 Good day. I'm Colonel Jerry Morlock, the Director of the Combat Studies Institute. You're about to use a video series which our instructors have prepared for the sole purpose of approving your presentation of M610, the Evolution of Modern Warfare. We've taken care to make the course that you teach as similar to the one taught at Fort Leavenworth as possible and choose to add these tapes to your libraries in order to give you every advantage as you prepare to teach this new course. These tapes are similar to the weekly train-up sessions which we utilize to prepare our instructors here at Fort Leavenworth. My intent for the tape sessions was to provide you insights and tips on ways to approach the lessons of M610 that were not available in the instructor notes. I've drawn various instructors, military and civilian into the sessions based upon their specific expertise and historical background. They were asked to just talk to the lesson structure and content, giving you some additional information on the historical context and differing views on how to approach the lessons. These tapes will provide you a wealth of knowledge and direction that will significantly improve your readiness to teach our new history course. One word of caution regarding how to use these training tapes, they are not designed to be substituted for your instruction during the individual lessons of the course. As instructor preparation tapes train the training material, if you will, they are inappropriate for direct instruction to students and are not intended for that purpose. Our intent with these tapes is to improve your ability to lead the students' seminars by sharing tips and advice from some highly qualified experts. The Combat Studies Institute stands ready to provide whatever additional expertise or assistance that you may require, and we've included the institute's phone, mail, and email contact information on the tape if you should need it. Good luck with the evolution of modern warfare course. Have a good time. Good day. I'm Dr. Sam Lewis with the Combat Studies Institute, and with me today are my friends and colleagues, Dr. Roger Spiller and Dr. George Gavrich. Today we'll be examining Lesson 4 on the military writings and ideas of Jomini and von Klosowitz. Up to this point we've been examining wars, great captains, campaigns in a chronological manner. Today we're going to examine two great theorists in the same lesson. We should not, however, be terrorized of this endeavor, and shortly we'll examine the nature of theory and ways of approaching theory. Regarding how to approach teaching this two-hour block, there are not too many different options. I'll tell you what I do. I devote the first hour to Jomini and his ideas and his significance. Mainly for the reason that he published first and Europe's response to his interpretation was the most immediate, and perhaps the most long-lasting. In the second hour I approach the ideas and works of Carl von Klosowitz, whose place in military history and theory we're still dealing with, which is not entirely resolved. To put this lesson and these two men in their perspective, I would like to return to late 1815, after Napoleon has been defeated at Waterloo, which will link us to last week's lesson, and Europe's diplomats, a symbol in Vienna, examine what has happened and what to do about it. They conclude that the French Revolution can never happen again, and they do everything they can, to ensure that that traditional disturber of the European peace of France is never allowed to be in a position again to threaten European stability. They all agree that the changes associated with the French Revolution must stop. There will be no further change, curious, ironic, but that's how people thought back then. That occurred in the political realm. In the military realm, it should not surprise us that men would emerge to make sense of these monumental wars, and the great captain himself, Napoleon, and what all was signified in the art of war. But before we jump into the ideas and life of Baron de Jomini, let's devote a few minutes to theory and its nature. Roger, would you like to address that? As Sam mentioned a moment ago, or at least alluded to, the reaction most instructors and students have to, the very mention of the word theory, is to tighten up perceptibly. The biggest challenge that an instructor and his or her students will have in this lesson is getting over theory anxiety. So for a couple of moments, I'd like to talk about theory itself in order to give the instructor at least one way to look at the whole subject of theory. First of all, you might begin by asking yourself, what is a theory and what does a theory do? What is it and what function does it serve? And if you examine this question of theory in its most general aspect, what you'll come up with is that it is a system, an explanation of a general phenomenon. Its function, let us say its use, is to explain something. Now, those of us familiar with theory in the modern age always think that a theory has to have the property of predicting some natural phenomenon, but it hasn't always been true. The first and foremost function of theory is to explain the phenomenon. And that is why perhaps both Baron Jomini and Genovan Klauswitz sought to do their work in the early 19th century, simply to explain the phenomenon of Napoleon which otherwise would have been mysterious to most people. Now, one of the ways I have of getting my students into the business of thinking about theory is to ask them to as quickly as possible identify any theory they can think of, non-military theory. It could be a scientific theory or it could be a social theory. And you might be surprised at how quickly such a list develops. Immediately you would come upon theories like the theory of relativity, you'd come upon quantum theory, Darwinian theory. In the non-scientific fields, someone inevitably will mention Marx's theory. Somebody perhaps from medicine or psychiatry and psychology would mention Freudian theory. And then you can talk perhaps about how each one of these has held up since its inception because that becomes an important question when you're thinking about theory at all. How is theory differentiated simply from history? The mark of a theory is that it rises, any kind of theory, is that it rises above its time and place. Otherwise it would have no utility for you at all. That is one way of discovering for yourself whether you're in the presence of a good theory or in the presence of a theory going sour on you. Does it hold up? Does it help you process information? So you're suggesting, for one thing, that we shouldn't be terrified too much of theory because there are all sorts of different theories and that in addition theories have shelf-lives? There's nothing sacred about a theory. If it no longer does the job, and the job of explaining is what I'm really suggesting, if it no longer does the job, you should without remorse discard it immediately. Sure. So perhaps one of the things we should be looking at not just today but through the remainder of the class are theorists and how long their theories have survived. We know already that Germany's theories, his explanations of Napoleonic practice, survived throughout most of the 19th century. One might even argue well into the 20th century if you look at modern-day conceptions of American military doctrine. We also know, for instance, that Klaus Wissian theory didn't catch on right away. That it wasn't until the late 19th century that it achieved a measure of some professional popularity and has gained rather steadily since then, but always in competition with the Zerminian theory. This is a really interesting aspect of this lesson that you can perhaps get your students into if they read both of the essays in the parade volume on these two thinkers. I think, too, another thing to consider is people approach theory and say it's abstract and unrelated to reality. A really good theory is something that's practical and useful. One way that I like to look at military theory in particular is the analogy of sports. When you look at coaches and the regular season when they go to another season, every so often they have to go back to the basics in the sport to get the team together and develop those skills that are necessary to win on the battlefield of sports. Well, in the military profession, you have to revisit what is your profession about, what are some of the basic questions that you have to answer as you prepare to wage war. I think military theory helps you to get at the essence of what is the profession about. Key issues of what is war, what's the environment of war like, because it affects how you lead, your troops, how you train them, and these are important intellectual things that need to be revisited in one's professional career. That's an interesting point and it leads to the notion that certain theorists will have different audiences for which they write, which we should also address. Well, let's look at the first of the theorists, Baron Jomini. The first question that we should ask, or at least have the students address, is who was he? What did he have to say? How much validity was there to his writings? Did it make any sense? The biography that's in the essay in Peter Parade's volume. That's the John Shy essay? Yes, the John Shy essay in the Makers of Modern Strategy. The organization of that essay is significant in that the organization of his essay is essentially the organization of our session here today. He tries to provide the historical context, the general historical context that Sam began the session with today, but then he talks about Jomini's biography. What he is really doing there is searching that biography for any clues that might give him a hint into a means of understanding what Jomini had to say. So your students might also be directed to look at that biography to see if there's anything that would lead them to believe that Jomini's thinking would have the outcome that it did. You can do exactly the same thing in Klauswitz and indeed it is done in your Klauswitz essay as well. So what are the clues then of Jomini's background and upbringing that we might want to emphasize in trying to understand what he wrote and when he wrote it? First, let's begin with the intellectual world in which he lived. Is there anything significant to... Well, both these men were born about the same time, wasn't it? It's up to 1989, 1790. And both had lives that were shaped and dominated by the French Revolution itself. Indeed. What sort of world did they live in? A world in which it was still possible for someone, let's say in the late 1790s, to know all of human knowledge if they had sufficient time and access to books. Like the founding fathers of our own nation, the intellectuals of the time, and I think both these men qualify, were supremely confident in their ability to explain the world around them and to produce theories that would predict human behavior. Or at least explain it. So like our founding fathers, both these military theorists were profoundly confident in their own ability to know and predict. It was a great age of system building and theory building. People believed that knowledge that didn't seem to be related, pieces of knowledge that didn't seem to be related, one piece to the other, could be made understandable if they could be related one to the other. So you take things that do not appear to belong to one another and put them together and organize them in a certain way. You advance knowledge at the same time you're cataloging knowledge. This is a great age for doing all that. It seemed to dominate all intellectual life at the turn of the century. I think it's interesting too to note that the military, the senior leaders, intellectuals could easily mingle with the civilian sector, that there was interchange of ideas across the board. People were not compartmentalized saying, I'm a military professional and I'm only going to think about military subjects. They drew upon thought from other disciplines, other fields, which made for a richness of thought within the military field. Military professionalism is really a very crude state of development at this period of time. You see just the front edges of professionalism. The first military schools are being established in France and in the United States and in England as well. But there seems to be a broad among professional soldiers or lifelong soldiers, regular soldiers, whatever term you'd like to use. The idea that if you possess certain qualities, not necessarily intellectual qualities, you could make a fine soldier all the same. You didn't necessarily have to think much about it. Well, that in itself suggests several ideas, doesn't it? Maybe we haven't run across any great theorists before these two because there is not a professional group of officers who need to know these things, but all of a sudden there is a new social group, professionalized officers who need a code, who need their own journals, which Dr. Spillman has just mentioned. Germany himself is a profound significance just for this reason because he basically established the vocabulary that armies use to this day but mass, lines of operation, centers of gravity. He sort of codifies all that. Germany is born in Switzerland. Krasovitz is born in a small village south of Berlin. Neither one comes from the high aristocracy. They come from basically middle class backgrounds, which may or may not be of significance, I don't know. Anything else about the intellectual world in which they live that we should address? It was a revolutionary world. They, in fact, considering when they were born, were children of the revolution. The classes from which they came were not normally those that contributed large numbers of professional officers to their countries. In one respect, Germany could be regarded as an opportunist, a thruster, and a professional revolutionist were it not for his compulsion throughout his whole life to attain a status of high substance in the regimes that he served. And in the latter part of his life, it didn't matter much which regime he served so long as he served it well. He liked to play the free agency field. He was very much the free agent. And this was not unless your students be misled by his jumping from one side to another after 1813, which I think John Shai explains very well in his essay. This was not at all an uncommon act for a lifelong soldier to jump from one master to another. But that, too, I think, is an element of military professionalism. So long as you do your job well and professionally, it doesn't much matter who you do it for as long as you do it well. I think the thing that's interesting is all the dramatic changes that are taking place not only in the electoral field, but if you look at the French Revolution and the nature of politics, economic development is taking place. And for guys like Germany and Klaus Witz, you have now the emergence of a master, a new master on the battlefield who has to be interpreted, has to be understood. And Germany latches himself onto the French Army and he is probably more optimistic. He's trying to explain success. He's under the aura of the success of Napoleon and what's the keys to him. And he sees a system because each individual has a system, a pattern of behavior, and he's trying to capture that and using Frederick II as another example to help him to understand Napoleon. On the other side, you'll see Klaus Witz who has to face this dreaded individual who's wrecking havoc throughout Europe and he suffers defeat. So I think those are important events in both these people's lives that shape how they approach the era around them. I'm doing everything I can not to... Jump into Klaus Witz, right? Not to jump into Klaus Witz. But as you can see just from our discussions it's virtually impossible not to compare the two. Roger has introduced the idea of important influences upon Germany and Germany's personality, which should be addressed. The three of us have already agreed that we do not want to go over factual material that's already in your readings. But at this point you might want to compare the personalities and the experiences of these two theorists and see how much mileage you can get out of that. Gentlemen? I agree, I agree. There are two very different men. You shouldn't be misled and you shouldn't allow your students to be misled and thinking that just because both of these men are roughly classified as theorists because they had the effect that they did because they were both... And born at the same time? Born at the same time. Shaped by the French Revolution? Shaped by the same continental influences that they are the same men. They are very different, very different kinds of men. I mentioned a moment ago that Germany was something of an opportunist. I didn't mean that necessarily in a pejorative way. Opportunism is also something new. One of the features of warfare at the turn of the century in the Napoleonic era is that it includes vastly greater numbers of people than warfare ever had before in the West, at least. And also the upheavals of society meant that the opportunities for social mobility were that much greater. The opportunities being there, opportunists will be found to take them. Karl von Klauswitz is much different, much different in that respect. He may be interested in his own personal goals. He does certainly want to attain something individually, intellectually, and professionally. But at the same time, he does it within, I think, a much more restricted ambit than does Germany. Germany seems to know no border and no preference for a master. Whereas Klauswitz, for all his intellectual adventurousness, nevertheless spends his entire life in the service of the Prussian state and king. Of course, how he's regarded during that has its ups and its downs, but it's still within the service of the king. So these are two very different men, two very different minds looking at essentially the same phenomenon. And you can really exercise your students. Each will leave the service. Each will leave the service. And for different reasons, you might want to bring that up in front of your students. Yeah, what were those reasons? Those different reasons alone could lead you into a very good discussion of comparison between the two men. Very good. The one thing that struck me about, if you compare the two, Germany forms a lot of his ideas early on and then just refines them. If you look at Klauswitz, he dies still trying to revise a major work. He's concerned about discovery of truth, self-enlightenment, and then the spin-off of that for others. So you have to admire his dedication just to understand, whereas I think Germany was more in terms of action and getting his ideas across to people and making sure that he benefits from that. He's not willing to sit in the basement and discover truth toward the end of his career. He's still working on being known. Let's go ahead and jump ahead and look at some of the key ideas of Germany and their significance to us. I think if Germany were here with us today, he would say, my ideas on warfare are true and they are simple. That one should hurl mass along a line of operation towards an object which the enemy holds dearly. And he would call that center of gravity or decisive point. And that this offensive action should provide all the circumstances for victory. End of subject. Gosh, that is awfully simple, isn't it? Is there any truth to it? Germany's been accused of being the ultimate reductionist in that he takes the exceedingly complex subject of war and boils it down to the simple statement of hurling your mass upon a decisive point overwhelming fractions of the enemy. This is extremely appealing, extremely appealing to an audience that is to say those who spend their lives in and thinking about war but who haven't gotten to Germany's point yet. It simplifies beyond all measure and takes the mystery, essentially removes the mystery from war, removes the mystery from Napoleonic war, how Napoleon did what he did. He has a special way of getting around Napoleon whom everyone seems to agree, even after Waterloo in 1815, was at least, if not a political, certainly a military genius. And that is how he gets around the problem of Napoleonic war. So he separates the genius of war from the technique of war and he simplifies it, boils it down to its simplest possible factors. And even as late as the American Civil War, American generals were repeating this even if they had not read any of Germany's works, were repeating this falling by masses upon decisive points by greater fractions than those possessed by the enemy, as almost as if it was a mantra, as if it were the key to success, the magic button. And the one thing if you left everything else out that you had to do in order to win, extremely appealing, extremely appealing. And it counts, I think, a great deal for Germany's popularity throughout the 19th century and even down to the present day. If you pick up FM 100-5, some of the earlier editions, certainly, you'll see that a lot of military operations, the requirements, are reduced down to lists, checklists. And everybody is looking still to this day for the magic button. It's a search that will probably go on forever. Germany believed that his insight was just that, that he had thought of this as early as 1798. And then he lived for a very long time until the age of 90. He doesn't die until 1869, so longevity has a lot to do with it. You spend a long life defending your original position. One of the things you better ask your students, or at least challenge your students about, is how legitimate can Germany's ideas be if they all derive from a flash of insight without any study or reflection or precious little of it? How legitimate is this idea? Even though he's managed, he's a very clever fellow, very intelligent and also industrious fellow, he's managed for the rest of 60 years of his life to defend his positions. How legitimate is it? Is that the way you would do it today? Is that the way we would do it today? Klausus doesn't do it that way. It does it precisely the opposite way. And there's another great difference between the two. One is inductive and the other is deductive. How are we to understand the pervasiveness of Germany's thought in the 19th century in spite of all this? I think one thing is he focused on trying to be practical, giving some insights into what you need to win on the battlefield, which appealed to officers. He's geared, I think, toward commanders in what he's writing about. Once you win on the battlefield, you win by massing. And how do you mass? He'll explain a little bit of that. Say it's not that easy then to figure out what you're going to do with the mass. Then he says, well, you can go either right, left or down the middle. It's not that complicated. And by writing about the profession, simplifying into more of a science, he gives it credibility. He makes it an intellectual endeavor, a scientific endeavor, which is appealing to officers because they're living in a scientific era. And it makes them feel more as professionals that could say we're professionals like other professions because of this knowledge that Germany is giving us. That's of a scientific nature, and it's simplified. I think one of the things that one could keep in mind for those who like this idea of principles of war is that... In fact, we owe the principles of war, too. Germany. That when you come to what we call low-intensity conflict, revolutionary wars, wars like in Spain, he feels very uncomfortable with this principle. And he says, well, it really doesn't apply well. So that already gives you an idea that by his reductionism, he does realize a bit the limitations of that across the spectrum of conflict. I think you're also suggesting that he knows his audience. And he's already alluded to the idea that he wanted to take Napoleon and Paul attacks out of warfare, out of this 20 years of war. In a sense, he reflects the values of his audience, the newly emerging professional officer class. Guerrilla war, what does he have to say about that? Well, it exists. I hope you don't ever have to fight it because, well, gentlemen really don't do that sort of thing. It's a guerrilla war is also not... Klausus talks about this in some respect, too, and reaches something like the same conclusion, although there's some discussion on the business of what is called people's war in those days. When Germany spoke of people's war, he seemed to approach it in such a way that this... Well, this was a very unpleasant business, but it was not the sort of thing a gentleman participated in, certainly not a gentleman soldier. It was beneath, really, soldierly operations and had more to do with police activity than with classical orthodox military operations. He tried to make it sound as though it was really beneath soldiers, but with the experience of Napoleon's peninsular campaign behind him, he'd hardly do that. So, the most that he could say was simply that it was something to be avoided at all costs. He never even tried to imply that he understood people's war. Klausus approached people's war in much the same way. Not in a dismissive way. He simply admitted that he didn't much understand it. And there's some reason to think that when Klausus was talking about people's war, he was not only referring to the peninsular campaign of Napoleon, but also to discussions held inside Prussia at the time, essentially after the defeat of Prussia at Jena-Arstadt, to the idea of a popular uprising inside the German states. This is a point not yet proved, not completely researched, but he had a slightly more expansive view of people's war than Germany did. In many cases, people's war seemed to represent to these theorists the absence of reason in the conduct of war. Reason is an element that is critical to both of these theorists, even though they deal with it in quite a different way. War to them, the highest expression of war was war as an expression of reason, man's reason, an application of intelligence to the conduct of war in the service of the state. Today there is a debate raging with an intellectual circle about the nature of theory and the divergence between theory that simplifies and reduces phenomena as opposed to theory that allows for greater and greater degrees of complexity. In this realm, Carl von Klauswitz is obviously far more of a complex thinker than Germany. We've already introduced a number of ideas about Carl von Klauswitz and his works. Background, the intellectual world in which he lived, not that much different from Germany. His experience, however, and his personality would seem to differ considerably, and I would suggest looking into that a good deal in classroom discussion. Germany always needs a shield, a general, to protect him, to look after his interests. His shields weren't that reliable and weren't that good, however. No. Germany's patron, most famous patron is, well, I should say his first and most famous patron would be Marshal Ney, who had read one of Germany's early pieces and eventually took him on to his staff as what was then called a gentleman volunteer, which means simply that he had a presumptive rank of a staff officer, but of course could not command, certainly could not command French or auxiliary troops. This was roughly a kind of between status for Germany who always thought he thirsted after the role of the commander. He never did command troops in battle. Then Napoleon took him up. Germany himself is the best source for this, and in several conversations, of course, with Napoleon, according to Germany, Germany always comes out on the better end of the two as at least the superior thinker of war. You may regard these stories with a good deal of suspicion, and because, among other things, because of his ambiguous status in all the armies in which he served, Germany might be best thought of as a fellow who earned his living with his pen, and he was prodigious, 34 books. I believe so. 34 books in all in the course of his life. Some of them bearing a suspicious resemblance to other books that he had written, and in 1838 he goes so far as to reduce everything he's written to appraise a summary of the art of war, which becomes perhaps the best-selling military theoretical textbook in the 19th century. He does this with the express purpose of increasing his bank balance, not necessarily to advance the state of military knowledge. Well, he has to write for a living. He has to write for a living. Whereas Klauswitz does not. Would my students like to dismiss Germany I'll use their words as a cowardly staff puke? Any truth to this? No, there's no... In a few opportunities he had to show or to demonstrate his courage, his presence of mind on the battlefield, he was not found wanting. He was at several especially severe battles. Particularly he was with Marshal May at the Battle of Bobson in 1813 and was pretty far up front. Germany has had a bad press from one part of the professional community even while he was alive. Napoleon's chief of staff, Marshal Berthier, hated Germany's guts and did everything he could to foil the advance of Germany and the affections of the emperor and indeed in the advancement in rank. It's one of the reasons Germany decamped after the Battle of Bobson in 1813 and went over to the Russian side in the service of the Tsar where he remained for the rest of his life in various guises and statuses. One thought that crosses my mind as I listen to both of you in comparing Germany and Klauswitz is that Germany is with Napoleon who is successful. He's often with people who are acting. Whereas Klauswitz gets in with a circle of people who are very contemplative as well as actors. Scharnhorst, a bright intellectual mind. A resume that he brings with him to Prussia that has him as editor of a journal. And the thing I think you could ask yourself and officers you're with when you're talking about this subject is how much is the military profession a thinking profession? How much is it? Just tell me what to do. Just give me the mission statement. Just give me a few techniques on how to fight on the battlefield. Or how much is the mind involved? And I think for Klauswitz he's trying to get people to think. And his theory is designed to be systematic in helping you to go through this complexity of called war. This challenge of war. This frightening animal called war. And to be able to weave and think through that on your own and reach some enlightenment as you go along. Jean Monnie is trying to reach a profession that's very busy doesn't have time to think and trying to reduce things that make some sense and give you some confidence as you go in. But again he understands that there are limitations when he's pushed against the wall. And I think one thing you could ask is how much is the intellect important in the profession? How much is it important to find time to reflect about the profession? Think about what it means as you prepare to act. There's an important point in there George. One is that and it's another key difference between these two theorists. Jean Monnie was not part of a circle. He had no way to test his ideas. He considered no one is equal in military thought. He gave no one credit for any good ideas but himself. He was essentially a self-taught military theorist, an autodidact. And an outsider. And an outsider, perpetually an outsider. A Swiss first in the service of the French and then in the service of the Tsar and then he ends his life back in Paris. Closets on the other hand came up by his native intelligence and talent. Had the fortune, the good fortune of being adopted by people who saw his intellectual qualities and just at the right time when he achieved his maturity and had done his regimental duties as a junior officer in cadet. He has the good fortune to become involved in a military salon. A circle of military students of very high rank down to intermediate rank whose stated objective was to discuss, examine and understand the great military problems facing Russia of the time. From a very early age it was his business to do this and in this business he was supported by a group of like-minded officers or if not like-minded. Even ministers. Even ministers. The military were involved in that society. And this was a decidedly liberal group within the confines, the restricted confines and Prussian politics at the time. So within the Prussian army Closets and his confederates in that famous military salon the Militia Gershelshaft was looked upon as something of a raving liberal. The other thing about this salon was that today a lot of my students immediately stereotyped this group of officers in this military circle as a bunch of pointy-headed intellectuals who would never get their boots dirty at all. Nothing could be further from the truth. Those men who were members of this military salon were men of wide and direct experience from their earliest youth as indeed was Closets himself. I believe he saw combat at the age of 12. At the age of 12, his first combat and his confederates in this military salon were men very much of that kind. They saw no disjuncture between a thinking soldier and an acting soldier. This is something relatively new in military history. Correct me if I'm wrong, but let's say you had a major problem of an enemy with a very good army led by a very good commander and you asked the question, well, how are we going to solve the problem of defeating him? If you go to Germany, he'll probably think of what can the military profession change? It's commanders to beat this guy in the battlefield. If you go to Closets, he would look at, well, what about the political side of things? What about the economic side of things? We can't just look at military subjects and that's what made them so revolutionary because they realized that to fight Napoleon you had to create a government of the people, for the people and not just fight the old army of the Prussian kings. You had to create a national army. You had to give a reason for these people other than just paying discipline. I would like to devote some time to Closets's key ideas and the strengths or weaknesses that his work might have. Any thoughts there? I think this, in my view, certainly the best known most widely quoted of Closets's ideas is his definition of the relationship between war and policy. The word policy has given interpreters of Closets no end of trouble. Especially among Americans, sometimes this word also in German, it can mean either policy or politics. Among Americans, when you mention the word politics, there's an almost Pavlovian reaction and it is not a favorable one. So I would suggest when you're talking to your students about this connection between war and politics that you employ the word policy, most of the instances in the original German text where this term is used, policy is the translation you come out with in English and not politics as an American might use it. He simply said that war is a political instrument that is a continuation of politics and he elaborates upon that definition in several different ways that are very important to the subsequent development of his theory. But Americans in particular and even in the present day I think have a great deal of difficulty coming to grips with the notion that military action must always be subordinated to the dictates of policy and that if it is not what you essentially have is violence without reason. War that is not animated by a guiding objective. In other words incensate violence to no purpose at all. It's policy that gives purpose to war. That I think is the single most important and certainly best known idea in Klaus Witz's writing. And I think there is always the danger to say just identify the political objectives and let the army go and this is not what Klaus Witz is saying because it's a dynamic relationship and policy changes as the war progresses. You have to make decisions. For example it's a policy decision how much do you mobilize the society? Do you go guns and butter or do you do a total mobilization? Sometimes a total mobilization is a decision made in war. If you're fighting a short war like against Iraq the policy decision is made we cannot allow Israel to get involved in the war because we have to divert valuable military resources to prevent Iraq from hitting Israel. Schwarzkopf would rather have those assets to go directly against the Iraqis and protect our soldiers by putting more ordinance on the Iraqis. But for political reasons we cannot allow the coalition to break apart because that could hurt our conduct of the war. Policy decision is made we need to assign aircrafts and patriot missile batteries to Israel, protect itself without having to get involved by itself. So it's a dynamic relationship and in policy it means decisions made that how you use force throughout the war it involves diplomacy as well because you want diplomacy to be conducted in the conduct of war as well. That's an excellent point. The dynamic relationship you speak of between politics and war is a relationship that typifies Klauswitz's theory whereas Germany attempts to freeze war in its place to paint a single-dimension texture of it as though once you learn it you have to learn no more war will never change as long as you get the basic rules and principles down you've got it. It's inherently simple. It's inherently simple and every war is the same way in Klauswitz dynamism is the key under Klauswitz's theory one of the most remarkable things about this theory is that it allows war to continue to move. It insists that war is protein in nature that it will always change and it will always challenge even the highest level of intelligence in keeping it in check that is to say within the bounds of reason or policy that's what that's what another very great difference between Germany and Klauswitz Germany freezes war Klauswitz insists that war moves it's very difficult to construct a theory that is to say to keep the phenomenon at least under check long enough so that you can paint a picture of it and still allow it to move. It's very difficult and not many would be hard pressed to name a theorist to pull off this hat trick but Klauswitz does it in the way he constructs his theoretical system in a way I think if you look at for example the Vietnam war from a German or Klauswitzian point of view Germany might ask well what was the war of the political objectives at the beginning did we have them and did we strive to attain them Klauswitz would say well you start out with certain objectives the dynamic of the war changes the enemy forces you to adapt critique the changes that you make in strategy in the employment of tactics throughout the war were they the best given the new situation as it's evolving rather than go back to the origins and say well if you didn't start out right you blew it Klauswitz also introduced the idea of friction what is the significance of friction it's an essential element of the dynamism that George was speaking of if you insist that war is always moving movement always creates friction he described as part of the atmosphere of war not only friction but physical exertion danger and military intelligence those four things put together compose the world in which war exists and on top of this something that George mentioned a moment ago this interactivity this constant interactivity between the two sides at least two sides of war creates a tendency of wars constantly to escalate to exert to the exertion of more and more force theoretically theoretically this doctrine of extremes could take you to a point that Klauswitz called absolute war absolute war can there ever be such a thing no and why not because of friction friction operates I think someone say an electrician would say that friction works as impedance works it prevents an escalation to absolute extremes so why do you throw it in there you threw it in there you threw the whole idea of absolute war into his theory it's an old trick of philosophers all the way back to Plato you imagine the perfect thing so that you can describe the real thing okay so we're not dealing with an ordinary an ordinary thinker here with Klauswitz we're dealing with someone who does handle complexity in the army writing manual in the army writing style to start off with leading edge up front and state your thesis Klauswitz doesn't like that he will start off with a case a thesis let's say look at it and say that's not quite right you know move on to something that may be better which you'll call the antithesis examine it see its strengths that's not quite right and yet come up with the third point where Willary wants to be the synthesis and that again returns to George's point of the dynamic a dynamic not only in war but a dynamic in the thought process so when we read Klauswitz we should not stop with that first idea that he introduces certainly not he's testing himself his whole book in a way is a testing out loud in my view in no other theorist is the connection between the structure of his work and the content of his work so intimately related at the beginning of Klauswitz's great work on war he says that most of this is just a shapeless mass of ideas about how I'm going to end up with this theory I'm really dissatisfied with this I'm going to do this all over again it looks as though scholars who've examined the manuscripts very closely have concluded that Klauswitz wrote his way all the way from book one through book eight and then started over again and got just about through book one when he died he most satisfies Klauswitz you look at books one and book eight books four, five, six and seven are best regarded as case studies or cases in point in which he tests the ideas that he's laid down in the first three books so the structure of this book the way in which he wrote this book is a key to interpreting what is in the book and what parts of the book to take most seriously and what parts of the book to approach with a degree at least of caution absolutely right the one thing that strikes me too about Klauswitz going back to friction we often have slogans in the army and we don't really think about the implications of them and goes back to that combat at the age of twelve one thing that strikes me about Klauswitz when a soldier matters he has in his theory a place for what happens with individual soldiers in that chapter on danger danger discusses the first combat that a soldier experiences the fear marching into battle and seeing the officers around just starting to duck because they've got experience of combat before that forms part of the friction it's not a friction at the political level it can be there yeah it's everywhere throughout the whole system at all levels and here he's dealing with politics what is war but yet he comes back down to the soldier at the point of the arrow at the cutting of the blade and that's also very important in him and you ask yourself do you control that environment President Clinton should think when he commits people into Bosnia when the shooting starts or can he control that environment or is he going to have to react to when the shooting starts Klauswitz is often accused of being a cold fish the arch-typical passionless commentator on the philosophy of war in my judgment nothing could be further from the truth and the chapter the chapter in book one I believe danger in war is as good an argument against that interpretation as any I can think of there's a passage in that chapter after he describes the young soldier and I think he's describing himself in his first combat he talks about when he finally reaches when he finally reaches a firing line there's a passage there that is significant to him personally but also to his general theory he says here on the firing line here the light of reason is refracted altogether different from that which is normal in academic speculation when you are thinking about war you must think about things like friction things not happening on time physical exertion danger these things are not normal with subjects for academic speculation war escaping human control war escaping reason and bloodless operations no such thing well we have already introduced two elements of the paradoxical trinity and you just mentioned the third element of the paradoxical trinity violence he says that war is inherently violent is he belaboring the obvious there no I don't think so because people who are not familiar with soldiering I sometimes surprise that there's death and destruction when soldiers are committed general strive sometimes to win quickly decisively with few casualties and then when the fighting starts and people are being killed left and right they're shocked by it people don't come to groups with what really soldiering is about ultimately is to use weapons in violence to kill and be killed and if that's the essence of war and it's true why is it we so often talk about war on the streets or against poverty all these kinds of different notions we have of war but for the profession of arms I think you have to ask yourself what is really my profession about and it's ultimately when people see people in uniform with weapons which is what soldiers have it's to wage war and then what is war how much is death and destruction there how much can you control that environment because it shapes how you prepare leaders how you prepare soldiers to fight do you give them easy solutions and expect them to work or do you give them clear understanding of what they're going to face when they have their first shots thrown at them and how they're going to have to weave their way through so I think the question of what is war is an essential one because it shapes how you look at your profession how you prepare for it what kind of vibe you send to people around you and people underneath you how you prepare them mentally for it it's important to remember too that military practice the practice of warfare has just passed through a period in which professional soldiers such as the Marshal of the Sacks profess to be able to live out his entire career without ever fighting a battle simply to win wars by by virtue of maneuver an approach to war that some of our generals during the American Civil War was accused of notably George B. McClelland among others a great old maneuver not too much on coming to grips on the battlefield of course we could not we could not have fought out our civil war in such a way but this idea has a very long tradition at least running back 100 years before the battle of Waterloo was fought certainly since the early 1700s military historians usually refer to this as the great age of limited war limited in how what ways limited in their political objectives certainly but also limited in their methods limited finally in the result of those wars leading many people to believe well if the shelf life of victory is so short why the hell should we fight the war to begin with what's the good in it and this is certainly a question that the masses of Western Europe were beginning to ask themselves why should we why should we make our bodies to battles that mean nothing at all as far as our welfare is concerned so we come back to this notion of the revolution it's a revolution in warfare certainly but these two men are trying to explain and it's also a revolution in society in your subsequent lessons you will hear a lot about the military revolution of the 19th century and what is usually meant by that is the technical revolution the advent of rifled weaponry and how that changed the shape of the battlefield it's certainly true and there's no need to denigrate that idea at all but you must always keep in mind that it was accompanied by revolution even greater in extent and longer lasting than that technical revolution and that is the democratic revolution so the democratic and the technical revolution were the twin revolutions that these two men were attempting to make sense out of during this period gentlemen, any remarks regarding these conceptions regarding either one or both of these theorists one for Klausus, I think you mentioned it Roger is that he's a warmonger, advocates total war that's far from the truth absolute war is something you can never attain it's an intellectual device that he uses and it's an intellectual device that makes sense he said, the farther you move away from approaching absolute war the more the war will seem political the closer you get to absolute war the more you'll see the military and the political working together and then more it will seem the military will be the most important but it's an intellectual construct to help you to go through the spectrum of war but you can never attain absolute war he doesn't advocate using all force for the word go because he knows it's natural to have constraints social constraints, political constraints he's not an advocate of total war he even sees war solves very little often what happens is the person who's defeated will just find ways to work against you for the next conflict there's one idea that we haven't discussed and it's been the origin of a great deal of discussion in military theoretical circles for the past seven or eight years and that has to do with the continued relevance of Klauswitz particularly with regard to what he called it has been translated as the paradoxical trinity some people translate this as the strange trinity simply meaning that it's unusual both your essays on Germany and Klauswitz address the paradoxical trinity which you should not let your students get out of the room if they go out of the room saying that the trinity consists of the army, state and nation that is certainly not true you need to look very closely at the passages in the parade essay on Klauswitz to see just what this trinity was you'll see a lot of people even who are in the business of theorizing today questioning whether or not the trinity can any longer contain the modern permutations of present-day conflict so that's still an idea very much up in the air so the great misconception of Klauswitz and Germany too may be that we've outgrown theory, we have not or alternatively that we've outgrown these particular theories well that may be a question for your class to answer not for us very good thank you for joining us today I would like to say one or two brief words about this lesson the first time I had to teach this lesson seven or eight years ago I faced it with trepidation as an economy of theory in general over the years most of that trepidation has slipped away try to have some fun with the lesson don't be terrified of it there are indeed many different theorists and many different theories we should learn to deal with them thank you for joining us doctors, thank you