‘Shadows of Uncertainty’: Clausewitz's Timeless Analysis of Chance in War

Abstract

The concept of chance has often been approached by military thinkers in either an unreasonably fatalistic or complacently dismissive manner. However, Carl von Clausewitz (1780‐1831) developed a more accurate and realistic conception. For him, chance in war is an inescapable yet ambiguous phenomenon: it can create opportunities to be exploited or equally dash the best laid plans. Frequently disregarded in theory, Clausewitz maintained that chance, uncertainty, and friction are central to the nature of war, along with the human qualities required to overcome them such as courage, determination, and adaptability. Modern developments have not rendered these insights obsolete and, if anything, they hold even greater relevance to contemporary warfare. Western militaries fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan have been continually challenged by chance events and unforeseeable setbacks. Overconfidence bred by technological superiority has contributed to militaries inadequately capable of confronting unexpected developments in all of war’s dimensions. Understanding Clausewitz’s ideas can help prepare military leaders for the unpredictable in war.

Notes

1 Carl von Clausewitz, On War [1832], trans. and ed. Michael Howard and Peter Paret (New York: Everyman's Library 1993) p.101.

2 Ibid. p. 97.

3 Marx quoted in Beatrice Heuser, Reading Clausewitz (London: Pimlico 2002) p.13.

4 The popular classic is Bill Owens, Lifting the Fog of War (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP 2001).

5 Colin S. Gray, Modern Strategy (Oxford: OUP 1999) p.95.

6 Quoted in Hanna F. Pitkin, Fortune is a Woman (Univ. of Chicago Press 1999) p.153.

7 Howard explains how successes that were due more to exceptional luck may be written in terms of brilliant generalship, often in order to massage narratives of national greatness. Michael Howard, The Causes of War (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP 1983) p.190.

8 Jerome G. Manis and Bernard N. Meltzer, ‘Chance in Human Affairs’, Sociological Theory 12/1 (March 1994) p.53.

9 Azar Gat, A History of Military Thought: From the Enlightenment to the Cold War (Oxford: OUP 2001) p.187.

10 Clausewitz, On War (note 1) p.156.

11 Ibid. p.138. As Alan Beyerchen comments, ‘Facing up to the intrinsic presence of chance, complexity, and ambiguity in war is imperative. For Clausewitz, this is preferable to the risk of being blind‐sided by the strictures of a theory artificially imposed on the messiness of reality in the name of clarity.’ Alan Beyerchen, ‘Clausewitz, Nonlinearity and the Importance of Imagery’, available online at ⟨www.clausewitz.com/CWZHOME/Beyerchen/BeyerschenNonlinearity2.pdf⟩, retrieved 20 April 2009.

12 Ken Booth, Strategy and Ethnocentrism (London: Croom Helm 1979) p.25.

13 Martin van Creveld, The Art of War: War and Military Thought (New York: Smithsonian Books, 2005) p.78.

14 Clausewitz himself acknowledged that siege warfare was primarily a matter of mathematics and geometry. Clausewitz, On War (note 1) p.251.

15 Richard Holmes, ‘Vauban, Marshal Sébastien le Prestre de’ (1638–1707), in Richard Holmes (ed.), The Oxford Companion to Military History (Oxford: OUP 2003) p.946.

16 Gat, Military Thought (note 9) p.37.

17 See Henry Guerlac, ‘Vauban: The Impact of Science on War’, in Peter Paret (ed.), Makers of Modern Strategy from Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age (Princeton UP 1986) pp.83–90.

18 R.R. Palmer, ‘Frederick the Great, Guibert, Bülow: From Dynastic to National War’, in Paret (note 17) p. 95.

19 Ibid. p.117.

20 Maurice de Saxe, Reveries on the Art of War [1757], trans. and ed. Thomas R. Phillips (New York: Dover Publications 2007) p.18.

21 Ibid. pp.117–19.

22 Antoine‐Henri de Jomini, The Art of War [1838], trans. G. H. Mendell and W. P. Craighill (Texas: El Paso Norte Press 2005) p.215.

23 Antulio J. Echevarria II, Clausewitz and Contemporary War (Oxford: OUP 2007) p.108.

24 Clausewitz, On War (note 1) p.155.

25 Ibid. p.156.

26 Daniel Moran, ‘Strategic Theory and the History of War’, in John Baylis, James Wirtz, Eliot Cohen and Colin S. Gray (eds.), Strategy in the Contemporary World: An Introduction to Strategic Studies (New York: OUP 2002) p.8.

27 Echevarria, Clausewitz (note 23) p.102.

28 Gat (note 9) p.315.

29 Ibid.pp.181–2.

30 Ibid. p.183.

31 Michael Howard, Clausewitz: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: OUP 2002) p.23.

32 Peter Paret, Clausewitz and the State: The Man, His Theories, and His Times (Princeton UP 1985) p.202.

33 Echevarria (note 23) p.112.

34 Paret, Clausewitz and the State (note 32) p.71.

35 Peter Paret writes that, ‘As a student in Berlin, Clausewitz had read Machiavelli's Discorsi and Arte della Guerra … Either during those years or soon after the war he had also read The Prince’. Ibid. p. 169.

36 Niccolò Machiavelli, The Discourses [1516], trans. Leslie J. Walker (London: Penguin 2003); The Prince [1513], trans. George Bull (London: Penguin, 1999); and The Art of War [1521], trans. Ellis Farneworth (Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press 2001).

37 Felix Gilbert, ‘Machiavelli: The Renaissance of the Art of War’, in Paret, Makers (note 17) p.24.

38 Neal Wood, ‘ Some Common Aspects of the Thought of Seneca and Machiavelli’, Renaissance Quarterly 21/1 (1968) pp.15 and 20.

39 Machiavelli, The Prince (note 36) p.79.

40 Gilbert, ‘Machiavelli’ (note 37) p.24.

41 Clausewitz, On War (note 1) p.97.

42 Machiavelli, The Prince (note 36) p.80.

43 Ibid. p.82.

44 Machiavelli, Art of War (note 36) p.202. Also, one chapter in the Discourses is entitled, ‘That it behoves one to adapt Oneself to the Times if one wants to enjoy Continued Good Fortune.’ Machiavelli, Discourses (note 36) pp.430–2.

45 Machiavelli, The Prince (note 36) p.18.

46 Neal Wood, ‘Introduction’, in Machiavelli, Art of War (note 36) p.xlvi.

47 Machiavelli, Art of War (note 36) p.lv.

48 Ibid.

49 Ibid.

50 Paret, Clausewitz and the State (note 32) p.203.

51 Machiavelli's virtù was not confined to the military commander, but was the quality that enabled any human to face the whims of fortune. Clausewitz equally emphasised the ‘virtues’ and ‘spirit’ that enabled ordinary soldiers to face the possibility of death in battle.

52 Paret, Clausewitz and the State (note 32) p.45.

53 Carl von Clausewitz, ‘Observations on Prussia in Her Great Catastrophe’, in Clausewitz, Historical and Political Writings, trans. and ed. Peter Paret and Daniel Moran (Princeton UP 1992) p. 40.

54 Ibid. pp.32–84. See also Roger Parkinson, Clausewitz: A Biography (New York: Stein & Day 1979) pp.51–82.

55 Hugh Smith, On Clausewitz (Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan 2005) p.150.

56 Although the French suffered their own weaknesses on this score, particularly in relation to reconnaissance and communications and largely because Napoleon attempted to do too much. Peter Paret, Understanding War: Essays on Clausewitz and the History of Military Power (Princeton UP 1993) p.88.

57 Quoted in Paret, Clausewitz and the State (note 32) p.191.

58 Parkinson, Clausewitz (note 54) p.312.

59 Paret, Understanding War (note 56) p.78

60 See Barry D. Watts, Clausewitzian Friction and Future War (Washington DC: National Defense Univ. 1996).

61 Christopher Bassford, ‘The Primacy of Policy and the “Trinity” in Clausewitz's Mature Thought’, in Hew Strachan and Andreas Herberg‐Rothe (eds.), Clausewitz in the Twenty‐First Century (Oxford: OUP 2007) p.89.

62 Clausewitz, On War (note 1) p.117.

63 Ibid. p.119.

64 J. G. Manis and B.N. Meltzer, ‘Chance in Human Affairs’, Sociological Theory 12 (1994) p.46.

65 Gat (note 9) p.336. Moltke had been a student at the Berlin war school while Clausewitz was its director, but there is no evidence of the two ever meeting. We do however know that Moltke was a great admirer of Clausewitz, even if he misrepresented many of his ideas.

66 Clausewitz, On War (note 1) p.139.

67 Ibid. p. 195.

68 Katherine L. Herbig, ‘Chance and Uncertainty in On War’, in Michael I. Handel, Clausewitz and Modern Strategy (London: Frank Cass 1986) p.109.

69 Beyerchen (note 11).

70 Henri Poincare, Science and Method (Princeton UP 1949) p.75.

71 Edward Hallett Carr, What is History? (London: Penguin 1990) p.102.

72 See Booth, Strategy (note 12) p.25.

73 On this point Clausewitz states that ‘we can understand why later critics who know all the previous and attendant circumstances must not be influenced by their knowledge when they ask which among the unknown facts they themselves would have considered probable at the time of the action’. Clausewitz, On War (note 1) p.193.

74 The theory has it that it was the beauty of Cleopatra's nose that determined the outcome of the decisive Battle of Actium due to Antony's infatuation. See Carr (note 71) pp.87–108.

75 Clausewitz (note 1) pp.182–5.

76 Ibid. p. 698.

77 Carr (note 71) p.99.

78 Ibid. p.101.

79 So Hitler denied his own responsibility for failure as he dictated to his secretary Martin Bormann in the Spring of 1945. As Overy notes, to Hitler, ‘Germany was a plaything for fate, doomed by the forces of world history.’ Richard Overy, Why the Allies Won (London: Pimlico 1996) p.315.

80 Quoted in Herbig (note 68) p.108. Napoleon also stated that ‘I have never really been my own master; I have always been governed by circumstances.’ Quoted in Charles Esdaile, Napoleon's Wars (London: Penguin 2008) p.2.

81 Carl von Clausewitz, The Principles of War, trans. and ed. Hans W. Gatzke (New York: Dover Publications 2003) p.64.

82 Clausewitz, On War (note 1) p.117.

83 Herbig (note 68) p.104. A chance event that works in one's favour may even strengthen one's resolve, clarify something that was formerly shrouded, or make possible an action previously discounted.

84 Uncertainty usually manifests itself in the asking of questions such as: where is the enemy, what are his plans/intentions, when will he strike, what will I do next, what will be the effect of this action, and so forth.

85 Clausewitz, On War (note 1) p.97.

86 Ibid. p.216.

87 Ibid. pp.216–17.

88 Ibid. p.693.

89 Colin S. Gray, ‘How Has War Changed Since the End of the Cold War?’, Parameters 35/1 (Spring 2005) p.15.

90 Clausewitz, On War (note 1) pp.235–9.

91 Ibid. p.118.

92 Ibid. p.693.

93 Ibid. pp.707–8.

94 David Kahn, ‘Clausewitz and Intelligence’, in Handel (note 68) p.119. On this note, Keegan mentions Henry Stimson, a former American Secretary of State, who ‘warned of the difference between reading a man's mail and reading his mind’. John Keegan, Intelligence in War (London: Pimlico 2004) p.4.

95 Booth, Strategy (note 12) p.123.

96 Ibid. p.40.

97 Clausewitz, On War (note 1) p.708.

98 Booth, Strategy (note 12) pp.104–5. Consider, for example, Japan's misperception of America's reaction to the attack on Pearl Harbor.

99 Colin S. Gray, ‘Clausewitz Rules, OK? The Future is the Past – with GPS’, Review of International Studies 25 (1999) pp.180–1. Gray notes that ‘We are encouraged to repose confidence in a rather fuzzy culturalist belief that, for example, nuclear weapons have not been, and cannot be, used because of the operation of the nuclear taboo. A plausible consequence of such a position is blindness to the attraction of WMD [weapons of mass destruction] to those for whom necessity knows no taboo.’

100 Clausewitz, On War (note 1) p.161.

101 The basic ideas Clausewitz develops in On War are already to be found in a rudimentary form in The Principles of War, written in 1812. Clausewitz, Principles (note 81) pp.62–9.

102 Clausewitz, On War (note 1) p.136.

103 Ibid. p. 95. In Chapter 16, Book 3 on Strategy Clausewitz states that, ‘We hardly know accurately our own situation at any particular moment, while the enemy's, which is concealed from us, must be deduced from very little evidence.’ Clausewitz, On War (note 1) p.255.

104 Such as overblown estimates of enemy troop strength. Ibid. p.136. Guerrilla leader Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara noted how the ‘same magic mentality that makes phantasms and various supernatural beings appear also creates monstrous armies where there is hardly a platoon or an enemy patrol’. Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara, Guerrilla Warfare [1961] (London: Souvenir Press 2003) p.75.

105 Booth, Strategy (note 12) pp. 122–6.

106 Clausewitz, On War (note 1) p.708.

107 Kahn (note 94) p.117. Handel also notes that ‘Clausewitz's frequent pessimistic comments regarding the value of intelligence should not be understood as a blanket dismissal of all intelligence collected in wartime.’ Michael I. Handel, Masters of War: Classical Strategic Thought, 3rd ed. (London: Routledge 2003) p. 228.

108 ‘The dangers that are reported may soon, like waves, subside; but like waves they keep recurring, without apparent reason. The commander must trust his judgement and stand like a rock on which the waves break in vain.’ Clausewitz, On War (note 1) p.136.

109 Which was principally dependent on direct observation, spies and interceptions of communications, advanced detachments, and inferences drawn from past behaviour.

110 Richard K. Betts, ‘Analysis, War, and Decision: Why Intelligence Failures Are Inevitable’, World Politics 31/1 (Oct. 1978) pp.61–89; Robert Jervis, ‘Hypotheses on Misperception’, World Politics 20/3 (April 1968) pp.454–79; and Michael Handel, War, Strategy and Intelligence (London: Routledge, 1989), Chapters 4 and 5, pp.187–281.

111 Betts, ‘Analysis’ (note 110) p.67.

112 MacGregor Knox, ‘Conclusion: Continuity and Revolution in the Making of Strategy’, in Williamson Murray, MacGregor Knox, and Alvin Bernstein (eds.), The Making of Strategy: Rulers, States and War (Cambridge: CUP 2007) p.642.

113 Keegan, Intelligence (note 94) p.4.

114 Lawrence Freedman, The Revolution in Strategic Affairs, Adelphi Paper 318 (London: OUP for IISS 1998) p.70.

115 Colin S. Gray, War, Peace, and Victory: Strategy and Statecraft for the Next Century (New York: Simon & Schuster 1990) p.111.

116 Clausewitz, On War (note 1) p.117.

117 Colin Gray, ‘The RMA and Intervention: A Sceptical View’, in Colin McInnes and Nicholas J. Wheeler (eds.), Dimensions in Western Military Intervention (London: Frank Cass 2002) p.55.

118 Freedman, Revolution (note 114) p. 68. Colin Gray also stresses the danger that, ‘Wise policy can be advanced by effective military power, but military power ceases to be strategically effective when in effect it is allowed into the driving seat of policy.’ Gray, ‘RMA’ (note 117) p.57.

119 In some instances, reliance on technological solutions may actually hamper progress towards strategic goals. In Iraq, the US decision to invade with small but highly mobile forces, based largely on the confidence provided by advanced technology, may be judged to have been a major strategic error. When widespread looting broke out and Iraqi state institutions ceased to function there were not enough troops on the ground to police the country and re‐establish order and it was out of this chaos that the insurgency developed. See Frederick W. Kagan, ‘War and Aftermath’, Policy Review, No. 120 (Aug. 2003), available online at: ⟨www.hoover.org/publications/policyreview/3448101.html⟩, retrieved 7 Aug. 2008.

120 Colin Gray, Another Bloody Century: Future Warfare (London: Phoenix 2006) p.159.

121 Clausewitz, On War (note 1) p.131.

122 Ibid.

123 Ibid. p. 125.

124 Carr (note 71) p.97.

125 Pericles favoured a strategy of withdrawing inside the city walls of Athens and refusing to give battle on land against Sparta except for limited raids and cavalry operations. Donald Kagan, ‘Athenian Strategy in the Peloponnesian War’, in Murray et al., Making of Strategy (note 112) pp. 24–55.

126 Fabius Maximus was given the name ‘Cunctator’, or ‘Delayer’, because of his strategy of refusing to be drawn into pitched battle against Hannibal given the latter's superior operational capabilities. Alvin H. Bernstein, ‘The Strategy of a Warrior‐State: Rome and the Wars against Carthage, 264– 201 BC’, in Murray et al. (note 112) pp.56–84. Clausewitz notes that, ‘All campaigns that are known for their so‐called temporizing, like that of the famous Fabius Cunctator, were calculated primarily to destroy the enemy by making him exhaust himself.’ Clausewitz, On War (note 1) p.460.

127 Clausewitz, On War (note 1) p.209. Clausewitz notes that it is primarily in relation to strategic matters, when everything has to be guessed at and presumed’ that ‘most generals, when they ought to act, are paralysed by unnecessary doubts’.

128 Parkinson, Clausewitz (note 54) p.118.

129 Richard Holmes describes McClellan as displaying ‘caution bordering on paralysis’. Richard Holmes, ‘McClellan, Maj. Gen. George Brinton’, in Holmes, Oxford Companion (note 15) p.525.

130 Clausewitz, On War (note 1) p.689.

131 Clausewitz quoted in Paret, Clausewitz and the State (note 32) p.302. This idea is also found in Clausewitz's Principles of War when he stated that ‘even when the likelihood of success is against us, we must not think of our undertaking as unreasonable or impossible; for it is always reasonable, if we do not know of anything better to do, and if we make the best use of the few means at our disposal’. Clausewitz, Principles (note 81) p.13.

132 Clausewitz, On War (note 1) p.130.

133 Ibid. p.97.

134 Ibid, p. 176

135 Maj. Gen. Henry Lloyd (1720–83) had often described the army as a great machine: Gat, Military Thought (note 9), p.73. Clausewitz himself had used the analogy, albeit towards a different purpose, for instance when he states that ‘The military machine … is basically very simple and therefore seems easy to manage.’ Clausewitz, On War (note 1) p.138.

136 Clausewitz, Principles, p. 61.

137 Clausewitz, On War (note 81) p.138.

138 Carl von Clausewitz, The Campaign of 1812 in Russia (London: Greenhill 1992) p.165. This idea is repeated in On War: ‘This tremendous friction, which cannot, as in mechanics, be reduced to a few points, is everywhere in contact with chance…’ Clausewitz, On War (note 1) p.139.

139 Watts notes that the first known use was in a letter to his wife Marie dated 29 Sept. 1806. Writing about Scharnhorst, Clausewitz stated, ‘How much must the effectiveness of a gifted man be reduced when he is constantly confronted by the obstacles of convenience and tradition, when he is paralysed by constant friction with the opinions of others.’ Watts, Clausewitzian Friction (note 60) pp.7–8.

140 Clausewitz, On War (note 10) p.140.

141 Ibid. pp. 141, 702 and 138.

142 Beyerchen, ‘Nonlinearity, and the Importance of Imagery’ (note 11).

143 Clausewitz, On War (note 1) p.138.

144 Ibid. p.140.

145 Clausewitz, On War (note 1) p.139. The analogy is also found in his study of the 1812 Campaign: ‘A movement made easily on land becomes very difficult under water.’ Campaign of 1812 (note 137) p.166.

146 Clausewitz, On War (note 1) p.139.

147 Clausewitz, Principles (note 81) p.64.

148 Clausewitz, On War (note 1) p.139.

149 Ibid. p.141. Emphasis added.

150 Watts, Clausewitzian Friction (note 60) pp.30–2.

151 In this light, it is the ‘frictional differential’ between belligerents that is crucial. Watts, Clausewitzian Friction (note 60) p.53.

152 Clausewitz, On War (note 1) p.96.

153 Ramman Kenoun, a political thinker, once remarked: ‘Think of war as a game of Russian roulette. It is a game of chance with your life as the prize.’

154 Alan Beyerchen, ‘Clausewitz and the Non‐Linear System of War: Systems of Organized Complexity’, in Hew Strachan and Andreas Herberg Rothe (eds.), Clausewitz in the Twenty‐First Century (Oxford: OUP 2007) p.53.

155 Quoted in Hew Strachan, Carl von Clausewitz's On War: A Biography (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press 2007) p.144.

156 Clausewitz, On War (note 1) p.195.

157 Ibid. p.98.

158 Ibid. p.117.

159 Paret, Clausewitz and the State (note 32) p.373.

160 Clausewitz, On War (note 1) p.97.

161 Ibid. p.173.

162 Gray, Another Bloody Century (note 120) p.46.

163 Man ‘derives his most vigorous support … from that blend of brains and temperament which we have learned to recognize in the qualities of determination, firmness, staunchness, and strength of character’. Clausewitz, On War (note 1) pp.130–1.

164 Strachan, Biography (note 154) p.127.

165 This aspect of courage, Paret notes, had been identified by Major von Sydow, who held that ‘Raw courage is a wild horse that has shed its reins; it is a form of senseless drunkenness, a rage that throws itself thoughtlessly into danger because it does not know how to judge either the danger itself or the means with which danger can be overcome.’ This may have impressed Clausewitz who held ‘courage is led by a dominant intelligence’. Paret, Clausewitz and the State (note 32) pp.54–5.

166 Clausewitz, On War (note 1) pp.118 and 119.

167 This point is made by Clausewitz in Book 1, Ch. 3 and at the end of Book 2, Ch. 2. Ibid. pp.130–1 and 170–1.

168 Ibid. p.209.

169 Ibid. pp.121–2.

170 Gray, War, Peace, and Victory (note 115) p. 113.

171 Reflecting Clausewitz's insights, The Economist remarks, ‘General Petraeus benefited from some good luck … But fortune smiles on a military commander who knows how to exploit a good opportunity.’ The Economist, ‘Fighting insurgencies: Reluctant warriors’, 14 March 2009, p.85.

172 Echevarria, Clausewitz (note 23) p. 118.

173 Incidentally, with their origins principally in Clausewitz's Prussia.

174 Bond notes how, following Moltke's achievements, general staffs were increasingly recognised as the essential ‘brain of the army’. Bond, The Pursuit of Victory: From Napoleon to Saddam Hussein (Oxford: OUP 1998) p.79.

175 For an account of the development of pre‐1914 French war plans see Gat, Military Thought (note 9) pp.382–440. As Gat states, ‘the French deployment according to Plan 17 allowed for great flexibility. The French merely had to keep an open mind and maintain their freedom of operation. Only they did not. Rather than wait … they committed themselves to a major offensive in Lorraine’, p.436.

176 Quoted in Gray, Another Bloody Century (note 120) p.286.

177 Clausewitz, On War (note 1) p.133.

178 Gwynne Dyer, War: The Lethal Custom (New York: Carroll & Graf 2005) p.21.

179 See Martin van Creveld, The Culture of War (New York: Ballantine Books 2008).

180 Clausewitz, On War (note 1) p.221.

181 Parkinson, Clausewitz (note 54) p.127

182 Ibid. pp.133 and 141. Courage, Clausewitz held, might be spurred by taking the initiative, and enhanced by the spirit derived from victories and confidence in the commander, On War (note 1) pp.437–8.

183 Clausewitz, On War (note 1) p.141. This reflects Thucydides' belief that ‘the ones who come out on top are the ones who have been trained in the hardest school.’ Thucydides, Peloponnesian War, trans. Rex Warner (London: Penguin 1972) p.85.

184 Clausewitz, On War (note 1) p.141. In World War II, ‘green troops’ were put through realistic drills which became known as ‘battle inoculation’, intended to familiarise them with the character of the battlefield and bolster morale. David French, Raising Churchill's Armies: The British Army and the War Against Germany 1939–1945 (Oxford: OUP 2001) pp.205–6.

185 Dyer, Lethal Custom (note 177) p.12.

186 Clausewitz, On War (note 1) p.161. Emphasis in original.

187 George K. Osborn, ‘Foreword’, in Andrew F. Krepinevich, The Army and Vietnam (Baltimore: John Hopkins UP 1988) p. xiii.

188 Parkinson, Clausewitz (note 54) pp.312.

189 Ibid. p.129.

190 Geoffrey Parker, ‘The Western Way of War’, in Geoffrey Parker (ed.), The Cambridge History of Warfare (New York: CUP 2005) p.3.

191 Clausewitz, On War (note 1) p.220.

192 Murray et al., Making of Strategy (note 112) pp.60–1. Such practices have been witnessed in the modern era; for instance, Italian General Luigi Cadorna reintroduced ‘decimation’ during World War I. Strachan notes that Italian military discipline was particularly harsh during the war: 750 soldiers were executed – the highest number of any army. Hew Strachan, The First World War (London: Penguin Books 2004) p.250.

193 See David Keen, Conflict and Collusion in Sierra Leone (New York: Palgrave 2005).

194 Clausewitz, On War (note 1) p.219.

195 Joanna Bourke, An Intimate History of Killing: Face‐to‐Face Killing in 20th Century Warfare (New York: Basic Books 1999) p.84.

196 Clausewitz, On War (note 1) p.162.

197 This was a widespread practice in Vietnam. An estimated 30 per cent of US troops took hard drugs. Martin van Creveld, The Transformation of War (New York: Free Press 1991) p.93.

198 John Keegan tells of a Union colonel at the Battle of Shiloh on April 1862 who, new to battle, ‘was palpably drunk, unable to give orders and had to be put under arrest by his brigadier. Whether he had been drunk all night or got drunk over breakfast was not established. Either state was perfectly credible in the first year of the Civil War.’ John Keegan, The Mask of Command (London: Pimlico 2004) p. 165.

199 See Nancy Sherman, Stoic Warriors: The Ancient Philisophy Behind the Military Mind (Oxford: OUP 2005) pp.1–9. Sherman begins her study by recounting the story of an American prisoner of war in Vietnam who found strength to endure the ordeal in his knowledge of the writings of Epictetus.

200 Clausewitz, On War (note 1) p.222.

201 It can decisively support a surprise move or cause the complete failure of a campaign such as the ‘divine wind’ which twice frustrated 13th century Mongol invasion of Japan. Harold A. Winters, Battling the Elements: Weather and Terrain in the Conduct of War (Baltimore: John Hopkins UP 1998) pp.9–15.

202 A similar point is made by Gray: ‘To succeed in strategy you do not have to be distinguished or even particularly competent. All that is required is performing well enough to beat an enemy. You do not have to win elegantly; you just have to win.’ Colin S. Gray, ‘Why Strategy Is Difficult’, Joint Forces Quarterly (Summer 1999) p.12.

203 Thucydides, Peloponnesian War (note 182) p.301.

204 Clausewitz, On War (note 1) p.97.

205 See Rupert Smith, The Utility of Force: The Art of War in the Modern World (London: Penguin 2005).