Clausewitz in the Twenty-First Century

334 Pages·2007·2.57 MB·English

by  Hew Strachan

CLAUSEWITZ IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
TheChangingCharacterofWarProgrammeisaninter-disciplinaryresearch
group located at the University of Oxford, and funded by the Leverhulme
Trust.
Clausewitz in the
Twenty-First Century
Editedby
HEW STRACHAN AND ANDREAS HERBERG-ROTHE
1
3
GreatClarendonStreet,Oxfordox26dp
OxfordUniversityPressisadepartmentoftheUniversityofOxford.
ItfurtherstheUniversity’sobjectiveofexcellenceinresearch,scholarship,
andeducationbypublishingworldwidein
Oxford NewYork
Auckland CapeTown DaresSalaam HongKong Karachi
KualaLumpur Madrid Melbourne MexicoCity Nairobi
NewDelhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto
Withofficesin
Argentina Austria Brazil Chile CzechRepublic France Greece
Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore
SouthKorea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam
OxfordisaregisteredtrademarkofOxfordUniversityPress
intheUKandincertainothercountries
PublishedintheUnitedStates
byOxfordUniversityPressInc.,NewYork
©Theseveralcontributors2007
Themoralrightsoftheauthorshavebeenasserted
DatabaserightOxfordUniversityPress(maker)
Firstpublished2007
Allrightsreserved.Nopartofthispublicationmaybereproduced,
storedinaretrievalsystem,ortransmitted,inanyformorbyanymeans,
withoutthepriorpermissioninwritingofOxfordUniversityPress,
orasexpresslypermittedbylaw,orundertermsagreedwiththeappropriate
reprographicsrightsorganization.Enquiriesconcerningreproduction
outsidethescopeoftheaboveshouldbesenttotheRightsDepartment,
OxfordUniversityPress,attheaddressabove
Youmustnotcirculatethisbookinanyotherbindingorcover
andyoumustimposethesameconditiononanyacquirer
BritishLibraryCataloguinginPublicationData
Dataavailable
LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData
Clausewitzinthetwenty-firstcentury/editedbyHewStrachanandAndreasHerberg-Rothe.
p.cm.
ISBN978–0–19–923202–4(alk.paper)
1. Clausewitz,Carlvon,1780–1831.VomKriege.2. Militaryartandscience.3. War.I.Strachan,
Hew.II.Herberg-Rothe,Andreas.III.Title:Clausewitzinthe21stcentury.
U102.C6643C5452007
355.02—dc22 2007014610
TypesetbySPIPublisherServices,Pondicherry,India
PrintedinGreatBritain
onacid-freepaperby
BiddlesLtd,King’sLynn,Norfolk
ISBN 978–0–19–923202–4
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
Foreword
Clausewitz On War: A History of the
Howard–Paret Translation
The idea of a new translation of On War originated in the late 1950s when
PeterParetandIwereworkingtogetheratKing’sCollegeLondon.Peterwas
studying the connection between military and political ideas in eighteenth-
century Prussia for his thesis on Yorck von Wartenburg; I was devising my
first courses for the new Department of War Studies. Peter was particularly
concernedwiththeinaccuraciesandmisinterpretationsintheexistingEnglish
translations of On War. I was more interested in the continuing value of the
text as a didactic tool for both civilian and professional students of war—
particularlyitsinsightintotheconceptof‘friction’andthecentralimportance
of‘moralforces’,ofwhich,duringmyownmilitaryservice,Ihadbecomevery
aware.
On returning to Princeton in 1961, Peter took up the matter with the
historianGordonCraigandthepoliticalscientistKlausKnorr.Betweenthem
theypersuadedthePrincetonUniversityPresstosponsoranambitiousproject
for a translation of all Clausewitz’s military and political writings in six vol-
umes, each with a separate editor and translator. A meeting of those inter-
estedtookplaceinBerlininJune1962,attendedbyWernerHahlweg,whose
edition of On War would provide the basis for the English translation; the
American historian John Shy; Knorr, Craig, and, in addition to Peter and
myself, the strategic thinker Bernard Brodie. Brodie had just published his
work Strategy in the Nuclear Age and was particularly interested in Clause-
witz’s thinking about ‘limited war’. Klaus Knorr and the Press were very
anxious to enlist his cooperation, since they considered, quite rightly, that
his name would give the project credibility with a far wider audience. A
certain tension developed between the historians on the panel, who saw me
as the appropriate editor for On War, and the political scientists and repre-
sentatives of the Press, who preferred Brodie. The problem was resolved by
appointing both of us. Since neither had sufficient command of German to
undertakethetranslation,Iundertooktofindaprofessionaltranslator,while
Peter, who was virtually bilingual, would exercise a droit de regard over all
sixvolumes.
vi Foreword
IwasfortunateinfindinganexcellenttranslatorinAngusMalcolm.Angus
was a former member of the British Foreign Office who, having recently
completed a translation of Karl Demeter’s The German Officer Corps, was
broadly familiar with the subject matter. He had the further advantage of
living within easy walking distance from me in London. But the work made
slow progress. Malcolm and I, working in London, produced drafts that we
tried to make as close to contemporary English usage as possible. We then
checked these, first with Peter, who by now was teaching at the University
of California; then with Brodie in Los Angeles; and finally with the Prince-
ton University Press in New Jersey whose translators found much of the
Malcolm–Howard version too colloquial for their liking: all this in an era
before either fax machines or email had been invented. By 1970, the task
was still not complete, and poor Malcolm died while still at work on the
project.
Yetevenlessprogresshadbeenmadeontheothervolumesintheprojected
series.Infact,noneofthemgotoffthegroundatall.Understandably,Prince-
ton University Press cancelled the original project. That On War survived
owedmuchtothecontinuingenthusiasmandinfluenceofBernardBrodie—
whoseenthusiasm,indeed,wassogreatthathisintroductoryessayswelledto
such a length that much of it had to be detached and printed as a separate
afterword. In 1974, Brodie persuaded the Press to sign a new contract. Peter
and I then undertook a revision of the entire text, and the volume finally
appearedin1976.
Its publication was timely. The experience of the Vietnam War had inter-
ested both military leaders and political scientists in the relations between
politicalandmilitaryleadership.Thecontinuingmenaceofnuclearweapons
madethedistinctionbetween‘absolute’and‘limited’waralarminglyrelevant;
whileClausewitz’semphasisonfriction,moralforces,andleadershipqualities
gave him credibility with professional soldiers who might otherwise have
found much of his writing either excessively abstract or out of date. It was
our good fortune to be able to present his work in a text that was accessible
bothtomilitarycollegesandtouniversitystudents.
Therestillremainedproblemsoftranslationthatwehadfailedtoironout.
Politik, for example: should it be ‘policy’ or ‘politics’? Neither carry the full
grandeur of the original: both imply that soldiers were being instructed to
subordinate themselves to the intrigues of mere ‘politicians’ and still remain
a sticking point for such distinguished commentators as Sir John Keegan.
‘Grand strategy’, the term later popularized by Paul Kennedy, might have
been better, but no English word is really appropriate.The same can be said
of the word wunderlich which Clausewitz applied to his famous ‘trinity’ of
Foreword vii
government,military,andpeople.Earliertranslatorshadused‘wondrous’,an
archaism now found only in Christian hymns describing a different kind of
Trinity.ButwasthatperhapswhatClausewitzintended?Neither‘remarkable’
nor ‘paradoxical’ carry the full weight of the original. If I were starting over
againImightsettlefor‘amazing’;butIamopentooffers.
MichaelHoward
This page intentionally left blank
Contents
Foreword v
NotesonContributors xi
Introduction 1
HewStrachanandAndreasHerberg-Rothe
1. ClausewitzandtheDialecticsofWar 14
HewStrachan
2. ClausewitzandtheNon-LinearNatureofWar:Systemsof
OrganizedComplexity 45
AlanBeyerchen
3. Clausewitz’sOnWar:ProblemsofTextandTranslation 57
JanWillemHonig
4. ThePrimacyofPolicyandthe‘Trinity’inClausewitz’s
MatureThought 74
ChristopherBassford
5. TheInstrument:ClausewitzonAimsandObjectivesinWar 91
DanielMoran
6. MoralForcesinWar 107
UlrikeKleemeier
7. Waras‘Art’:AestheticsandPoliticsinClausewitz’s
SocialThinking 122
JoséFernándezVega
8. Clausewitz’sIdeasofStrategyandVictory 138
BeatriceHeuser
9. OnDefenceastheStrongerFormofWar 163
JonSumida