The second in a five-part guest post by Prof. Brien Hallett, University of Hawai’i at Manoa.
A Frustrated Metamorphosis
Carl von Clausewitz (1780-1831) was a Prussian general whose career encompassed the entire span of the French wars of Revolution and Empire (1792-1815). His unfinished manuscript, On War (1976), has dominated discussions of war since the late 1970’s, due to its insight and depth. The first chapter of Book I is devoted to defining war. In defining war, Clausewitz recognizes war as an extremely complex social phenomenon that requires at least two different definitions. He begins the chapter by defining war as “. . .an act of force to compel our enemy to do our will,” but then concludes the chapter with an entirely different definition, “war is the continuation of policy by other means” (ibid. 75; 87). Critically, Clausewitz did not define war explicitly as “violence,” as everyone else does. Instead, as will be seen in a moment, he smuggles “violence” into his first definition implicitly as the subjective response to “an act of force.”
Clausewitz’s two definitions raise two difficult issues: What is the relationship between them? And, how many definitions of what kind are needed to truly understand and define war? In answering these two questions, the crucial fact to remember is that Clausewitz’s manuscript was unfinished, a fact easily determined either by reading the book or by reading his own notes (ibid. 70-1).
Bernard Brodie in his guide to the manuscript has famously explained the relationship between the two definitions as drawing out three separate aspects of war: Initially, Brodie accounts for the movement between the two definitions as the result of Clausewitz’s sensitivity to the intellectual currents of the time. On this reading, the first definition is an example of a Kantian or Hegelian metaphysical idealism, whereas the second definition is an example of a more pragmatic view of war. Thus, Brodie suggests that the reader experiences a “. . .metamorphosis that occurs within a few pages from concentration on the needs and properties of the absolute or ‘pure concept’ of war [as an act of force] to discussion of something more practical [at the end of the chapter, i.e., war as policy]” (ibid., 47; cf. 643).
Moving on from that initial explanation, Brodie suggests that the two definitions additionally capture “The strain between political purpose and military aim. . .” (ibid., 645). This “strain” occurs because different types of war call forth different mixes of force and policy. For example, limited wars tend to frustrate the “military aim” by sharply curtailing or blunting the “pure concept” of war as an “act of force” in favor of the war’s political goals. In contrast, general wars tend to favor the “military aim” because the clear political goals require a maximum use of “force to compel our enemy to do our will.”
And, finally, Brodie suggests that the two definitions capture the tension created in war between passion and reason, “If war is an act of force, the emotions cannot fail to be involved. . . . If, then, civilized nations do not put their prisoners to death or devastate cities and countries, it is because intelligence plays a larger part in their methods of warfare and has taught them more effective ways of using force than the crude expression of instinct” (ibid. 76; cf. 643). Needless to say, here is where Clausewitz smuggles in war as “violence.” The “passions” of war elicit “crude expressions of instinct” that are judged as “violent.” But, again, Clausewitz recognizes war as only implicitly “violent” without explicitly defining it as such. This was not an oversight on his part.
“Passion and reason,” “military aims and political goals,” “pure concepts and pragmatic practices,” war is assuredly complex. One can easily believe that two definitions are not nearly enough. In fact, one might guess that three definitions were needed–one to define the relationship between “passion and reason,” another for “military aims and political goals,” and another yet for “pure concepts and pragmatic practices.” As will become clear momentarily, the relationship between the last pair cannot be defined because it is the knife with which Clausewitz carves out the relationship between “military aims and political goals.” The first pair is also special. Clausewitz’s larger project is simultaneously to acknowledge the undeniable passions and emotions of war while directing a sustained effort to understanding the internal logic or reasons of war. Thus, whereas his first definition identifies the source of the passions and emotions of war–the use of force to compel–his second definition identifies the sources of the reasons of war–the continuation of policy.
It would appear that what Brodie has found is less a metamorphosis than a dialectic structure. The paired concepts do not morph from one into another–passions into reason, aims into goals, concepts into practices–as they describes polar extremes between which real wars resonate. Yet, the pairs are a dialectic structure without any glue; they do not stick together. The pairs do not cohere because, whereas Clausewitz’s second definition is a vital insight–war is the continuation of policy–it is also irremediably ambiguous–”by other means?” Which means? The irresistible temptation is to say “forceful” means: “War is merely the continuation of policy by means of acts of force to compel our enemy to do our will.”
Unfortunately though, the very dialectical structure of Clausewitz’s Book I, Chapter 1 refutes the temptation to cut and paste his two definitions together in this much too facile manner. War is much too complex for such a simple splicing of polar opposites to succeed. Indeed, if Clausewitz meant to mash the two definitions together, why did he separate them with twelve pages of densely reasoned text? More to the point, why does that text demonstrate that his “pure concept” is stillborn, that it, like all metaphysical “absolutes,” cannot survive in the real world?
Thus, beginning with section 6, “Modifications in Practice,” Clausewitz systematically destroys his first definition, “But move from the abstract to the real world, and the whole thing looks quite different. . .” (ibid., 78). The “pure concept” of war, Clausewitz explains, is merely a mental or logical construct. It cannot survive in the real world because it soon loses its purity. Before too long, the fog, the friction, and the hazards of war always spatter real mud on it and bring the “pure concept” of war to a grinding halt. Consequently, “The political object is the goal, war is the means of reaching it, and means can never be considered in isolation from their purpose” (ibid., 87). Critically, by “war,” Clausewitz most certainly does not mean “. . .an act of force to compel our enemy to do our will.” Instead, he means the reality of practical or material war. He means the war that is hidden in the fog of war, seized up by the friction of war, and but the plaything of the chances of war. In fine, at its most fundamental level, war is a complex ends-means problem. It is about the articulation of the political ends and the control of the as-yet-undefined “means” needed to achieve the articulated political ends.
What Clausewitz has done, therefore, is to move dialectically from a commonly accepted definition of war as “an act of force to compel our enemy to do our will” through a detailed and systematic refutation of that commonplace belief to the conclusion that war is no more or less than an ends-means problem, just like every other human act, just like every other social phenomenon. Unfortunately, typhoid cut his life short so that he never got around to explaining just which “means” separated war for all other human actions.
Without going so far as to say that Martin Luther King, Jr. defined “war” as an ends-means problem, he certainly recognized that “the movement” was precisely this same sort of problem, “I would say that the first point or the first principle in the [Civil Rights] movement is the idea that the means must be as pure as the ends. The movement is based on the philosophy that ends and means must cohere.” Or, as he explained further, “. . .in the long run, we must see that the end represents the means in process and the ideal in the making. In other words, we cannot believe, or we cannot go along with the idea that the ends justify the means because the end is preexistent in the means. . . (1972, 945 or 1986, 45. Cf. 1986, 255).
In conclusion, is it not of some note that both Carl von Clausewitz and Martin Luther King, Jr. came to the same fundamental conclusion? Both understood and saw that their respective endeavors were fundamentally a problem of making the declared ends cohere with the means employed. They may have disagreed somewhat over exactly which means to employ, but they agreed entirely on the structure of the problem, of the division of the tasks that needed to be accomplished.
Further, the principal criticism of Clausewitz’s attempt to define war is that his second definition is irremediably ambiguous. He simply failed to define what he meant be “other means.” Had he lived to finish his manuscript, he might have remediated this ambiguity, but such was not to be. In addition, one must note that, according to Clausewitz, any adequate definition of war must define it both as a material object in the world and as a conscious or willful mental act. Whether one must also define war subjectively as “violence” is a question better left unanswered for the moment. Commonly, this is done, but Clausewitz did not. He ignored “violence” as an explicit characteristic of war, treating it implicitly as an accidental feature of war that did not need explicit mention in a definition.
And, finally, war is an extremely complex social phenomenon; it cannot be contained in a single definition. Even two definitions will prove inadequate, as Clausewitz’s attempt demonstrates. This being the case, how many definitions of what kind are needed?
References:
Clausewitz, Carl von. 1976. On War. Michael Howard and Peter Paret, eds. and trans. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
King, Martin Luther. 1972. The Philosophy of the Student Nonviolent Movement (16 November 1961). In Philip S. Foner, ed. The Voice of Black America. New York: Simon and Schuster.
King, Martin Luther Jr., 1986. Love, Law, and Civil Disobedience; A Christmas Sermon on Peace. In A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings of Martin Luther King Jr. Ed James Melvin Washington. New York: Harper and Row.
Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 – Part 4 – Part 5 (coming)
Upon a reciprocal death, the “victors” would spend the next day in dance and celebration, the “victims” in mourning. 9) The new cycle of revenge could not begin until several months later, at the convenience of the newly aggrieved group.
