> Clausewitzian thinking has very little to do with his widely quoted apercu
about politics. It is rather about how the truth of war is revealed when
it is reduced to an essentialist physics about Force and Matter and Speed
and Unity of Action.
This is sort of like responding to to someone who quotes Marx on how social being determines consciosuness by objecting to the metphysics of value theory. The points are seperable. I'm not advocating swallowing Clausewitz (or Marx) wholesale.
> It's kind of like reading Znosko-Borovsky on chess combinations. In chess, this way of thinking presents a delightfully antique exercise in Enlightenment hubris. But when The Elements of Hubris is taught to warriors, the prospect is less delightful.
Actually I rather like old Znosko-B's book, and even more daringly Spielmann's on the Art of Sacrifice. Dare I say I have learned a trhing or two from them that has improved my game? There is stuff in Clausewitz that is still valid, quite apart from the general point I have been defending. The fog of war for example. Other bits of C are tied to turn-of-the-last-century military technologies, just as Caesar's books on war or Sun Tzu reflect not only general truths that are still applicable but other more temporally bound elements tahta re not antiquated. That is true of any classic.
> Secondly, the apercu itself has nothing with war having a purpose. This
idea rests on a slightly inaccurate translation. The original actually
says that war is the continuation "of political discourse" (des
politischen Verkehrs) "with the intermixing of other means" (mit
Einmischung anderer Mittel.) If political discourse is the discourse of
face, then so too will war be.
Actually, I disagree with your transation. "Verkehrs" I read as "intercourse" not "discourse." So the translation is just right; "political intercourse" being best understood as political relations, and here I take it that C is specifically rejecting the idea that war is a higher value, the health of the state or a way of life to be pursued for its intrinsic value. Indeed, the attempt to explain war in a quasi-Newtonian way as a sort of pure "physics" of conflict is just precisely an attempt to rationalize war. Look, C says, here we have some technical means to achieve our goals; apply them rationally and we may be able to do so.
To abstarct from this that your goals may be what Weber called Wertrational, value-rational, that is, irrational and fanatical, is to miss W's and C's crucial opposition (clearer of course in W) between the fanatical and the political.C is clearly an advocate of the latter against the former,a nd as such he ought to be respected and emulated for his Enlightenment ideals.
> Lastly, while the argument that you are making -- that war ought to have a
purpose and ought to make sense -- is completely sound, you don't need
Clausewitz's long and turgid tome to make it, or any other book for that
matter. It is immediately apparent to any person of sound reason.
This just shows that you have absorbed C's lesson. But lots of folks haven't -- our rulers, for one. You might also say that you don't need a long turgid German tome on the metaphysics of the commodity form to understand that capitalism is exploitative. That's true in a way, and if we ever get rid of capitalsim, most of the people whgo do it won't have read Capital. But that doesn't mean that we shouldn't.
> And
those who are not of sound reason will never be convinced by Clausewitz.
They'll just be ensorcelled into a late 18th/early 19th century thinking
style.
And those who exploit workers will not persuaded by Marx not to do it. So?
> An die Nachgeborenen indeed :o)
Nice to see that someone got my tag . . . .
jks
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