with a declaration
of war The declarations of war of the Imperial Chancellor Von
Bethman-Hollweg on Russia and France in August 1914, are still in
everybody's memory. They gave the enemy propaganda a useful
start in strengthening the morale of their peoples, and weakened the
morale of our p e o p l e . . . . The supreme Commander-in-Chief has to
see to it that such damage should not be done to the conduct of war
and the people alike at the very beginning by war declarations, and
also by deficient instruction of the nation, such as the German
people and the German Army were destined to suffer in 1914, and in
the following years, through the German declarations of war in
particular. This is the more necessary as a nation and every indi-
vidual within it can only help the war leaders with their whole
strength when they are firmly convinced that their very existence is
at stake. 50

The task of convincing one's own population of the need to go to war

and to continue fighting until the war is won is even more arduous in an
era when television brings the images of war and its atrocities into every
home. Every military leader must therefore plan his strategy and execu-
tion of the war while continuously looking over his shoulder at his own
 CLAUSEWITZ IN THE AGE OF TECHNOLOGY 81

people. Certainly in recent history several wars have been lost through
miscalculating the people's willingness to continue fighting a war of
attrition. The wars fought by the French in Algeria and Vietnam; by the
US in Korea, Vietnam, and Lebanon; by the Israelis in Lebanon; have
revealed that the key to winning modern wars may not be on the battle-
field but on the home front. The need to maintain a consensus at home
demonstrates that, once the domestic scene becomes as important as the
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external one, many of the assumptions supporting the raison d'état model
collapse. In modern democracies there is no definitive central source
of influence where critical decisions can easily be made, nor is there
necessarily an agreement concerning the goals of a war or at what price it
should be fought. The fiction of the 'uni-actor' making national decisions
collapses very quickly. Thus, the military-cum-political genius cannot
make all the decisions by himself as Clausewitz maintains, but must, in
order to implement his policies, persevere in his search for an operational
consensus.
The dilemma is that the conduct of war by consensus does not
necessarily create the best conditions for waging a decisive war. For
example, during the war in Vietnam, Presidents Johnson and Nixon
had to maintain a delicate and carefully calculated balance between the
opposing pressures of doves and hawks — a balance which resulted in a
prolonged and indecisive, limited war.51 The military leader of today is
often forced to wage a limited war and to find acceptable substitutes for
victory. In this manner, another dimension of internal friction has been
added to warfare, for a leader must consider not only the costs and
benefits of war but also the need to adjust the burden of war to a level
acceptable to his own population.
While Clausewitz in On War appears to take domestic support for
granted, the modern political leader cannot." Indeed this dimension
represents one of the greatest problems in modern warfare for the politi-
cal leadership (and hence also for the military). Friction, uncertainty, and
chance may prevail in the calculation of obtaining domestic public
support as much as in gauging the performance and moves of the enemy.
Leaders often seem to take the initial domestic consensus to go to war for
granted - yet the longer the war, the less decisive and the more costly, the
more problematic the domestic support becomes.

XI. IS VICTORY OBSOLETE?

Unlike Sun Tzu who thought that 'to subdue the enemy without fighting is
the acme of skill'," Clausewitz ridiculed the idea of winning without
fighting:
 82 CLAUSEWITZ AND MODERN STRATEGY

Kind-hearted people might of course think there was some ingenious

way to disarm or defeat an enemy without too much bloodshed, and
might imagine this is the true goal of the art of war. Pleasant as it
sounds, it is a fallacy It would be an obvious fallacy to imagine
war between civilized peoples as resulting merely from a rational act
on the part of their governments and to conceive of war as gradually
ridding itself of passion, so that in the end one would never really
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need to use the physical impact of the fighting forces - comparative

figures of their strength would be enough. That would be a kind of
war by algebra, (pp. 75-6)
Quite to the contrary, he defined war as 'an act of force to compel our
enemy to do our will' (p. 75). Since the aim of war is to disarm the enemy,
this must be done by force. In order to 'impose our will on the enemy', we
must also win. Achieving a military victory was thus a necessary con-
dition to achieving the political goals of war. The more ambitious the
political goals, the more desirable the victory. Conversely, if military
victory is unattainable we cannot impose our will on the enemy and hence
cannot achieve our political goals.
Clausewitz' repeated emphasis on the necessity of victory on the battle-
field is the epitome of Western means/ends rationality, which posits a
direct correlation between military and political achievements. Modern
wars, in particular guerrilla wars of attrition fought not only against the
enemy's army but also against his domestic public opinion front, have
demonstrated beyond any doubt that it is possible to lose a war militarily
and yet win it politically. In such a war it is enough to play for time. The
Algerians in the French War in Algeria, and the Vietnamese against the
French and US in Vietnam, are good examples. Perhaps another example
was the decision of Egypt's President Sadat to launch a limited war
against Israel in 1973. Sadat knew he could not win militarily, but he
(correctly) believed that the war would allow Egypt to attain many of its
political goals. The Israelis, whose military thinking is typically Western,
failed to anticipate the war, despite the many warning signals, because
they could not understand why any state would launch a war it could not
win. (Here, of course, the Israelis also projected their own attitude, since
for them a military defeat would mean political disaster.) Arguably, then,
Clausewitz' idea of the primacy of politics has been carried one step
farther in the non-Western world, to the point where military victory is no
longer a prerequisite for political success.
Nuclear weapons, which also added a revolutionary new dimension to
military strategy, are not merely increased firepower, as Curtis LeMay is
rumored to have believed, but actually represent a quantum jump in the
destructiveness of war. War has undergone a metamorphosis, or, in
 CLAUSEWITZ IN THE AGE OF TECHNOLOGY 83

Kuhn's term, a paradigm shift. If strategy in Clausewitz' time was the art
of using force on the battlefield to achieve political ends, nuclear strategy
(that is, deterrence) is precisely the opposite: It is the art not of using force
but of avoiding war. In a nuclear war - which resembles Clausewitz' war
in the abstract — victory has become a meaningless concept. We would
resort to Clausewitz' authority in vain regarding a subject that he could
not have anticipated. One should be very cautious about applying Clause-
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witz to the realm of nuclear strategy.

Nevertheless, the emergence of nuclear weapons has, if anything, even
further accentuated Clausewitz' insistence on the primacy of politics in
warfare. The awesome destructive power of nuclear weapons and the
speed with which a nuclear war can be launched and decided have shifted
the center of strategic-operational decision-making from the military to
the political leadership.
Today, therefore, nuclear arms have wrought a drastic transforma-
tion by promoting strategy to the policy level, the level of deterrence.
No one thinking in terms of deterrence can any longer be satisfied
with the military level of thought, but must ascend to the conceptual
heights of policymakers.54
The swiftness with which nuclear attack can be carried out, its lack of
historical precedent, its simplicity compared with conventional warfare,
and the need for absolute political control, have made the military genius
and the whole military establishment redundant in an all-out nuclear
war:
War had aspects of an art in the past. Commanders took pride
in their tactical skill, in the degree of imagination and ingenuity
required to deploy their forces, in qualities of character, courage and
daring, and in the capacity of leadership to implant confidence and
enthusiasm in the troops. A man's qualities and character found
expression in battle. In all-out nuclear war, the human factor is
disappearing and alienation between man and war has been created.
This is machine warfare, increasingly transformed into a province of
science and technology. All-out nuclear war is a war of covering
targets by calculating probabilities of hits, a war of azimuths and
computers. War is becoming mathematical, and from many stand-
points simpler and more amenable to advance planning ..."
Due to the revolutionary change implicit in nuclear warfare,
historical experience from previous wars has ceased serving as a
guide for such a war. Military experience, therefore, no longer
affords an advantage in analyzing the course and results of a future
war, and the primacy of the officer corps has ended. Those divining
 84 CLAUSEWITZ AND MODERN STRATEGY

the uncertainties of the next war are all 'arm-chair strategists',

without exception, and all are submerged in an area of guess-
work and conjecture, whether they are military or civilian. N o one
possesses experience in the question of how man will behave in the
nightmare conditions of nuclear war. Military experience is less
helpful in dealing with these questions than some familiarity
with scientific problems, an acquaintance with political and psycho-
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logical reality, and the ability to weigh logical considerations. 56

Strategic nuclear war has therefore eliminated the military from Clause-
witz' triad. A Clausewitzian definition of nuclear warfare consists of a
new triad: the people, the government, and technology — perhaps even
only the last two elements.

XII. WARFARE AND THE ECONOMIC IMPERATIVE

Thucydides said that 'war is a matter not so much of arms as of money,
which makes arms of use'. 57 The Austrian general Montecuculi is quoted
by Ludendorff as saying that 'for the conduct of war money, and again
money and thirdly and last money is needed'. 58 To be sure the economic
dimension of modern warfare includes much more than financial support
— it involves industrial capacity, research and development, the availa-
bility and distribution of raw materials, and the organization and
management of the war economy.
Clausewitz never really discusses the financial and economic aspects of
war. He seems to take for granted that all the resources necessary for
waging war will be made available by the political to the military leader-
ship.
The conduct of war has nothing to do with making guns and powder
out of coal, sulphur, saltpeter, copper and tin; its given quantities
are weapons that are ready for use and their effectiveness. Strategy
uses maps without worrying about trigonometric surveys; it does
not inquire how a country should be organized and a people trained
and ruled in order to produce the best military results. It takes these
matters as it finds them in the European community of nations, and
calls attention only to unusual circumstances that exert a marked
influence on war. (p. 144)
This is certainly a narrow view of war even for the nineteenth century.
After all, economic and financial considerations or the cost of war have
always been a key element in the decision to launch a war and have
played a vital role in the course of war itself. Although Clausewitz
frequently followed an economic way of thinking (for example, his
 CLAUSEW1TZ IN THE AGE OF TECHNOLOGY 85

numerous references to the need to calculate the means/ends cost/benefit

relationship in war) he never directly addressed economic issues. He may
have not done so deliberately, as Michael Howard suggests, but by this
omission he conveniently ignored a crucial dimension of war that was
extremely important even in his own time." Although he studied the
Napoleonic campaigns in minute detail, he completely ignored the ' . . .
part played in Napoleon's strategy, and perhaps his downfall, by the
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Continental System — his attempt to use economic as well as military

instruments to consolidate and extend his conquests'. 60
That Clausewitz ignored the economic dimension of warfare is of
particular interest for two reasons. The first is that the economic
dimension of warfare is closely related to the political dimension, whose
primacy he always emphasized. Decisions on the allocation of economic
resources for the buildup of the military forces before war, as well as their
allocation to different purposes, fronts, and divisions during war itself,
are an important link between the political and military authorities.
Clausewitz' tacit assumption that all the resources necessary for war will
be made available to the commander-in-chief is too simple. Who will
decide how much of a nation's resources should be devoted to war and
who should decide how and by what priority to allocate such resources to
the armed forces are questions which Clausewitz left unanswered.
Clausewitz' omission of the economic dimension of war is interesting
for yet another important reason. It seems to be missing from his dis-
cussion of the transition from war in the abstract to war in practice. Yet it
provides another excellent explanation why absolute war must be modi-
fied by reality, for absolute war would require the use of all the economic
resources of a nation at war. In reality, economic constraints dictate the
amount of resources that can be invested in war and related activities,
thereby playing a major part in limiting the tendency toward absolute
war.
Of course, the industrial/technological revolution has increased the
importance of economic considerations. Although many technological
developments have forced the consideration of economic calculations on
the tactical level, such calculations are of even greater importance on the
strategic level. On the strategic level knowledge of economic factors
in a prolonged war can considerably reduce the uncertainty of the final
results. For the outcome of such modern wars is determined not so much
by the inspired military genius as by more subtle factors such as gross
national product, industrial and research and development capacities,
the organization and management of the wartime economy, and the
mobilization of resources. The 'economic' nature of modern warfare has
spawned more wars of attrition and fewer of decision. This is perhaps the
reason why in the past two World Wars the weapons that came the closest
 86 CLAUSEWITZ AND MODERN STRATEGY

to being decisive, for example, the U-Boat as used against Great Britain in
the First and Second World War, and perhaps the Allied blockade on
Germany in the First World War, were all directed against the economy of
the targeted nation.
In fact, Clausewitz does recognize the need to measure the war potential
of nations, which he discusses very briefly in Book VIII, Chapter 9. Here
he demonstrates that a simple calculation of the availability of manpower
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indicates that France cannot be expected to win against a coalition of

Austria, Prussia, the rest of Germany, the Netherlands, and England.
Nevertheless, this is a very simple measurement of war potential using
only one criterion (population) for prediction. Modern warfare requires
the use of more variables to evaluate the balance of power and the most
likely outcome of war. Such an evaluation could have clearly indicated the
disastrous outcome of a German decision to declare war on the US as well
as the USSR. In two world wars, German leaders thought that a successful
war of annihilation or blitzkrieg could avoid the long-range consequences
of economic inferiority—a disastrous illusion. One can only wonder if this
negiert of the economic dimensions of war is somehow related to the
absence of the same dimension in Clausewitz' study On War.61
Our material environment has radically changed since the early nine-
teenth century. Wars, which simultaneously depend upon material
change and promote material change more than any other human activity,
have therefore been radically transformed as well. For that reason any
book written on war before the industrial/technological revolution must
be subect to modification. This, as we have seen, is the case with Clause-
witz' work. Much of what he wrote is timeless, but some aspects of his
thoughts and theories on war have been overtaken by the march of
history. Although Clausewitz is the least dogmatic and the most flexible
of all military theorists, in some respects his views of war are inevitably
static and difficult to apply to a different material environment.
Military-technological developments permeate every facet of war: its
destructiveness, its expansion in space and compression (or acceleration)
in time, the relationship between the offense and defense, the role of
intelligence and the possibility of achieving strategic surprise, the shifting
emphasis from the front to the rear in the conduct of war, and the
correlation between economic and military strength. The accelerated
development of military technology has increased the complexity of war
in innumerable ways since Clausewitz' time. Furthermore, material
change is always followed by nonmaterial changes no less important
than the material changes themselves. Nonmaterial changes such as the
bureaucratization of military organizations, the creation of a permanent
gap between technological innovation and the development of a comple-
mentary military doctrine, and the new relationship between the military
 CLAUSEWITZ IN THE AGE OF TECHNOLOGY 87

and civilian authorities must be included in our modern calculus. All of

these problems could not have been foreseen by Clausewitz and therefore
could not be addressed by him.
Theories, like weapons, are replaced in the course of time by other,
better ones. As Clausewitz himself suggested : 'Perhaps a greater mind will
soon appear to replace these individual nuggets with a single whole, cast
in solid metal free from all impurity' (p. 67). It is a tribute to the greatness
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of Clausewitz that 150 years after his death there has yet appeared no
better theory on war.

NOTES

1. Raymond Aron uses this infelicitous neologism—'transhistorical'–to describe the relevance

of Clausewitz theory to any period in history. Clausewitz: Philosopher of War (London:
Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1983) is an abbreviated translation of Penser la guerre: Clause-
witz (Paris: Editions Gallimard, 1976). This is a very disappointing book.
2. Quincy Wright, A Study of War (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1971).
3. See John I. Alger, The Quest for Victory (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1982).
4. Unless otherwise stated, all quotations from Clausewitz are from Carl von Clausewitz, On
War, ed. and trans. Michael Howard and Peter Paret (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press, 1976). Page number given in text.
5. Changes on the tactical level do not necessarily occur at a faster rate than those on the
strategic level, since the two levels are closely linked. The appearance of the tank, a weapons
platform invented to solve a tactical problem, had of course very important implications for
strategy in both the First and Second World Wars. Similarly the use of radar or PGMs
primarily on the tactical level had critical and cumulative influences on the strategic level.
Any important shift in the balance of strength between the offense and defense on the
tactical level will have a decisive impact on the strategic level. In this sense strategy and
tactics have come much closer than they were in Clausewitz' time.
It is interesting to note that Ludendorff quoted Moltke as saying, 'Mistakes made in the
beginning of war cannot be made good in the later stages of war'. General Erich Ludendorff,
The Nation at War (London: Hutchinson, 1936), p. 155. Clausewitz, on the other hand, felt
that tactical mistakes could always be retrieved on the strategic level (pp.182, 243, 582).
While this remains basically true in today's world, it might be more difficult given the speed
of developments on the battlefield and the slowness of the redesign-replacement process for
faulty weapons systems. In the age of modern technology, the most important decisions in
war are often taken during the period of peace preceding it. The idea that the 'battlefield
decision' is to a large extent now made in peacetime would certainly have sounded strange to
Clausewitz.
6. The phrase is from Alfred Vagts, Defense and Diplomacy: The Soldier and the Conduct of
Foreign Relations (New York: Kings Crown Press, 1956), p.379.
7. This was also the opinion of Hans Delbrück who wrote: 'With the appearance of Clause-
witz' works after his death in 1831, the Napoleonic period of history of the art of war comes
to a close .... It leads into the new period .... The new period is defined in its content by the
new technology, not only of weapons but also of transportation and all the resources of life,
from the railroads and telegraph to the foodstuffs, which increased in such unlimited
proportions in the course of the nineteenth century.' History of the Art of War Within the
Framework of Political History, Vol. 4, The Modem Era (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press,
1985), pp. 454-5.
Among the more interesting works covering the accelerated development of military
technology since the beginning of the nineteenth century are: J. F. C. Fuller, Armament and
 i CLAUSEWITZ AND MODERN STRATEGY

History (New York: Scribners, 1945), Chs. 5 - 7 ; J.F.C. Fuller, The Conduct of War
1789-1961 (London: Eyre & Spottiswood, 1972, Ch. 5); Michael Howard, War in
European History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1976), Chs. 5-7; Maurice Pearton,
The knowledgeable State: Diplomacy, War andTechnology Since 1830 (London: Burnett
Books, 1982); Hew Strachan, European Armies and the Conduct of War (London : George
Allen & Unwin, 1983), Ch. 8. For an excellent brief survey of contemporary military
technological developments see The Economist, 'Marching Forward: A Survey of Defense
Technology', 21 May 1983, 5-32.
The surge in the number of inventions in general during the nineteenth century is
demonstrated by the following table:
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Period Number of Inventions

1755-1799 680
1800-1824 1,034
1825-1849 1,885
1850-1874 2,468
1875-1879 2,880
(Based on Appendix 17, Table 20, Quincy Wright, A Study of War, p. 163.) The military
technological revolution had started earlier, at sea, with Robert Fulton's steamship (1803),
the first iron steamship (1820), screw propulsion instead of the paddle wheel (between
1843-45), the complete replacement of sail by steam power (1850), and the all-iron
warships HMS Warrior (1861) and Whitehead Torpedo (1864).
The military revolution on land was not far behind. Important new 'civilian technologies'
relevant for military application, as well as purely military technologies, started to appear by
the early nineteenth century and to accelerate in a cycle of invention, adaption, proliferation,
mass production, and obsolescence from about the time of the American Civil War onward.
Among the major inventions were:
Shrapnel's shell (1803), Appert's canning technique (1810), Forsyth's percussion lock (in
place of a flintlock (1807), and in the 1830s the copper cap that made Forsyth's invention of
practical military use (the principal attribute of the percussion cap was the certainty of firing
in all weathers).
George Stephenson constructed the first practical steam locomotive (1814), and with the
advent of the Stockton-Darlington railway line (1815), the Liverpool-Manchester (1830),
and the first trains and railway lines in Europe (1832), military technology moved to land
warfare.
The breech-loading Dreyse needle gun was invented (1829), ordered by the Prussian
government (1840), accepted as regular issue (1851), and finally fully demonstrated at the
battle of Koniggratz (1866). This cycle would later be compressed from a whole generation
to a few years.
Communication was revolutionized by Morse's telegraph (1832), the opening of the
Baltimore-Washington telegraph line (1844), the telephone (1877), Marconi's radio
(1895), and the first transatlantic radio call (1901). From here we leap to the teleprinter
radar computers, satellite communications, and the microchip.
Colt's automatic revolver (1835) was being mass-produced by 1853. New explosives
included nitroglycerine (1846), dynamite (1866), lyddite (1880s), cordite (adopted by the
British army in 1890), and melanite (1880s). There was a tremendous increase in firepower
with the invention of the Gatling gun (1862) and Maxim's machine gun (1882).
The first oil well was drilled near Titusville, PA, in 1859; Diesel invented the combustion
engine (1892) ; the first cars (Ford and Benz) appeared in 1893 ; and the first powered flight
took place in 1903. From here we advance to rocket propulsion and, finally, nuclear
weapons.
Clausewitz certainly should not be expected to have noticed the early signs of the
technological-industrial revolution. Although they can be clearly identified in retrospect,
they were not demonstrated on the battlefields of Europe during his lifetime. Not long after
his death, the gates of technology were opened and the flood of military inventions began,
never to cease again.
Michael Howard in his book Clausewitz (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983)
 CLAUSEWITZ IN THE AGE OF TECHNOLOGY 89

suggests that Clausewitz ignored technology unconsciously (p. 3). This is incorrect. Clause-
witz could not ignore something that did not exist as we know it today.
8. Edwin A. Pratt, The Rise of Rail Power in War and Conquest, 1833-1914 (Philadelphia:
J.B. Lippincott, 1916), p.2. See also John Westwood, Railways at War (London: Osprey,
1980); Dennis Showalter, Railroads and Rifles: Soldiers, Technology and the Unification of
Germany (Hamden, CT: Archon Books, 1975), Part I; also Pearton, The Knowledgeable
State; George E. Turner, Victori Rode the Rails: The Strategic Place of the Railroads in the
Civil War (New York: Bobbs Merrill, 1953).
9. Pearton, The Knowledgeable State, pp. 64-9; also Pratt, The Rise of Rail Power, pp. 1-14;
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Showalter, Railroads and Rifles, pp. 17-75.

10. Strachan, European Armies and the Conduct of War, 115; Showalter, Railroads and Rifles,
pp. 75-190. In Part 3 of this book Showalter discusses the development of modern cannons.
Gordon A. Craig, The Battle of Koniggratz: Prussia's Victory over Austria, 1866 (Phila-
delphia: J.B. Lippincott, 1964).
11. Jay Luvaas, The Military Legacy of the Civil War: The European Inheritance (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1950), p.226.
12. William James, quoted in Grant T. Hammond, 'Plowshares into Swords: Arms Races in
International Politics 1840-1941' (Ph.D. dissertation, Johns Hopkins University, 1975),
p. 26.
13. J.F.C. Fuller in Armament and History, pp. 115-16, writes: 'The nation which makes the
greatest use of peace intervals to advance its mechanical and engineering potentials for war,
and which possesses the greatest number of skilled workers as well as trained soldiers, and
the most abundant supply of raw materials, as well as of arms, is the nation upon which
victory smiles.'
14. For Delbrück's theories, see Hans Delbrück, Geschichte der Kriegkunst im Rahmen der
politischen Geschichte (Berlin: Georg Stilke, 1900-20). Also, Gordon A. Craig, 'Delbrück
the Military Historian' in E. M. Earle (ed.), Makers of Modern Strategy (Princton, NJ:
Princeton University Press, 1943), pp. 260-87; Richard H. Bauer, 'Hans Delbrück' in
Bernadotte Schmitt (ed.), Some Historians of Modern Europe (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1942).
15. See Arden Bucholz, Hans Delbrück and the German Military Establishment: War Images in
Conflict (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1985).
16. Aron, Philosopher of War, p.xiii, also pp.92-3.
17. Some scholars may argue that technology and economics are simply part of the environment
in which war is carried out. This interpretation - which may be represented by Clausewitz'
triangle enclosed by a circle (environment) - minimizes the qualitative differences which
result from the accumulation of quantitative changes.
18. Similarly, the timing and development by Marx and Engels of their theories on communism
and dialectical materialism is not a mere historical coincidence. Marx could not have
developed his specific form of communist theory before the industrial revolution. That
revolution, in fact, made the appearance of a theory like his almost inevitable.
19. J.F.C. Fuller, Armament and History, pp. 108, 121.
20. Ibid., p. 18. Although Fuller is far from being a Marxist, it is interesting to note how close he
comes to adopting a Marxist analysis of war. It is not surprising, therefore, to find that
Fuller's theories on war were favorably commented on and adopted by the British Marxist
and military analyst T.H. Wintringham. See, for example, his Weapons and Tactics
(Harmondsworth, England: Penguin, 1973).
21. Fuller read Clausewitz carelessly, but not as carelessly as Liddell Hart. See J. F. C. Fuller, The
Conduct of War 1789-1861, Ch. 4, 'The Theories of Clausewitz', pp.59-77. For Liddell
Hart's misperceptions of Clausewitz see Jay Luvaas' essay in this volume.
22. Clausewitz claimed that the successful achievement of surprise (on any level) depends on
secrecy and speed. The tremendous changes in mobility (that is, speed) since his time have
thus considerably improved the chances of obtaining strategic surprise even by his own
criteria. The second variable, secrecy, has not changed in any radical way since his own time
but is easier to counter.
23. Pearton, The Knowledgeable State, pp. 22-4. For the loss of control, deterioration to war,
and mobilization on the eve of World War, see Luigi Albertini, The Origins of the War of
 90 CLAUSEWITZ AND MODERN STRATEGY

1914, Vol. 3 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1967); Lawrence Lafore, The Longest Fuse
(Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott, 1965); Ludwig Reiners, The Lamps Went Out in Europe
(Cleveland: World Publishing Co., 1966); Alfred Vagts, Defense and Diplomacy, Ch. 10,
'Mobilization and Diplomacy', pp.377-437; Paul M. Kennedy (ed.), The War Plans of the
Great Powers 1880-1919 (Boston: Allen & Unwin, 1985).
24. See Thomas C. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict (Cambridge: Harvard University Press,
1965) and Arms and Influence (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966).
25. Pearton, The Knowledgeable State, p. 25.
26. Ibid., pp. 25-6.
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27. 'The enemy force can never assemble and advance so secretly that the defender's first news of
it would come from his outposts. If that were to happen, one could only feel very sorry for
him.' On War, p.454; see also pp.544 and 557.
28. Also pp. 200-1. On the tactical level Clausewitz saw the element of surprise as favoring the
defender not the attacker:
It is self-evident that it is the defender who primarily benefits from the terrain. His
superior ability to produce surprise by virtue of the strength and direction of his own
attacks stems from the fact that the attack has to approach on roads and paths on which it
can be observed; the defender's position, on the other hand, is concealed and virtually
invisible to his opponent until the decisive moment arrives. On War, p.361.
29. For a summary of the causes of strategic surprise and why it actually comes close to being
inevitable, see Michael I. Handel, 'Intelligence and the Problem of Strategic Surprise',
Journal of Strategic Studies, 7 (Sept. 1984), 229-82. Also Richard K. Betts, 'Analysis of War
and Decision: Why Intelligence Failures are Inevitable', World Politics, 31 (Oct. 1978),
61-89.
30. There is no comprehensive historical study of the impact on war of the development of
modern means of communication, from the telegraph and telephone through the radio and
television.
31. Tolstoy's view on the value of intelligence and the ability of military commanders to obtain
relevant information in time to control the course of events is even more pessimistic than
that of Clausewitz, though influenced no doubt by the same events.
See in particular Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1954);
W.B. Gallie, Philosophies of Peace and War: Kant, Clausewitz, Marx, Engels, and Tolstoy
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978).
32. See Handel, 'Intelligence and the Problem of Strategic Surprise', 229-82.
33. As suggested by Peter R. Moody, in 'Clausewitz and the Fading Dialectic of War', World
Politics, 31 (April 1979), 417-33. The meaning of this statement is as empty as the title of
the article (that is, dialectics by definition cannot fade away). The author admits to having
read an inadequate 'compilation' of Clausewitz' On War.) Even had intelligence been
perfect, friction would still exist on the battlefield in other, numerous, and unavoidable
ways. The physical world has not lost any of its friction since the days of Newton: nor has
the world of war since Napoleon.
34. Strachan, European Armies and the Conduct of War, p.96.
35. J.F.C. Fuller, Armament and History; T.H. Wintringham, Weapons and Tactics.
36. See also Gerhard Ritter's discussion in The Sword and the Scepter, Vol. 1, 'The Prussian
Tradition 1790-1890' (Coral Gables, FL: University of Miami Press, 1969), p.57. Ch. 3 is
on Clausewitz and Napoleon.
37. Ludendorff, The Nation at War, p.24.
38. Ibid., p.175.
39. General Sir Archibald Wavell, Generals and Generalship (London: Macmillan, 1941),
pp.27; 33-4.
40. Sir Gerald Ellison, The Perils of Amateur Strategy (London: Longmans, 1926), pp.99-100.
41. Wavell, p.23. Wavell emphasizes the modern general's need for administrative-
organizational skills — a dimension neglected by Clausewitz in the study of military leader-
ship. (See section IX below.)
42. During Napoleon's time, the French Army had already become much too large to be
effectively commanded by Napoleon himself, who consistently refused to delegate authority
 CLAUSEWITZ IN THE AGE OF TECHNOLOGY 91

to his subordinates. Given the size of the army, the scope of the problems, and the absence
both of adequate technology and of the organizational support a general staff provides -
Napoleon's insistence on maintaining centralized control inevitably led to his defeat. For
example, until 1812 Napoleon directed the military operations in Spain although he had not
been there since 1809. Strachan, European Armies and the Conduct of War, p.53.
43. Fuller, Armament and History, p. 118.
44. As W.B. Gallie points out, Clausewitz' concentration on the conduct of war itself, on its
management, prevents him from being seen as a political theorist in the mold of Hobbes,
Machiavelli, Locke, Montesquieu, and Rousseau:
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... A common ground of criticism of Clausewitz ... is that he takes war so entirely for
granted ... that he shows no positive interest in the particular kinds of social and political
situation that are liable to give rise to or prolong or intensify it; still less does he ask how
war might be contained or limited or eventually removed from the scene. In sum,
Clausewitz can be criticized, with some cause although not with real justice, for having
provided an enlightening anatomy of war — of its action as a whole and of the possible
movements of the separate parts — but without adding anything to our understanding of
its physiology — the vital forces that call it out and keep it in operation. Philosophy of
Peace and War, p. 62.
While Gallie correctly analyzes Clausewitz' limitations, the reader must recognize that many
of Clausewitz' ideas, particularly in Book I, Ch. 1 ; Book II, and Book VIII, are closely related
to major issues of political theory and would merit attention by political theorists, most of
whom have unfortunately ignored Clausewitz' work.
45. Donald Kagan, The Outbreak of the Peloponnesian War (Ithaca: Cornell University Press,
1969).
46. Jurg Martin Gabriel, 'Clausewitz Revisited' (Ph.D. dissertation, American University,
1971), 233.
47. Ritter, The Sword and the Scepter, Vol. 1, p.52.
48. See, for example, in this context Ludendorff, The Nation at War (in particular, Ch. 7, 'The
Nature of Totalitarian War', pp. 12-24); Eckart Kehr, Economic Interest, Militarism and
Foreign Policy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977); Arthur Lloyd Skop, 'The
Primacy of Domestic Politics: Eckart Kehr and the Intellectual Development of Charles E.
Beard', History and Theory, Vol. 13 (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1974),
pp. 119-32; James J. Sheehan, 'The Primacy of Domestic Politics: Eckart Kehr's Essays on
Modern German History', in Central European History, 1 (June 1968), 166-75.
49. The Marxists and hence Soviet military analysts seem to have a great deal of respect for
Clausewitz — among other reasons, because of his emphasis on the primacy of politics, his
dialectical method, the fact that Lenin read and favorably commented on On War, and the
connection Clausewitz makes in Book VIII, Ch. 36, between different economic and social
infrastructures and different military systems. See Donald E. Davis and Walter S.G. Kohn,
'Lenin's Notebook on Clausewitz', in David R. Jones (ed.), Soviet Arms Forces Review
Annual (Gulf Breeze, FL: Academic International Press, 1977), Vol. 1, pp. 188-229.
50. Ludendorff, Nation at War, pp. 143-4.
51. See, for example, Lesley Gelb and Richard K. Betts, The Irony of Vietnam (Washington : The
Brookings Institution, 1979).
52. This is at least the tacit and often the explicit assumption that Clausewitz makes in On War.
Clausewitz did recognize the changed role of the people in warfare since the outbreak of the
French Revolution:
In the eighteenth century, in the days of the Silesian campaigns, war was still an affair for
governments alone, and the people's role was simply that of an instrument. At the onset of
the nineteenth century, peoples themselves were in the scale on either side. The generals
opposing Frederick the Great were acting on instructions - which implied that caution
was one of their distinguishing characteristics. But no w the opponent of the Austrians and
Prussians was - to put it bluntly - the God of War himself.
Such a transformation of war might have led to new ways of thinking about it. (p. 583)
We will hardly find a more erroneous standard of measurement in history than that
 92 CLAUSEWITZ AND MODERN STRATEGY

applied in 1792. It was expected that a moderate auxiliary corps would be enough to end
a civil war; but the colossal weight of the whole French people, unhinged by political
fanaticism, came crashing down on us. (p. 518)
Since Bonaparte, then, war, first among the French and subsequently among their
enemies, again became the concern of the people as a whole, took on an entirely different
character, or rather closely approached its true character, its absolute perfection. There
seemed no end to the resources mobilized: all limits disappeared in the vigor and
enthusiasm shown by governments and their subjects, (pp.592-3)
While he recognized the new role of the people and levée en masse in war he did not address
the question of how the mobilization and increased participation and interest of the people
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in war came about. (At least not in his study On War.) This in reality, was one of the major
problems the Prussian military reformers had to address after their decisive defeats by
Napoleon at Jena and Auerstadt was how to mobilize the support of the German masses.
This was by no means a simple task since it involved an extensive political reform of the
autocratic Kingdom of Prussia. Peter Paret, Clausewitz and the State (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1976); Peter Paret, Yorck and the Era of Prussian Reform, 1807-1815 (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1966); W. Shanahan, Prussian Military Reforms (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1945); W. Simon, The Failure of the Prussian Reform Move-
ment, 1807-1819 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1955); Gordon A. Craig, The Politics
of the Prussian Army, 1640-1945 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1955); Ritter, The
Sword and the Scepter, Vol. 1.
53. Sun Tzu, The Art of War (Oxford : Oxford University Press, 1982), p.77. For an interesting
discussion of the meaning of victory in modern warfare, see Richard Hobbs, The Myth of
Victory: What is Victory in Warf (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1979).
54. Harkabi, Nuclear War and Nuclear Peace (Jerusalem: Israel Program for Scientific Trans-
lations, 1966), p.2.
55. Ibid., p.4.
56. Ibid., pp.5-6.
57. Thucydides, The History of the Peloponnesian War, trans. Richard Crawley, Rev. R.
Feetham (Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica, 1971), Bk. I, Ch. 3, p.370.
58. Quoted in Ludendorff, The Nation at War, p.67.
59. Michael Howard, Clausewitz, p.3.
60. Ibid.; see also Strachan, European Armies and the Conduct of War, p.52.
61. See Arden Bucholz, Hans Delbrück and the German Military Establishment.