USAWC expert discusses Clausewitz

okay soundcheck and you'll hear me in the back everybody good whoo up good okay again I'm still Jim Ellis I still chair deenis welcome back from from a long weekend I know a lot of time was put into papers for for some of you this weekend but it also was kind of still early in the school year cuz on a Monday after a four-day weekend the first folks started trickling in here at 8:15 so that that's good everybody's buddies still in the game okay we're going to talk this morning for about 30 minutes and talk about Carl von Clausewitz and on war and so today we talk about who is Klaus but who's the man what was his life what were his experience this what shaped his thoughts as he put together this this work on war then talk about a little bit about actually how he constructed it and wrote it how he put it together I think we all know that it is an incomplete work he never finished it so what we have is editing and put it to put it edited what was edited after his death so we'll talk about that and then we'll talk about some of the key ideas to kick around over the next couple of days as we look at Clausewitz now why do we why do we study Klaus was can give particular attention to him one reason if you look straight and joint joint doctrine it says we are a Klaus what's the enforce so what does that mean to us how his Klaus was shaped American strategic and military thought another is he is get is considered like the acidities one of the classics and the work addresses everything from tactics to operations to the strategic level now some of it is very contemporaneous to his time but some there are some lasting lessons from it that endure that still apply today even in a post 9/11 era where we're moving away from state state conflict and looking more at non-state actors and intrastate conflict that that there are still principles and Clausewitz that apply today to our business so who is Clausewitz Prussian for in 1780 in Berg his father had been a lieutenant under Frederick the Great following the wars in demobilization became a mid-level official for the Internal Revenue Service his dad was attacked Collector basically now he entered service at age 12 in 1792 in the infantry so eyes first campaigning in 1793 in the Rhineland campaign when the Prussians were fighting against in the wars against revolutionary France so he is off to war at a very very young and very early age and again first campaigning you know picture this they subaltern essentially at age 13 who get in continues to serve in the military until his death in 1831 now after the Rhineland campaign the regiment returns to to garrison and at that point Klaus whoops begins a life of both formal and more importantly self development at self education he was a true model of an autodidact a true model of a lifelong learner the commander of the regiment and the royal patrons of the regiment believed in education the importance of education the regiment actually ran classes for children of the of the nearby communities Clausewitz as the young officer almost certainly taught those classes the officers also engaged in formal classes themselves they had access to libraries to the arts to opera to music and they were expected to undertake what today we will call a broad liberal education which encompassed the arts the sciences philosophy history and so on and so he is a a self learner from a very early age in 1801 he is appointed to the first Academy of the nucleus Academy the war Academy established in Berlin it's a three-year program he graduates in 1804 is number one in his class so showing at a very early age the intellect and the thinking skills to think about war across the spectrum from the tactical to the strategic levels while he's at the creeks Academy he begins what is also a lifelong effort of writing and publication and he starts to write about military theory at the time and he's critical of it because he believes that it is a it is too linear it is too narrowly focused and and this idea of military theory will stay with him all this life and it will culminate and it magnum opus on war after graduation from the creeks Academy he is assigned as an adjutant to a Grenadier battalion that is commanded by a prince in 1806 during the ANA campaign the battalion is about when Napoleon's army essentially destroys the Prussian army in a matter of hours as the Prussian army retreats colossal Woods's battalion is left as part of the rearguard force they essentially fight until surrounded and out of ammunition and are forced to surrender the Prince because he's royalty is is taken prisoner of war along with his adjutant Clausewitz and they're taken to France they're not paroled they're not really held as prisoners of war but in the the spirit of the times they're held essentially as not quite hostages until the peace agreement is formally signed between France and Prussia now while in France he's not interred or under arrest he has allowed some freedom of movement and is allowed to travel and Clausewitz gets to observe firsthand not just what he has read but first hand the revolutionary changes wrought in France and he's able to see the administrative the economic the political the psychological the military mobilization of the French state essentially he's able to see a modern state totally mobilized for war when he is paroled finally in 1808 and returns to Prussia he becomes part of a small group of officers who begin working on reforms within the Prussian military and within the Prussian state that Prussia is trying to cope with and figure out how was pressure with this great law military history defeated by Napoleon and this what they believed to be revolutionary rabble and Clausewitz can come back and say it is not that's not what it is what we've seen is a modern state and if we're can continue to compete in the world we and Prussia have to reform in this period 1808 to 1812 Clausewitz works on everything from equipment he can understand defense enterprise management doctrine training and again thinking about strategy national strategy and the strategic level of war he is operating a completely across the spectrum working for senior officers now note he's about 28 29 years old at this time at that time most of at 8 28 or 29 we're trying to cope with how to be successful company battery troop commanders he's coping with national level issues so again a precociousness above his years he has some in the Prussian hierarchy who are mistrustful of him believe that that he may be dangerous because he may be importing revolutionary ideas from France he may have drank some of the kool-aid at the same time he has important patrons and he's a scientist the military tutor to the Crown Prince I'm part of bringing up the prince is preparing him to be king Clausewitz is assigned the responsibility for preparing the future king to deal with his role as commander in chief in military matters 1812 he breaks with the Prussian state the Prussians under pressure from Napoleon agreed to allow Napoleon to use pressure as a base of operations for the upcoming campaign against Russia and provided a core for the Grand Army now remember when Napoleon goes into Russia it is not a French army it is a true multinational army with units from throughout they caught the conquered Empire that France is building in Europe he breaks to the Prussian state he actually wrote a short paper saying you know we did not have to system to to succumb to political pressure we could have taken to the hills in effect fall but today we would call a guerrilla war or an insurgency as a way of opposing the French but we sacrificed our National Honor he couldn't live with it so he in effect defect to the Russian side offers his services to the Czar he's his services were accepted he comes into the Russian army his role is going to be limited in in in the Russian War why might that be doesn't speak Russian yeah it's kind of limits your role in the Russian force but he is able to act as an adviser he observes the great battles at Borodino he writes a good account of the French crossing of the Berezina River in the winter during the retreat so he documents the war some some key episodes of the war key role he played was in negotiating the defection or the counter defection if you will of that Prussian Corps he convinces he convinces the Prussian corps commander to break off from the Grand Army to join the Russian army again as Napoleon disengaging to retreat after this he's appointed as the chief Clausewitz is appointed chief of staff of what was called the russian german legion continues to fight in the campaign against napoleon eventually returns to service in the prussian army in 1814 he is again assigned as a corps chief of staff in the 1815 campaign and waterwater participates in 1815 campaign not at the Battle of Waterloo but in some of the battles before that after the fall of Napoleon the establishment of peace he returns to Prussia essentially a garrison duties and again you have this officer who is enormous ly talented he's written well his thoughtwell has tremendous combat experience from the tactical level again at in his teenage years all the way up to serving as a corps chief of staff enormous ly talented on the other hand there's this mistrust what did he pick up from France he has defected to Russia so so what do you do with him now you also have to remember he has connected at court because he he is married during his tour in Berlin prior to war of eighteen through the Napoleonic Wars his wife is well-connected in court as well you promote him in you kick him upstairs he's promoted to Major General and as he saw he's assigned as director of the Krieg's Academy from which he graduated number one in his class now that may sound like an impressive title ok comment on to the Army War College has quite a bit of rain over the curriculum the faculty and what goes on here and so on at the Krieg's Academy his position was essentially administrative he had no say in the curriculum he didn't have any role influence over faculty he had almost no contact with students back the Prussian leadership of the mid 19th century who led the Wars of German unification went through the creeks Academy at this time kind of knew he was there but he was some bureaucrat who was in some back office someplace what he is doing he said his dirty duties did not challenge him either intellectually or timewise and so what does he choose to do with his time he decides to put it into creating again what is his magnum opus on war and writing this book this treatise on the nature of war now this is what he wrote in kind of a memorandum to himself when he when he set out to write on war does this remind you of anybody we looked at earlier the acidities I'm trying to write a work for the ages I'm not trying to write something that's just going to be on the bestseller list or be a short term hit but I'm trying to write an enduring long term work on the art on the nature of war and that's the note he writes to himself in 1818 now he starts off with okay where do we stand with military theory today what's the state of military theory as we look at it in the immediate post Napoleonic era and these are the kinds of things to get you in trouble with your bosses when you write these and again some of the writers most of the theory then was being written a lot of it by general officers by senior officers not by relatively younger or junior officers but didn't believe much in what had already been written and his main criticism was that the theory of war to that time embarrassed had been very quantitative they focused on lines of operation distance of marches locations and distances of supply bases the role of geography for those who trying to scribble notes this is going to be up on the portal it's also on the P Drive so the slides will be available are available right now but the role of geography so he is looking at they said you're looking at purely quantitative side of war and maneuvering simply if you maneuver at the right angles you can get to position where you maneuver opponent you win he just he obviously had different thoughts on it now how did he go set about riding the work essentially it was I'm going to sit down and write everything I know about war and all the thoughts I've had over this lifetime again at this forum we're talking 25 26 years of service when he starts this work everything I know about war and then I'm going to start to organize it in the audience I'm riding for our professionals okay this is not a work for amateurs but I'm assuming that you know something about it but he starts out tries to write everything he knows and then starts to work on it and revise it and the revisions become a lifelong effort now nine years later again he writes a couple of notes to himself and hopefully you will not see this on any of your papers or on any of rest art pace but this is his own judgment of his work after nine years so again hopefully none of you will ever see that on your papers this year but if you do you could be writing the next on war so don't you know don't don't feel badly about it he was very discouraged with the work and he said I've got a lot of work to do on it and here's what I need to get to clean this up first he needed to clarify what he felt were the two types of war and clarify that those definitions one type of war was that which was designed to conquer your enemy to make your enemy militarily and hence diplomatically and politically impotent completely disarm him put him at it put put your adversary at your mercy now he wrote now this war he never used the term total war they said but this form of war can't drift into what he called absolute or ideal war which is pure violence pure and absolute and uncheck violence that he believed in the real world would be mitigated but by policy issues but you could drift towards that absolute war the second type of war he looked at was what he defined as limited war he said a limited Wars who tend to be fought on the periphery they tend to be fought at the frontier and they're designed to gain territory or some object to be used as a bargaining chip in diplomatic relationships with your adversary so again he neither said I need to clarify between wars of conquest and limited Wars second point he needed to clarify and this is one of the the ones that that we always talk about when we talk about Clausewitz Wars nothing but the continuation of policy by other means wars are fought to achieve aims of policy to achieve political purposes and he will hammer this theme over and over and over again through his works he said I need to make that clearer and I need to weave that theme throughout the book in the final note kind of an editing note as part of this he said I need the complete book eight likes it he wrote that he's thought that book eight would be the place where all of the ideas all of the key issues would come together he felt at the time I said although as the formless mass book one is actually in pretty good condition right now I need to get book eight which will kind of sum up and tie the ideas together as I need to double back and go through it and get everything aligned and consistent through it so his plan again was books one and eight essentially from where we can pick up as bookends to the great work and that's what he needed to go to work on so that's that's that's what he wrote of himself in 1827 he goes on to work on it for three more years at the end of the three years in 1830 he is recalled from the war academy after twelve years there was the president mostly working on on this text on war he is recalled and Mary's been an infantryman all his life he's brought back to service in the field artillery Directorate he's brought back in as a gunner and he's put in the inspector general ship so he has to throw himself into learning the technical aspects of artillery one of the more one of the with engineers and cavalry the more technical branches of the time he is then re reassigned as the chief of staff under Ganesa now in the east there's unrest in Poland they're trying to develop a cordon sanitaire to prevent again revolutionary ideas from trickling into Prussia concurrently a cholera epidemic breaks out in Poland so it's not only in a cordon against ideas but it becomes a cordon against the epidemic against a pandemic disease unfortunately for Clausewitz they fail to contain the the epidemic he contracted cholera dies in November of 1831 after his death how does the board work get published now again this is what he wrote about himself in 1827 so although we saw it as a formless mass he said you know there are good ideas in there there are things that the professional can pick up and work with in in the lid in what I've worked with so far so he was not completely unhappy with the work now how does it get published I heard somebody say it you know countess fun world his wife she writes in the introduction that she writes to the book it's very contemporaneous it's very self-deprecating you can see something about the role of women in nineteenth-century society and impression society far be it for me to say that I'm the editor of this work far be it for me to be the one to to try to put this great work forward but I felt it needed to be out now she also it says in there I told him several times he needed to go ahead and get this published he said he told me that I will never be published in my lifetime it's gonna take forever and she said that really made me unhappy I was disappointed that he would say that but it actually came to be true so you know you can read between the lines he wasn't going to get it out there I'm gonna get out there for him because there are good ideas in it now all of the material was boxed it was labeled so she with a couple of other officers went through put it together and although at one point she says I'm not the editor of this there's some pretty clear that that she did participate in the editing how do you sort the papers out they found notes for book one and they felt you know book one we had his his makeup notes for book one were completed so that kind of leaves think maybe the book aid was in pretty good shape if you follow his plan but anyway she puts it together and and it gets published in 1832 okay so what what influence does it have first off it is not widely read because it's written in German and German was not in a the most accessible language in in the early to mid 19th century French French was the language of most intellectuals most scholarship most diplomacy I have not read it in the original a couple of years ago one of our German international fellow said he actually found it easier to read and understand in English than he did in his own native German and last years I have kind of nodded and confirmed said yeah it is it is hard to wade through in the original so it was not an accessible work but Vaughn milk of the elder who was chief of the German General Staff for literally generations through the Giroud Wars Herman unification and through the biz markie and area was known to have read it and said it was one of the most influential works that he had read in his life so if the book is on the Chiefs bookshelf who else is reading it you know pretty much everybody okay so it is fairly widely read within the Prussian later German army in the 19th 19th century the French in English their French and English translations the first English translation is 1874 in the UK it goes absolutely nowhere it is retranslated a better translation about 1904 the British are looking at it it appears not so much to try to adopt his ideas but to see in the mind of the Germans and how the Germans thought about war because they saw the coming Anglo German war they saw a greater possibilities and part of it just figuring we need to understand what they think and they always talked about this book on war so there's the first English translation Japan is an interesting case after the rush of Japanese war senior officer in the German General Staff sends a congratulatory letter to the Japanese army commander and can offers him you know if you're interested we can provide you some copies of this great treatise on war by Clausewitz the reply back is well thank you very much but we already have copies we've translated them into Japanese and it did do some influence on my thinking as we designed the campaigns now how much we're not sure but it was used it probably came to the Japanese through some of the retired Prussian officers that they brought to Japan to help them develop develop build and train their army in the years prior to the rustle of Japanese war finally the USA the American influence don't see much influence of Clausewitz until after World War two don't we don't see any evidence that was really studied in the interwar years in the command and staff for the war colleges the first useful translation available in the u.s. was about 1942 but it was an incomplete Clausewitz does not gain traction in the u.s. until the Cold War when scholars through the war particularly Bernard Brody who will read later in the course pick up and start to look at Clausewitz is something that we can use to think about some of the developments that have occurred during the Cold War and what were the main military developments that we saw during the Cold War was number one the clear one nuclear weapons okay Clausewitz had feared said you can get to this absolute war that is without reason that is pure unchecked and uncontrolled violence well it was difficult to get to in his time and difficult to get to even a World War two because of the means available with nuclear weapons married to long-range bombers and later two intercontinental ballistic missiles states could engage in this complete ideal absolute totally destructive war in a matter of minutes and so that gets Brody and others to think about what this clause would say about the nature of war because we've reached this this point in warfare the other key trait characteristic we saw in the Cold War was limited Wars okay and again Clausewitz talked about the two kinds of war one being limited war and limited war wars being fought for political objectives for policy objectives okay in part because of the threat of nuclear war that you couldn't let it and let a major interstate war get to this point where you got to the absolute and unchecked war and so you see Clausewitz influencing strategic thought through the 50s 60s into the 70s and again in the 70s is when you begin to see it adopted in the American professional military education system so that's kind of a quick run-through on the history of the influence of Clausewitz now what are some of this key ideas some things to think about over the next couple of days and again we'll touch on Clausewitz again when we get down towards does Gettysburg staff ride ok what's the role of theory to Klaus woods okay he talks about war there's so many things war such a complex phenomenon there are so many things going on in it that one thing with theory does is it allows you to peel those concepts apart and examine the constituent parts of war a second was with his theory he wanted to examine all aspects of war and again critical inquiry we call it critical thinking but a critical thinking exercise about this this central phenomenon called war finally to educate the mind of the future commander okay said you don't want to enter war and be starting with everything anew you want to have everything lined up in effect internalized ideas and understanding of the concepts in nature of war before you embark on a war so it's part of the education and the development of the mind of the commander now the same passage he cautions theory is not something you take to the battlefield just as you would not take your teacher with you when you leave the classroom and go out to work you don't take Theory width you by the hand and take it out to the battlefield it is an educational tool to prepare the commander to prepare leaders for war so study to study theory now what are some of the key ideas he brings in okay clearly war is an instrument of policy that that's woven throughout his works and probably the one thing that he would foot stomp on us at war sir fought for reasons of policy for political ends he saw battle as the decisive means in war okay 18th century warfare a lot of it was about maneuver ideally you want to maneuver your opponent to the point where you win Clausewitz believe it's about battle war is an act of force and he did not mean economic force for diplomatic when he said force he meant the use of military force to compel your adversary to do what you want him to do that it was an act of force now you could by manoeuvre force the adversary to surrender he would come to a rational calculus of yep I'm beaten and surrender without going through the fighting but he believed it's about fighting the whole purpose of training army and equipping and a soldier is to put him at the right time and right place on the battlefield was one of him one of his dicta that's the only reason it exists you don't maneuver for the sake of maneuver you maneuver to get to a position position of advantage so you can defeat the enemy in battle he really pushed the idea of battle as decisive means in war he introduced fog and friction okay it's not about lines on a map it's not about geography yes that matters yes you got to know where the rivers and the mountains are but fiction FRA fog and friction are inevitable friction the many things that can go wrong we're chance and probability coming to play the wagon wheel that falls off the unit that gets lost the order that gets dropped and doesn't get get handed to the and time the change in weather thinks that you cannot control this a commander and fog the ambiguity the uncertainty the lack of information he's very critical of intelligence you wonder what kind of g2j to support he received as a chief of staff based on his comments on intelligence but there's fiction friction and fog are inevitable and the better the good commander understands that accepts it and the ones who can lubricate friction and are resilient and can be flexible in the face of friction and the ones that can have the will to see through the fog to grab what they think is that dim light and pursued are the ones who are going to be successful he talks about the dominance of psychological forces and effects and in interaction war is not simply lines on a map and moving block charts your adversary is a living thinking being just like you he is subject to psychological forces and pressures and it's interaction it's a wrestling match today the phrase we use we talk about the enemy has a vote the enemy gets to say so you can design it on a map but understand that this is an interaction and that you know with an adversary and that psychological forces as much as physical forces play into that interaction okay final key thought from Clausewitz we wrap it up the war is the paradoxical trinity often we'll hear folks say Clausewitz said the trinity was the people the government the army that wasn't the trinity as he laid it out he said there are there there are connections between the people the government the army and the forces and the trinity but that war was a paradoxical trinity again primordial violence hatred and enmity he said now that is normally resonant in the people and you see it in the people and that has to be present before you actually undertake a war there has to be some of this in being within the population and this primordial violence if left unchecked takes you to absolute senseless war that is not connected to policy or reason chance and pop probability again again he's talking about friction in the creative mind seeing through the fog and finally war as an element of policy that is subordinate to policy in this hence reason so you have this triangle of reason and hatred and violence carried out in an atmosphere and an environment in a milieu that's characterized by friction and by fog and those three have to be somehow kept maybe not in balance but kept in a relationship and the task he set for himself how do you account for those three forces that are paradoxical but always in play in war okay those are some quick opening thoughts on Clausewitz to form discussion things to think about again we'll look at it for the next couple of days he'll come up again another lessons will pick up his lessons on generalship and leadership when we get to the Gettysburg staff ride but a key thinker I'll admit my bias I'm a Clausewitz seeing like doctrine you know like doctrine I would step here and say I'm a Clausewitz Ian's complicated work also like sons ooh it gets bumper stickers it has to be understood first it's an incomplete work like sunzha it's an edited work but there are ideas and theory themes in there that we need to pick up on and hold to that that apply even today okay QA will be upstairs in seminar room welcome back for the weekend thanks very much and FIS you've got it

Channel: USArmyWarCollege

Views: 138,325

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Keywords: Carl von Clausewitz, Army war College, strategic leadership

Id: pSF_UtEWnCg

Length: 30min 35sec (1835 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 06 2011