While preparing for Studies in Military Thought, my upcoming graduate readings course, I was pleased to discover that Alan Beyerchen’s article, “Clausewitz, Nonlinearity, and the Unpredictability of War,” is available online. Originally published in International Security 17:3 (Winter, 1992), pp. 59-90, it’s one of the most original and stimulating essays on Clausewitz to appear in many years. If you’ve never read it, it’s an intellectual treat you owe yourself.
Despite the frequent invocations of his name in recent years, especially during the Gulf War, there is something deeply perplexing about the work of Carl von Clausewitz (1780-1831). In particular, his unfinished magnum opus On War seems to offer a theory of war, at the same time that it perversely denies many of the fundamental preconditions of theory as such -simplification, generalization and prediction, among others. The book continues to draw the attention of both soldiers and theorists of war, although soldiers often find the ideas of Clausewitz too philosophical to appear practical, while analysts usually find his thoughts too empirical to seem elegant. Members of both groups sense that there is too much truth in what he writes to ignore him. Yet, as the German historian Hans Rothfels has bluntly put it, Clausewitz is an author “more quoted that actually read.” Lofty but pragmatic, by a theorist who repudiated conventional meanings of theory, On War endures as a compelling and enigmatic classic.
Just what is the difficulty with Clausewitz that makes his work so significant yet so difficult to assimilate? On War’s admirers have sensed that it grapples with war’s complexity more realistically than perhaps any other work. Its difficulty, however, has prompted different explanations even among Clausewitz partisans.
6 Comments
Kudos on posting this article, an eye opener for the scientifically-challenged and uninformed historical student. I myself came across the article years ago and have returned to it many times since then. It has always been one of my favorite academic pieces. Beyerchen synthesizes cutting-edge mathematics and physical science theories and makes them applicable to historical study. That is no small feat given historians self-selection away from these fields. Beyerchen is well suited to the task as he began his professional training with ambitions of scientific study (physics), eventually finding his way into history. Although primarily a cultural historian, his research also retains a substantial emphasis on military history (one would be hard pressed to do otherwise when specializing in 19th and 20th century Germany). Beyerchen is also no stranger to the military establishment; he regularly lectures at the military academies and War Colleges. He served as a US Army junior officer during the Vietnam War era. Again, kudos on bringing his piece to a wider audience. Those with the patience to work through unfamiliar ideas will find the intellectual rewards worth the effort.
Mark,
Thanks for posting this up. Chris Bassford’s page is spectacular, but I had not thought to check there to see if he has posted Alan’s article–the electronic formats we have through the library don’t yet go back that far. My students are reading Beyerchen this quarter too.
This was always one of my favorites in the Clausewitz sweepstakes. I am waiting for Dr. Bassford’s reply to the recently posted article by Dr. Philip Meilinger in the USAF Air War College Strategic Studies Quarterly: “Busting the Icon; Restoring Balance to the Influence of Clausewitz”
http://www.maxwell.af.mil/au/ssq/2007/Fall/Meilinger.pdf. I find the Clausewitz point-counterpoint very enlightening. I would only offer that you cannot really lay present failings on whether Clausewitz was “right” or not.
Hew Strachan’s latest _Clausewitz’s On War_ is an excellant read, which demonstrates all of the possible insights as well as mis-reads that people can have in reading On War. I highly recommend the book to someone who is about to take the plunge.
Mark:
Ditto to Matt and Mark above on posting this article by Professor Beyerchen. I had read it a while back but had forgotten about it and its importance and relevance for today. I was not aware of Meilenger’s recent piece where he, based on the comment by LTC Ridde above, takes the orthodox position of today’s American military that Clausewitz has somehow done damage to us.
I personally still find Clausewitz absolutely relevant and very necessary to war as we know it and fight it today. Too, the notion of non-linearity as told so well by Professor Beyerchen explains our current counterinsurgency war in Iraq. From my experience, the fundamental nature of that war is non-linear. So why then has the American Army eschewed Clausewitz to the point of not even placing “On War” in the classics reading list in the new Coin manual?
Also I continue to be dismayed by not only serving soldiers but other writers who reduce the complexity of what “conventional” war might have been like during the cold war to the linear and simple. Do we really think that if the American Army had to fight the Russians in the fulda gap in 1987 that it would have been linear and simple? The most recent troubling example of this line of thinking is expressed by LTG Chiarelli in an article he wrote in the current issue of Military Review where he points out that he was trained during the early part of his military career to conduct and fight conventional, linear battles. After re-reading Professor Beyerchen’s essay the notion of battle being linear to Clausewitz would have been oxymoronic.
Thanks Mark for running this most excellent blog.
gian
Oh man, I’m still tryin’ to cultivate the PATIENCE to finish readin’ the entire article by Mr. Beyerchen. I wasn’t schooled with a background on physics. & I only understand non – linearity only in ENGLISH.