These
weapons of war from a bygone era seem almost harmless now,
but
nevertheless, they led to devastating wars. The above cannon and
canister
balls come from the Battle of Leipzig. Next to them is a shot-
pocket
watch, from the exhibition 'Heroes Made to Order' in Leipzig's
Stadtgeschichtliches Museum.
Clausewitz on Syria: Avoid War and a Loss of
Political Control (Die Welt, Germany)
"'War is merely the continuation of politics by other
means.' ... Does that mean that state policy must in the end be primarily geared toward war and victory? The opposite is true, and the sentence should be
read as a warning against 'absolute war,' as demonstrated to the world by Napoleon,
who was incapable of setting himself either a standard or objective based on
law; against the dominance of generals in war council; and against the loss of
political control. The history of peoples, from the First World War to Vietnam,
is full of examples."
Carl Philipp Gottfried von Clausewitz, German-Prussian soldier and military theorist: Often quoted to justify war, he would be unlikely to recommend it, particularly in today's Middle East.
Much
quoted and seldom read, Prussian General Carl von Clausewitz
(On War 1832) would not be
surprised by the back and forth of threats, parades, the rattling of weapons,
and the quests for alliances the Syria crisis has plunged international politics
into since chemical weapons were used on August 21, particularly between the
nuclear superpowers. War, as the doctrine of the blue-uniformed philosopher
summarizes, is an extreme form of communication.
Clausewitz
was anything but an advocate of war. On the contrary, he called war a “serious
means to a serious end.” Then there is the most misunderstood of all sentences
attributed to him: “War is merely the continuation of politics [Politik] by other
means.”
A warning
against absolute war
Does
that mean that state policy must in the end be primarily geared toward war
and victory? The opposite is true, and the sentence should be read as a warning
against "absolute war," as demonstrated to the world by Napoleon, who
was incapable of setting himself either a standard or objective based on law;
against the dominance of generals in war council; and against the loss of political control. The history of peoples, from the
First World War to Vietnam, is full of examples.
Posted By
Worldmeets.US
During
the Cold War, Clausewitz was only read by the rare bibliophile retired general. However, the old Prussian's theories on the Napoleonic Wars, taught to students at “war school” - as higher military education was in all innocence called at the time, eventually became required reading for the Israeli
general staff.
With
good reason: for months, one could study the Middle East, which is often
described as a powder keg with a lit fuse, but which is in fact much more complicated.
Countless
lines of communication overlap: Moscow and Washington are engaged in a struggle
for influence over the world stage; Shiite Iran is fighting the Sunni Arab
majority; Israel look with extreme concern on the Syria-Hezbullah-Iran alliance
and has a secret ally in conservative Arabs; "small war," as
Clausewitz called that of the "guerrilla" - nowadays discussed as
asymmetric forms of struggle; and high-tech war, involving cruise missiles targeted
one against the other. One could go on ad infinitum.
Clausewitz
would always advise us to remember politics and think about tomorrow.
*Michael Stürmer author is an historian and chief correspondent of
the Welt Group and writes in alternately with Lord Weidenfeld.
