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Matt Armstrong's avatar

Superb. I've reread and will reread again. I have similar concerns about this broader subject but coming from the non-military angle. That said, as I read your post a passage came immediately to mind. "It is necessary to remember, in the first place, that this war is not one that is being fought by the military forces alone. There are economic, psychologic, social, political and even literary forces engaged, and it is necessary for us in order to defeat the enemy, to understand fully the strength of each. Nor can the investigation stop with the forces of the enemy: it must extend to each country in the world and to every people. The question of winning the war is far too complicated and far too delicate to be answered by a study of only the powers and resources of the nations in arms." This was written 106 years ago by Military Intelligence Division of the War Department's General Staff (US, of course; this was part of the War College at the time). Perhaps understandably, the Prussian isn't mention anywhere. They do, to your point, acknowledge the tactical and strategic study of war requires more than focusing on the military component. Related to the work that produced the report the passage above is from is another report from the War College, and thus the General Staff, early the same year (1918) that recognized that in the "strategic equation" of war there are four factors—combat, economic, political, and psychologic—and that the last of these is coequal with the others. That report also noted, as described in the book Words that Won the War by Mock and Larson (1939), "the Germans had long recognized this, the report continued, the Allies and America had been inclined to belittle the importance of the psychologic factor, thus making the other branches carry an unnecessarily heavy burden. The memorandum held that to attack the enemy's political homogeneity and national morale it was necessary first to discover his points of political and social weakness." I'm by no means an expert in strategic studies, but it seems to me there are hints that understanding of the problem you described was there and then forgotten.

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MoniqueTaylorauthor's avatar

Excellent article. I am reminded of the historical phrase "the strong do what they will, the weak suffer what they must." Your observations on the lack of proper Clausewitz translations is well noted, especially since On War is the text that is so widely studied and cited. The causes of war are founded on a myriad of factors which politicians exploit to serve their own ends. In hindsight few historians pay attention to all those same factors when shaping the future narrative. The study history of with a single isolated lens is a very dangerous enterprise.

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