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Abstract
While Carl von Clausewitz has generally been respected as one of the most profound philosophers of war, his expertise has been regarded as somewhat limited if not even irrelevant to the so-called ‘new wars’ of the post-Cold War world. Many scholars in international relations have claimed that ‘new wars’ are essentially ‘post-Clausewitzian’ and ‘post-trinitarian’ in nature, meaning that they are no longer fathomable through a Clausewitzian framework. However Clausewitz's earlier writings were nearly exclusively dedicated to guerrilla warfare, or what he called ‘small wars’. These writings have been largely overlooked by many analysts of contemporary conflicts. By drawing on his rare and untranslated writings, the article uncovers a critical part of Clausewitz's expertise in asymmetric warfare and shows that, far from being irrelevant in an age where interstate warfare is increasingly being replaced by conflicts between states and semi-/non-state actors, Clausewitz's philosophical writings actually shed new light into the particular interactive dynamics generated during wars waged under conditions of asymmetry.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Nicholas J Wheeler, Alastair Finlan, Martin Alexander, Christopher Coker, Roland Bleiker, Heloise Weber, Martin Weber, Jason Sharman, Matt McDonald, and Andrew Phillips for their critical support and constructive comments on various drafts of this article.
Notes
1. Keegan, A History of Warfare; van Creveld, The Transformation of War; Kaldor, New and Old Wars: Organised Violence in a Global Era; Duffield, Global Governance and the New Wars: The Merging of Development and Security; CitationEnzensberger, Aussichten auf den Buergerkrieg.
2. The terms ‘small wars’, ‘guerrilla warfare’, and ‘asymmetric conflicts’ are used interchangeably in this article. Clausewitz himself treated them as essentially the same phenomenon.
3. Even though the term neo-Clausewitzian was originally coined by Anatol Rapoport in the introduction to his translation of On War (pp. 64–9), its usage in the article refers to thinkers such as Colin Gray, Hew Strahan, Steve Biddle, Michael Handel, John Ferris, or Martin Alexander, who – contrary to Martin van Creveld, John Keegan, and Mary Kaldor – have not seen a problem in applying Clausewitzian analysis to sub-state, post-trinitarian wars.
4. CitationHandel, Masters of War: Classical Strategic Thought, 43.
5. CitationGray, Modern Strategy, 95; CitationParet, ‘Clausewitz’, 190–1.
6. CitationClausewitz, On War, 86; see also 85.
7. CitationClausewitz, On War, 85.
8. CitationClausewitz, On War, 85.
9. CitationBeyerchen, ‘Clausewitz, Nonlinearity, and the Unpredictability of War’, 59–90. See also CitationStrahan, Clausewitz's On War: A Biography, 40–1.
10. Beyerchen, ‘Clausewitz, Nonlinearity, and the Unpredictability of War’, 62; CitationBeyerchen, ‘Clausewitz, Non-linearity and the Importance of Imagery’.
11. Clausewitz, On War, 75.
12. Clausewitz, On War, 77.
13. CitationVan Creveld, The Art of War: War and Military Thought, 116.
14. Clausewitz, On War, 149.
15. Gray, Modern Strategy, 92–3.
16. Paret, ‘Clausewitz’, 194. Even though no hard evidence exists that Clausewitz actually read Hegel's work or heard him lecture, strong commonalities in their writings exist which suggest that Clausewitz was highly influenced by the dialectical thinking of his contemporary. See CitationSchering, Wehrphilosophie, 89–93; CitationHeuser, Reading Clausewitz, 6–8; CitationParet, Clausewitz and the State, 147–208.
17. Van Creveld, The Art of War, 123–4.
18. Clausewitz, On War, 77.
19. CitationBrodie, ‘A Guide to the Reading of On War’, 652.
20. Clausewitz, On War, 75.
21. Handel, Masters of War, 25–32.
22. Clausewitz, On War, 86.
23. Clausewitz, On War, 101.
24. Clausewitz, On War, 75.
25. CitationKinross, ‘Clausewitz and Low-Intensity Conflict’, 36; van Creveld, The Transformation of War, 35–6. This is not to deny that wars were waged between states prior to 1648, but this period was not of a particular concern for Clausewitz's nineteenth century state-centric mindset.
26. Clausewitz, On War, 87.
27. Gray, Modern Strategy, 102. See also CitationFairbairn, Revolutionary Guerrilla Warfare: The Countryside Version, 42.
28. CitationDaase, ‘Kleine Kriege und die Aktualitaet von Clausewitz’, 23.
29. CitationVan Creveld, The Transformation of War, 40. Clausewitz developed the concept of ‘holy trinity’ (wundersame Dreifaltigkeit) as his political framework for the study of war. It consists of the people, the commander and his army, and the government to which he attributed the elements of primordial violence, the mobilisation, and commitment of the people respectively. He believed that any theory of war and any victory in war can be secured only if the proper equilibrium is achieved among these three dimensions. For further detail, see Handel, Masters of War, 63–71.
30. CitationMünkler, ‘The Wars of 21st century’, 19.
31. CitationMünkler, ‘The Wars of 21st century’, 19.
32. Conditions of asymmetry can of course also exist between powerful and weak states. This distinction, however, did not feature in On War. Conflict between states was assumed to take place under conditions of symmetry.
33. CitationKeegan, A History of Warfare; van Creveld, The Transformation of War; Kaldor, New and Old Wars; CitationDuffield, Global Governance and the New Wars.
34. Van Creveld, The Transformation of War; CitationKaldor, New and Old Wars; CitationMünkler, Die Neuen Kriege; CitationDaase, ‘“Der Krieg ist ein Chamaeleon” – Zum Formenwandel politischer Gewalt im 21. Jahrhundert’, 17–35; ‘Kleine Kriege und die Aktualitaet von Clausewitz’, 25.
35. Kaldor, New and Old Wars; Enzensberger, Aussichten auf den Buergerkrieg; CitationKeane, Reflections on Violence.
36. Kaldor, New and Old Wars; Keegan, A History of Warfare; Enzensberger, Aussichten auf den Buergerkrieg; Kinross, ‘Clausewitz and Low-Intensity Conflict’, 35–6; CitationKaplan, The Coming Anarchy: Shattering the Dreams of the Post-Cold War World.
37. Kaldor, New and Old Wars.
38. Van Creveld, The Transformation of War, 57.
39. Van Creveld, The Transformation of War, 57.
40. Van Creveld, The Transformation of War; Enzensberger, Aussichten auf den Buergerkrieg; Kaldor, New and Old Wars.
41. Gray, Modern Strategy, 102. See also Strahan, Clausewitz's On War, 1–29; Rapoport, On War, 64–9.
42. Others, who do not see themselves as neo-Clausewitzian, have argued that Clausewitz's relevance, especially his trinity can be conceived even without the state. See Paret, ‘Clausewitz’, 202; Münkler, Die Neuen Kriege.
43. Daase, ‘Kleine Kriege und die Aktualitaet von Clausewitz’, 26.
44. CitationHahlweg, ‘Clausewitz and Guerrilla Warfare’, 127.
45. Clausewitz, On War, 592.
46. Clausewitz, On War, 610; Strahan, Clausewitz's On War, 36–7.
47. Clausewitz, On War, 610.
48. Strahan, Clausewitz's On War, 29–67.
49. Strahan, Clausewitz's On War, 45–49.
50. On the origins of the term ‘guerrilla’, see CitationLaqueur, Guerrilla: A Historical and Critical Study, 29–41.
51. Heuser, Reading Clausewitz, 3. The War College in Berlin became the centre of the post-1807 Prussian military reform movement under Count August von Gneisenau and General Gerhard von Scharnhorst. The latter employed Clausewitz in a variety of assignments related to the modernisation and nationalisation of the Prussian army after the defeat of 1806 (See CitationParet, ‘The Genesis of On War’, 13–14; CitationRapoport, ‘Introduction’, 23–24; Strahan, Clausewitz's On War, 39–49, 183–9).
52. CitationClausewitz, ‘Meine Vorlesungen über den Kleinen Krieg, gehalten auf der Kriegs-Schule 1810 und 1811’.
53. Heuser, Reading Clausewitz, 134.
54. Hahlweg, ‘Clausewitz and Guerrilla Warfare’, 129.
55. In his early writings and also to some extent in On War, Clausewitz often uses the terms guerrilla, small wars, and people's war/army interchangeably. While today a distinction is drawn between the small wars and people's war, the lack of such a distinction in Clausewitz's analysis resulted from his own limited understanding of this new phenomenon and the fact that in the case of the Spanish guerrilla attacks against Napoleon, elements of small wars and people's wars were combined. In that sense, the Peninsular War was a small war in respect to individual units on the Spanish side, but very intense because of the proportions of the population that contributed to the conflict. See Heuser, Reading Clausewitz, 134.
56. CitationClausewitz, ‘Bekenntnisdenkschrift’. For more details, see Strahan, Clausewitz's On War, 50–8.
57. Clausewitz, ‘Bekenntnisdenkschrift’, 688 [my translation; ‘rottenness’ could also have been translated as ‘decadence’].
58. Clausewitz, ‘Bekenntnisdenkschrift’, 688 [my translation; ‘rottenness’ could also have been translated as ‘decadence’], 690 [my translation].
59. Clausewitz, ‘Bekenntnisdenkschrift’, 688 [my translation; ‘rottenness’ could also have been translated as ‘decadence’], 740 [my translation].
60. Clausewitz, ‘Bekenntnisdenkschrift’, 688 [my translation; ‘rottenness’ could also have been translated as ‘decadence’], 729. Clausewitz's Francophobe attitudes made him join the German Legion, a body of anti-French officers, in 1812. He stayed with them throughout the Russian campaign before re-entering the Prussian service in 1813 during the wars of liberation. See Citationvan Creveld, ‘The Clausewitzean Universe and the Law of War’, 403.
61. Clausewitz, ‘Bekenntnisdenkschrift’, 732 [my translation].
62. Strahan, Clausewitz's On War, 184–6.
63. Clausewitz, ‘Bekenntnisdenkschrift’, 704. See also Fairbairn, Revolutionary Guerrilla Warfare, 42; Rapoport, ‘Introduction’, 32.
64. Clausewitz reiterated his belief that no guerrilla warfare was possible without the support from regular military forces in Clausewitz, On War, 480–2. See also Handel, Masters of War, 125.
65. Hahlweg, ‘Clausewitz and Guerrilla Warfare’, 129. For a short history of origins of the theory on small wars prior to Clausewitz, see Laqueur, Guerrilla, 100–9.
66. Clausewitz, ‘Bekenntnisdenkschrift’, 742 [my translation].
67. Clausewitz, On War, 357.
68. Strahan, Clausewitz's On War, 26.
69. Clausewitz, ‘Bekenntnisdenkschrift’, 741–50.
70. Clausewitz, ‘Bekenntnisdenkschrift’, 742 [my translation].
71. Clausewitz, On War, 481.
72. Laqueur, Guerrilla, 100, 110.
73. Clausewitz, ‘Bekenntnisdenkschrift’, 724, 750; Clausewitz, ‘Meine Vorlesungen’; CitationTownshend, ‘People's War’, 155–9; Hahlweg, ‘Clausewitz and Guerrilla Warfare’, 132; Strahan, Clausewitz's On War, 184–6; CitationGriffith, Mao Tse-Tung on Guerrilla Warfare.
74. Laqueur, Guerrilla, 110–12.
75. Peter Paret, ‘The Genesis of On War’, 24.
76. CitationClausewitz, ‘Note of 10 July 1827’, 69.
77. Paret, ‘The Genesis of On War’, 1, 25; Kinross, ‘Clausewitz and Low-Intensity Conflict’, 39.
78. Clausewitz, On War, 89.
79. Clausewitz, On War
80. Clausewitz, On War, 479.
81. Clausewitz, ‘Bekenntnisdenkschrift’, 741–50.
82. Clausewitz, On War, 483.
83. Hahlweg, ‘Clausewitz and Guerrilla Warfare’, 131; Townshend, ‘People's War’, 155.
84. Clausewitz, ‘Bekenntnisdenkschrift’, 749–50.
85. CitationKissinger, A World Restored: Metternich, Castlereagh, and the Problems of Peace, 1812–1822.
86. CitationShy and Collier, ‘Revolutionary War’, 829–30; Fairbairn, Revolutionary Guerrilla Warfare, 42.
87. Van Creveld, The Transformation of War, 57.
88. CitationKahn, ‘The Paradox of Riskless Warfare’, 2–9.
89. CitationBacevich, ‘Morality and High Technology’, 45.
90. Van Creveld, The Transformation of War, 58.
91. Drawing on physics, Clausewitz defined the centre of gravity as the one point at which the enemy's force is most concentrated (‘the confluence where gravitational forces come together’). To strike at the centre of gravity causes the enemy to lose his equilibrium and to fall on the ground. It thus constitutes the point of the enemy's biggest vulnerability. See Clausewitz, On War, 485–6, 595–6.
92. Clausewitz, ‘Bekenntnisdenkschrift’, 727–9.
93. Handel, Masters of War, 124–5; Laqueur, Guerrilla, 101; Strahan, Clausewitz's On War, 184–6.
94. Laqueur, Guerrilla, 100.
95. Shy and Collier, ‘Revolutionary War’, 838.
96. CitationGiap, How We Won The War, 23–55; CitationMacDonald, Giap: The Victor in Vietnam, 78–90; CitationArreguin-Toft, How the Weak Win Wars: A Theory of Asymmetric Conflict, 37; Shy and Collier, ‘Revolutionary War’, 847–8.
97. Thomas E. Lawrence, better known as Lawrence of Arabia, put together perhaps the first coherent theory of guerrilla warfare in his Seven Pillars of Wisdom: A Triumph. A student of archaeology at Oxford before 1914, he found himself working for the British Intelligence Service in Cairo during the Great War where he received orders to spark a revolt against the Ottoman Empire in Saudi Arabia. For more biographical details, see CitationChaliand, The Art of War in World History From Antiquity to the Nuclear Age, 880–91.
98. Heuser, Reading Clausewitz, 138.
99. For parallels between Clausewitz and Lawrence works, see Clausewitz, On War, 479–87; CitationWeintraub and Weintraub, Evolution of A Revolt: Early Postwar Writings of T E Lawrence, 100–19; CitationLawrence, Seven Pillars of Wisdom.
100. CitationMoran, Wars of National Liberation, 31–3.
101. Fairbairn, Revolutionary Guerrilla Warfare, 43–4.
102. CitationLawrence, ‘Guerrilla Warfare’, 887.
103. CitationLawrence, ‘Guerrilla Warfare’, 886.
104. Townsend, ‘People's War’, 161.
105. Clausewitz, On War, 481.
106. Lawrence, ‘Guerrilla Warfare’, 883.
107. Cited in van Creveld, The Art of War, 201.
108. Griffith, Mao Tse-Tung on Guerrilla Warfare; Townshend, ‘People's War’, 164–6; van Creveld, The Art of War, 204.
109. CitationMünkler, Vom Krieg Zum Terror: Das Ende des Klassischen Krieges, 58–63; Shy and Collier, ‘Revolutionary War’, 839.
110. Griffith, Mao Tse-Tung on Guerrilla Warfare, 136–7; Heuser, Reading Clausewitz, 31, 138–9. Interestingly, CitationMichael I. Handel points out that ‘although Mao was strongly influenced by Sun Tzu, the main elements of [Mao's] theory on guerrilla warfare can be found in the first pages of Clausewitz's chapter “The People in Arms”’ (Handel, Masters of War, 124–5).
111. Cited in Griffith, Mao Tse-Tung on Guerrilla Warfare, 55.
112. Mao Zedong, ‘On Guerrilla Warfare’, in Griffith, Mao Tse-Tung on Guerrilla Warfare, 73, 121.
113. Cited in CitationSchram, The Political Thought of Mao Tse-Tung, 289.
114. Münkler, Vom Krieg Zum Terror, 58–63; Shy and Collier, ‘Revolutionary War’, 839.
115. Griffith, Mao Tse-Tung on Guerrilla Warfare, 55.
116. For further details on the similarity of Lawrence's and Mao's understanding of the factor of space, see Fairbairn, Revolutionary Guerrilla Warfare, 43–4.
117. Cited in Arreguin-Toft, How the Weak Win Wars, 34.
118. Quoted in Heuser, Reading Clausewitz, 139.
119. Münkler, ‘The Wars of the 21st Century’, 9.
120. Griffith, Mao Tse-Tung on Guerrilla Warfare, 46.
121. Cited in Laqueur, Guerrilla, 40.