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Howard, Michael. Clausewitz: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.

          Few military thinkers have received as much scholarly attention as Karl von Clausewitz.  His impact on the course of Western Civilization and military history is profound; however, because of his status, Clausewitz is possibly the most misinterpreted and misunderstood military mind in the modern era.  Thus, when Oxford University Press began the Very Short Introduction series in 1995, Clausewitz presented an intriguing subject.  Oxford tapped Clausewitz scholar Michael Howard to write Clausewitz: A Very Short Introduction, and the result was a well written, hard hitting and compact synthesis of Clausewitz’s On War.  Howard believes the importance of a succinct study of On War rests with Clausewitz’s ability to succeed “as he did in transcending the limitations imposed on [his] insights by the political or the technological constraints of [his] time” (1).  Though the works of other great military minds such as Jomini, Liddell-Hart, Fuller, and Marx have merit, On War is the best comprehensive study of its kind.

          Clausewitz wanted his work to stem the tide of French aggression.  The Prussian military schools had only recently developed when he began writing On War, and by studying war as an art, he hoped to explain the why and how of armed conflict and to better prepare the Prussian army for victory.  Clausewitz did not concern himself with economics or technology, and he was not able to predict the impact technological advancements would have on the battlefield as early as the mid-nineteenth century.  Yet, he intended his study to have a broad readership, and though much of his thought was outdated only a few years after his death, his theory of war still has resonance in the twenty-first century.

As a young man, Clausewitz wanted military greatness, but was never given the opportunity by Prussian leadership.  He was shut out of high ranks due to his status as a non-Junker and his opposition to Frederick Wilhelm III during the Napoleonic Wars.  He was on the fringe of battle when Napoleon finally capitulated in 1815, and was only able to help the Prussian cause against Napoleon as a Russian advisor in the 1813 campaigns.  Clausewitz, however, was already a prolific writer by 1815, and once employed by Prussian War College, he had the time and opportunity to hone his skills as a military thinker.  His military training provided a different perspective on war, and he quickly took aim at the Jominian school of thought prevalent in Europe in the nineteenth century. 

Clausewitz wanted to diminish the idea that the object of war was to wear one another down and avoid bloody, costly conflict.  He believed maneuvering was pointless unless it leads to battle, and battle was pointless unless it would serve the purpose of the war.  The enemy should be eliminated; maneuvering did not accomplish this objective.  War, in other words, should have a political ends either through total destruction of the enemy or by eradicating his ability to make war.  But this type of warfare would require a shift in thought.  Clausewitz argued that in order to wage war with these types of results the Prussians needed a moral renewal.  He had witnessed first hand the effect of nationalism on the French armies of Napoleon and desired the same type of vigor and relentlessness from his own comrades.  Only by fostering German nationalism did Clausewitz believe this new style of warfare could develop in his native region.

To be sure, Clausewitz had many critics.  Most military thinkers argued it was impossible to have a theory of war.  Victory, as a product of military genius, could not be studied in theoretical fashion.  Thus, you could study the minutiae of war and the great leaders and campaigns, but you could not derive a prescription for victory from their actions.  Others claimed war was a science subject to reason alone.  Clausewitz, however, viewed war as an art because the activity of the genius set them apart from the theory of war.  You must live it to understand it.  Furthermore, war could not be left to reason alone because it was dangerous and filled with “friction,” a phenomena that distinguished real war from war on paper.  The morale of the men and the leader mattered most in battle, and because, in Clausewitz’s estimation, war could be studied as an art, the history of war became important.  Military commanders could be educated by the military theorist, though theory could never tell a commander what to do.  Theory, in other words, had limits because war was a human activity subject to political and emotional realities.

Politics, therefore, were an essential component of war.  In fact, “in order to understand war you had to understand its ends and means-the political ends of war and the means used to attain it” (36).  Clausewitz contended tactics, as the used of armed forces in battle, were only important if they were used properly in relation to strategy, or the use of battles for the purpose of war.  In contrast to Bulow, Clausewitz believed fighting was the principle occupation of the soldier, not defense.  Politics as the driving factor behind war should be part of the decision making process and should direct all energy towards the enemy’s centre of gravity.  Political and military decisions must then be made with the goal of maintaining the superior force in combat.  If this could not be accomplished, forces should be deployed in order to maintain superiority at the “decisive point.”  Because the primary political and military objective of war was the destruction of all enemy forces, Clausewitz reiterated this would take hard fighting.  Clausewitz argued establishing the climate for a decisive battle to end a war created a morally superior type of warfare, one where losses were heavy but achieved the objective of victory. 

Because of his insistence on annihilation of the enemy, Clausewitz determined that a distinction must be made between total war and limited war.  His attempt was to ascertain why two types of war existed and explain the causes of each.  Clausewitz argued historical, metaphysical, and empirical limitations determined what type of war would be waged during the course of conflict.  Because each age and civilization had its own kind of warfare, historical factors, such as cultural limitations, determined what type of war would be fought.  Clausewitz believed, however, that war was total by nature.  The object of war was to destroy the enemy’s will to resist.  If you do not accomplish this goal, he will seek to destroy you.  Yet, Clausewitz maintained there were levels to armed conflict.  War could be total or not, or something in between.  Modern military theorists labeled this escalation, but Clausewitz reasoned military leaders must always prepare for total war because limited war was only possible when both sides pursued that objective.  Interestingly, Clausewitz’s military background led him to the conclusion that war was limited by nature due to the life of a soldier.  Soldiers spent most time in war doing little or nothing and rarely did both sides have the desire to take the initiative.  Inactivity, not action, was the rule.  “Friction” made war limited and defense the only constant in battle.  While Clausewitz seemed to concede to Bulow on this point, he asserted armies should pursue an active defense, meaning the defense should always be ready to parry an attack.  Clausewitz realized the importance of defense late in his analysis, but, in true form, he again concluded war took hard fighting, even in a defensive struggle.

 The Clausewitzian legacy is not hard to trace.  Following his death, On War wallowed in a theoretical purgatory.  Most people knew of the work but did not read or understand its conclusions.  Helmuth von Moltke rescued Clausewitz’s On War in the late nineteenth century, and by the beginning of World War I, all Germany military leaders were well versed in his theories.  Howard contends most major military powers in the twentieth century were influenced in some way by Clausewitz, from the Germans to the Soviets to theories on air power and mechanized warfare.  Only the British remained disinterested in his work, at least initially.  By the late twentieth century, nuclear war added a new dimension to the dichotomy of total and limited warfare.  Nuclear war by nature was total in both political and military terms, but the horrors of nuclear conflict necessitated the theory of deterrence and new limits on warfare.  War became limited because it could be completely total. 

Howard’s seventy-seven pages of text provide the reader with a comprehensive and compact analysis of Clausewitz and his ideas on war.  This brief study cuts through the nineteenth-century language, and for those who can not read German, offers a sound translation of the original work, when cited.  Most of the other works in the series are on far different topics, so the inclusion of a study on Clausewitz is somewhat surprising and refreshing.  Recognizing the importance of military theory on the course of twentieth-century history, particularly with Clausewitz’s influence on German military training, adds credence to the Short Introduction series.  For those who do not have the time, desire, or ability to work through the original vom Kreige, Howard’s work is a must read.