[HN Gopher] A Clausewitzian lens on modern urban warfare
___________________________________________________________________
A Clausewitzian lens on modern urban warfare
Author : bryanrasmussen
Score : 64 points
Date : 2025-10-08 11:56 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (mwi.westpoint.edu)
(TXT) w3m dump (mwi.westpoint.edu)
| iammjm wrote:
| The author seems to be more interested in the past than in the
| present or the future. They must've been rereading Clausewitz as
| Russia was turning Bakhmut, Vovchansk, Toretsk, Chasiv Yar et al.
| to _literal_ rubble. They speak of some abstract "urban warfare",
| where "Every strike is a message, every misstep a liability",
| where the reality is basically a grid-like approach of how to
| deliver as much kinetic energy per square kilometer as
| efficiently as possible.
|
| I have a sense that articles like these is why a lot of people
| think the "academics" are completely disconnected from the
| reality.
| falcor84 wrote:
| What? The latter part discusses the current battles of Kyiv and
| Gaza in some depth.
| iammjm wrote:
| Choosing Kyiv as an example of a modern urban warfare is
| really weird, as there wasn't really much urban fighting at
| all (with the exception of some Russian saboteur groups in
| Kyiv), since the main Russian army didn't even make it into
| the city because their logistics got blown up in the
| outskirts.
|
| Also, we are talking about the most technologically advanced
| war that ever took place, where the iteration cycles are
| measured with weeks. The Russo-Ukrainian war of the beginning
| of 2022 looked very different from what it currently is. For
| the actual modern urban warfare see the cities I mentioned.
| falcor84 wrote:
| Thanks for the clarification. Yes, I absolutely agree that
| this analysis was lacking.
|
| I would then ask you about your mention of:
|
| > turning Bakhmut, Vovchansk, Toretsk, Chasiv Yar et al. to
| _literal_ rubble
|
| Leaving aside the horrible ethics. Would you say that this
| was an intentional strategic approach by the Russian
| leaders, as a mechanism of avoiding the difficulty of urban
| warfare, or an unintended side-effect of trying to conduct
| urban warfare?
| iammjm wrote:
| I think they just lack the sophistication to do it any
| other way. According to their own doctrine, they should
| be trying to flank and encircle a city, cut off enemy
| logistics and reinforcements, and suffocate the
| defenders. But in most cases they were unable to to do,
| so they just default to pure destruction. It's just
| simpler to bomb everything that could shelter Ukrainian
| defenders. Russian artillery and aviation is not really
| known for their precision. There is nothing surgical
| about their approach. They are just throwing tons and
| tons of explosives at urban centers until they are
| stopped or there is nothing left to bomb. I think the
| siege of Mariupol was the only somewhat successful
| Russian urban operation in this war.
| jcranmer wrote:
| Russia's invasion of Ukraine is one of the mini-case studies
| analyzed in the piece, specifically for its note that Russia's
| disregard for Clausewitzian principles has failed to bring it
| meaningful success.
|
| It should also be noted that, objectively, Russia's war has not
| been a success. It also has not been a failure, except in the
| grand strategic sense of provoking the realignment and
| reinvigorating of NATO it was meant to prevent.
| rzwitserloot wrote:
| That sounds like "the leg amputation operation was a success,
| other than the fact that the patient died on the operating
| table". That "except" is doing rather a lot of heavy lifting.
|
| I have absolutely no idea what Russia was expecting from
| their three day special military operation, currently on 3
| years, 7 months, and 2 weeks. But surely whatever they were
| thinking, if I could go back in time and paint them a picture
| of how the situation is today, they'd jump out the window (or
| be 'helped' out of them, as appears to be a popular pastime
| in Moscow this decade). This has to be on the levels quite
| near 'worst than our worst case scenario'.
|
| I think Von clausewitz's revenge on the russian plan for
| Ukraine hasn't even begun yet. _If_ Russia ends up wanting to
| turn lands they currently occupy in lands they annexed (a
| land that is productive and well on its way to just being
| culturally subsumed), the cost of that operation will be even
| larger than the astronomical cost they are paying to gain
| them: Their utter disregard for Clausewitzian planning means
| it 'll be one heck of an insurgency.
|
| Unfortunately, Russia is one of the most ruthless countries
| in this regard and will simply massively replace the
| population, starve it out, or otherwise eliminate any odds of
| low morale amongst the populace or active insurgency by
| simply _replacing the entire population_.
|
| But that also destroys all inherent economic productivity
| other than natural resources. Russia already has plenty of
| land and plenty of resources; what they need is more people
| in general and productive, creative members of society in
| particular, neither of which you can make happen by starving
| a population that hates you for how you fought that war and
| still holds out hope they can drive you out.
| mamonster wrote:
| >if I could go back in time and paint them a picture of how
| the situation is today, they'd jump out the window
|
| Debatable. The war itself is basically a massively failure,
| but it completely stabilized the regime. Whereas 5 years
| ago there were clear questions about what would happen
| after Putin died, ZOV-logic is enough to power the regime
| for the next 10 years.
|
| 20 years of careful building of liberal oppositions by
| highlighting corruption is now out of the window. FBK,
| Kats, Volkov, etc are now all abroad with no chance to
| return; literally no one gives a fuck about corruption
| that's not military related. The new "liberal" party that
| replaced Navalniy & Co (Noviye Lyudi) is basically only
| liberal in economics.
|
| The only thing that will decide if Russia ends up winning
| or losing in the long term is whether the "Pivot to Asia"
| strategy that they basically were forced to take will end
| up working.
| kakacik wrote:
| You are right, but also expect some high noble goals from
| russian leadership. It was supposed to be an easy land
| grab, a _very_ valuable land grab full of heavy industry
| and literal gigatons of natural gas. There was never a rich
| greedy person who didn 't want more. And lets not forget
| they weren't that far from success in first days - if they
| won Hostomel airport, Kyiv would probably fall and with it
| the rest would be a domino effect.
|
| Especially given how russian elites are just several
| pyramids structured (and behaving) exactly like typical
| mafia. They only go for themselves, screw the rest. They
| only think now and maybe tomorrow, long term planning ain't
| a strong point of decision makers to be polite. Nihilism
| all around, to the very top. The whole war became purely an
| ego game, emotional stupidity of little boys who simply
| refuse to lose face (and thus life and legacy) even when
| colossal fuckup they created is right in their faces all
| the time.
|
| But is is actually colossal fuckup to them? No it isn't,
| they get some international hate but plight of commoners is
| completely irrelevant to them, and who cares when you still
| have billions all around the globe. Also don't
| underestimate the capacity of russian population to just
| quietly accept brutal oppression and go on, its not
| something west can fully grok. Life of a human being has no
| value there, that's still the case as it was.,
| Someone wrote:
| > And lets not forget they weren't that far from success
| in first days - if they won Hostomel airport, Kyiv would
| probably fall and with it the rest would be a domino
| effect.
|
| I think the war would have been very short if Zelensky
| hadn't rejected the USA offer to evacuate him, asking for
| ammunition instead.
|
| > But is is actually colossal fuckup to them? No it
| isn't, they get some international hate but plight of
| commoners is completely irrelevant to them
|
| Maybe it isn't a colossal fuckup to them _yet_. The
| plight of commoners was irrelevant to the tsars, too,
| until it became very relevant, and then, it was too late
| for them.
| nradov wrote:
| Annexing Ukrainian lands and making them productive was
| never the primary Russian strategic goal. What they wanted
| to do was establish defensible strategic depth. There are
| no natural geographic borders (like mountain ranges or wide
| rivers) between NATO member states and Moscow so Russian
| leaders still fear a land invasion from Western Europe
| (which has happened a couple times before). If they
| controlled Ukraine then they could make an invasion by NATO
| much more difficult. I'm not trying to justify Russian
| aggression but from an amoral geopolitical perspective
| there was a certain logic to it.
| tim333 wrote:
| That never made sense to me for various reasons.
|
| Firstly no one in Ukraine or NATO had any thoughts of
| invading Russia. Even now after Russia launched its war,
| no one wants to invade Russia. Why invade some
| godforsaken place with the world's largest nuclear
| arsenal? Makes no sense.
|
| Second if they wanted to invade they could have gone from
| Estonia or Latvia which share a border with Russia and
| are fairly close to Moscow and St Petersburg.
|
| My take is the Russians regard Ukraine as Russian lands
| and Ukrainians as their property and felt the west was
| trying to steal it from them by promoting democracy and
| independence.
| nradov wrote:
| I'm not claiming that it makes sense to a rational
| outside observer, I'm just pointing out part of the
| strategic calculus from the perspective of a paranoid
| Russian leader. They conceptualize the world in a
| fundamentally different way that's hard for westerners to
| intuitively comprehend. And obviously that wasn't the
| only factor, they thought they had multiple reasons for
| acting.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| Except Putin is not, and has absolutely never been
| paranoid of NATO invading Russia.
|
| He literally believed the west would barely react to this
| invasion. They didn't even take hundreds of billions of
| dollars of hard cash out of foreign accounts.
|
| Russia continues to pull defensive weapons like SAM
| systems from the NATO border to use them in Ukraine
|
| Because "NATO invasion" has always been bullshit.
|
| The strategic calculus was that Putin has spent a decade
| killing anyone who tells him something he doesn't want to
| hear, so a couple years ago he heard "We could take over
| all of Ukraine in 3 days and they would welcome us with
| open arms" and he believed it.
|
| Vladimir Putin genuinely believed that they could blitz
| Ukraine and be thanked for it.
|
| A reminder that for Putin to genuinely believe that
| Ukrainian people _who the soviets killed and repressed
| quite significantly_ would choose to be Russian
| willingly, he must have believed that EuroMaidan was not
| genuine protest.
|
| Putin believes the CIA did it.
|
| Which is yet again another reason why the "Protection
| from NATO" argument is horse shit, because Putin does not
| believe that a country has to be in NATO for it to be
| used against Russia.
| mopsi wrote:
| Let's assume for a moment that this is true. In 2014,
| when Russia first invaded Ukraine, European militaries
| were in the process of unilateral disarmament. Military
| units were being disbanded, bases were being shut down,
| equipment like Leopard tanks was being sold to places as
| far away as Chile. The US removed its last permanent
| heavy equipment from Europe in 2013. The few countries
| that still had conscription were debating a move to much
| smaller professional armies.
|
| If a leader in Moscow had truly feared an invasion from
| the West, why would they have needed to do anything other
| than sit and wait for the disarmament trend to continue?
|
| Perhaps it was the other way around: the leader in Moscow
| saw all that and believed that no one would have the
| resources to stop him?
| GolfPopper wrote:
| Russia: starts a war to prevent it from having a much longer
| land border with NATO.
|
| Outcome:Russia's land border with NATO is now 1300km longer.
| jimbohn wrote:
| The reality of Bakhmut is one of failure, massive time and
| resources used, which led to an attempted coup
| WillAdams wrote:
| This line:
|
| >Tactical brilliance could not guarantee strategic clarity--and
| each gain came at political and moral cost.
|
| sums up what is wrong with modern conflict --- the abandonment of
| the moral high ground and a failure to take into account the will
| of people and their right to self-determination which Jomini (who
| had displaced Clausewitz after his inculcation at West Point as
| part of the brutal lessens the U.S. learned in Vietnam) failed to
| consider, and which Clausewitz took to heart and studied deeply,
| and thought long on.
|
| It wasn't that long ago that the collapse of the Soviet Union was
| viewed as "the end of history" and a global acknowledgement that
| liberal democracy was the means of government most widely
| accepted --- hopefully articles such as this will be a guidepost
| to getting back on that track --- every moral failure simply
| recruits others to fight on the opposite side.
| psunavy03 wrote:
| West Point is only one of three service academies, and it needs
| to teach only enough of the higher level of war to produce a
| reasonably competent Second Lieutenant. In fact it's arguable
| the service academies are a waste of resources as currently
| implemented as opposed to OCS and ROTC.
|
| What matters is what is taught to the Majors, Lieutenant
| Colonels, Lieutenant Commanders, and Commanders 12-15 years
| later at the War Colleges. And as a graduate myself (if only by
| correspondence) I can assure you that Clausewitz and Sun Tzu
| were very much still on the books in the 2010s.
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| The war colleges are more intellectual than many people
| think. The curricula of those schools include most of the
| seminal works on war and statecraft from Thucydides to
| Kissinger.
| psunavy03 wrote:
| I was disappointed they truncated the remote version of
| Strategy and War and we didn't get to dig into Thucydides
| and Corbett.
|
| I will say getting that intellectualism to stick in the
| officer corps doesn't necessarily always work. There are
| jokes about "it's only a lot of reading if you do the
| reading," and oftentimes being able to spend a year in
| residence gets passed over in favor of sending people to
| other assignments and expecting them to do the War College
| syllabus by correspondence.
|
| That said, the War Colleges are also heavily involved in
| things like designing and evaluating higher-level military
| exercises, red-teaming things, etc.
| corimaith wrote:
| You're going to loose to Russia and China in time.
| RealityVoid wrote:
| This is spoken as if history converges to a point and then it
| _really_ gets to the end of history. There is no end, there
| will be endless fights and conflicts and one country taking
| the upper hand is just a temporary state.
| corimaith wrote:
| Dosen't mean you specifically will survive till the next
| conflict.
| vkou wrote:
| Russia is a one-trick petrostate that has been stuck in a
| three-year quagmire of a land war against the poorest country
| in Europe (that is a quarter its size).
| rolandog wrote:
| Completely agree... though I wouldn't underestimate them:
| Their main strength, I'd argue, comes from their very
| successful use of the Firehose Of Falsehood (effectively
| managing to make the US self-own itself by turbocharging
| neoliberalism, among other things). They "James-Bond-
| Villain'd" the US (announced how they'd "take over the
| world") 28 years ago [0], and... well... look how that's
| going.
|
| [0]:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundations_of_Geopolitics
| vkou wrote:
| Nothing there seems to be dramatically different from the
| sort of wankery produced by think tanks like PNAC and
| their ilk. And it's not like the US has ever shied away
| from using soft power to destabilize other countries.
|
| The game everyone's playing is not that different, and
| Ivan isn't making some 400 IQ move in it.
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| China already lost to China with their upcoming demographic
| nightmare and Han-centric/low-immigration society.
| breppp wrote:
| If we are at apocalyptic prophecies, the world demographic
| situation might be resolved by AI and diminishing need for
| working hands
| 1718627440 wrote:
| People like to point that out, as if they found the hidden
| flaw, but which western country doesn't have a demographic
| nightmare?
| nradov wrote:
| I guess that's always a possibility.
|
| Another more likely scenario in the next few decades is that
| Russia and/or China will collapse into violent revolution or
| civil way -- as has happened multiple times throughout their
| long histories. Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping aren't
| immortal. They have effectively concentrated decision making
| in their own hands and purged all other internal power
| centers, leaving no clear succession plan. When they die
| there's no way to predict what might happen.
| watwut wrote:
| The most corrupt government in American history (Trumps) is
| the one that is the most eager to give Russia everything they
| want. They are kind of trying to make America loose.
|
| Morally purer government would do better in the competition
| between Russia and America.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| We lost India to China because we were impulsive. Beijing's
| "wolf warriors" had already done generational damage to
| China's strength. We could have held the high ground for
| decades more.
| quickthrowman wrote:
| Russia is essentially a mafia with a gas station.
|
| The problem is, this mafia has a shitload of nuclear weapons.
| Without those, their vast land holdings east of the Urals
| would've already been taken by China.
|
| Both China and Russia have concentrated vast amounts of power
| into a single person, it gets bloody and chaotic when the
| 'one powerful man' dies and there's a power struggle.
| falcor84 wrote:
| I appreciated the historical context, but was disappointed that
| it seemed to fizzle to nothing at the end, just circling around
| "Urban warfare is messy; bummer". I mean, I was hoping that it
| could offer at least the basics of a strategy for any of Russia,
| Ukraine, Hamas or Israel to achieve a decisive victory, but
| couldn't find any. My mind kept yelling "What would Clausewitz do
| in this situation?" but left at empty-handed as I was at the
| start.
|
| It actually had the gall to finish with:
|
| > Clausewitz offers no checklist for success in cities, but
| rather something more valuable. What he offers is a way to think
| clearly ...
|
| I'm pretty sure that a checklist for success would have been more
| valuable.
| KnuthIsGod wrote:
| A checklist approach to strategy is only useful if your
| adversaries are foolish enough to use a checklist themselves.
| falcor84 wrote:
| Well, yes, a "checklist" (his word) might be too much of a
| strawman, but what would be useful would be a strategy in the
| game theoretical sense - a decision mechanism of actions
| conditional on different situations (e.g. "If the enemy is
| hiding in a network of tunnel under civilian population, you
| should wait until ... and then randomly ..., but if they ...
| then reverse course and instead ...").
|
| Quoting again from the author's closing remarks:
|
| > Victory in this environment requires more than
| technological superiority. It demands clarity of purpose,
| coherence between means and ends, disciplined execution, and
| moral restraint--the very fundamentals Clausewitz insisted
| upon. These are not optional in the urban century. They are
| decisive.
|
| But that's so vague that I can't help but again yell "But
| what is decisive?!", "What should the commanders/politicians
| do in practice?". It's almost astrology in how it doesn't say
| anything objectionable.
| lukan wrote:
| "What should the commanders/politicians do in practice?"
|
| It simply depends. No situation is unique.
|
| Israels strategy towards tunnels for example is to blow up
| and level everything. Ukraine does not deem that acceptable
| to the russian tunnels inside Ukraine.
| falcor84 wrote:
| What do you mean it depends? What does it depend on?
|
| I was hoping that being "the chair of urban warfare
| studies at the Modern War Institute" [0], the author
| could offer some actual advice on strategy. Or what is
| the institute for? Hopefully not just for writing essays.
|
| As for Israel's strategy towards tunnels, I actually have
| no understanding of what's going on there, but I can just
| say that whatever they're doing has not been effective in
| achieving a decisive victory, and is thus ipso facto not
| a good strategy. So I'm wondering what might a good
| strategy have been. The author now has two years of
| hindsight - could he not use that time and information to
| offer some alternative approach?
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Spencer_(military_
| officer...
| lukan wrote:
| "What do you mean it depends? What does it depend on?"
|
| The terrain, your avaiable forces and equipment, the
| morale of your soldiers, the main goal of the operation,
| the short, mid and long term plans. Outside reactions.
|
| Strength of enemy. Outside reactions, will the enemy get
| more support if X happens or less, will it matter if key
| target is achieved before time Y, ...
|
| There is no magic bullet for something as complex as
| urban warfare.
|
| If you want to level all, just use a nuke. But there
| seems to be reasons, why that is not a valid option. If
| you go with lots of ground troops, you will have
| casualties. Here the question how much is acceptable to
| your own population.
|
| If you go fast, you achieve a different effect then going
| slow. Etc. Etc etc.
| breppp wrote:
| The issue is mainly the hostages, as any tunnel or
| building may contain one that really slows the pace of
| advance considerably and ironically increases palestinian
| suffering
| pjc50 wrote:
| What Russian tunnels in Ukraine? The battlefields are of
| very, very different sizes, and the Ukraine war is mostly
| not taking place in occupied cities at the moment.
| lukan wrote:
| They ain't in use like in Gaza, but just google for
| "russia tunnels ukraine" if you are curious.
|
| They are used to get past strong lines of defense for
| example.
| bell-cot wrote:
| In one sense, your checklist is whatever you wrote down
| before starting:
|
| > Clausewitz also famously wrote, "No one starts a war--or
| rather, no one in his senses ought to do so--without first
| being clear in his mind what he intends to achieve by that
| war and how he intends to conduct it."
|
| You could also make a checklist of stuff like "reduce
| effectiveness of enemy's forces" and "minimize damage to
| your own ability to wage war" - but that's basics which any
| upperclassman at a military academy could recite, in regard
| to pretty much any war ever.
|
| It's been 2 centuries since Clausewitz was writing about
| military theory. He's still widely read because his ideas
| are big-picture abstractions. Bridging the gap between his
| abstractions and what to do, with whatever current-
| day/recent-tech forces you happen to have - that's the job
| of your flag officers and their staffs. Though their
| "checklists" will keep changing, as the war progresses.
| falcor84 wrote:
| Well said. But I'm still left with the question - have we
| actually benefitted in any way from these two centuries
| of military theory? If anything, it seems to me that wars
| are less decisive, more prolonged and often more deadly
| than they've been in Clausewitz's time.
|
| If we treat kinetic warfare as a game, I suppose you
| could argue that as in any other game, the more
| knowledgeable and more experienced the players are, the
| higher the likelihood of a draw. But then, seeing the
| harm that this is doing to the world, should we not see
| about changing the rules of war to reduce this likelihood
| and make things more decisive again, with the aim of
| reducing overall harm to civilians?
| bell-cot wrote:
| > have we actually benefitted in any way from these two
| centuries of military theory?
|
| "How to win" theories - when correct - favor those with
| the motivation to take them seriously, and the smarts to
| apply them correctly. I hope that overlaps nicely (in
| Venn diagram terms) with your "we".
|
| Plausibly, some wars have been prevented by military
| theory - because a nation analyzed their situation, and
| decided that starting a war would be a bad move.
|
| > If anything, it seems to me that wars are less
| decisive, more prolonged and often more deadly than
| they've been in Clausewitz's time.
|
| That's somewhat an effect of our larger nations and
| populations, the industrialized basis of modern warfare,
| and how heavily modern "get firearms, dig in" military
| technology favors the defense. BUT - pre-Clausewitz wars
| could also run a very long time -
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Year%27s_War or
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirty_Years'_War or
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/100_Year%27s_War or
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punic_Wars or ...
|
| > If we treat kinetic warfare as a game...
|
| Human "games" are generally balanced, or darn close. Vs.
| very few modern wars were started by anyone who thought
| things were nicely balanced.
|
| > ...should we not see about changing the rules...
|
| If you mean military tech or practices aimed at cutting
| such harm - 'most every modern military is forever
| working on that.* If you mean treaties banning land
| mines, or napalm, or nerve gas, or whatever - when well
| done, those can be quite useful. But in game terms, they
| are (at most) just changing the costs (in economic,
| human, and political terms) of making a "break the
| treaty" move.
|
| *Edit: Unfortunately, they're also working on some
| conflicting goals - like "require even more firepower for
| our enemies to defeat" and "apply even more firepower, to
| defeat our enemies".
| wat10000 wrote:
| It seems to me that making wars longer and less decisive
| helps weaker parties. Would the Vietnamese have preferred
| a shorter and more decisive war against the US, or
| Ukraine against Russia?
|
| Shorter and more decisive wars also encourages war. If
| there's the possibility of winning quickly and thoroughly
| then you might choose to start a war. If you know it's
| going to be a bloody and tedious affair no matter what,
| you probably won't.
|
| The modern world is remarkably peaceful compared to
| centuries past. We're at the point where having an active
| war of conquest in Europe is utterly shocking. Imagine
| going back to 1925 and saying "I can't believe a European
| country is taking parts of another European country by
| force, it's nuts, nobody does that!" They used to call
| that "Tuesday." The same is true in much of the rest of
| the world. And why? A lot of it is because it just
| doesn't work very well anymore. Russia has had very
| little return for 3+ years of invading Ukraine. Israel
| has spent two years invading Gaza so far and annexing the
| territory looks unlikely regardless of the military
| outcome. War used to be something a country might
| plausibly benefit from starting in some situations. It's
| really hard to make that case now, and that's how I want
| it to be.
| potato3732842 wrote:
| People really don't have an appreciation for how
| destructive dragging a "classical" army across the
| countryside actually is since it hasn't happened much
| since the advent of the railroad.
|
| There's a reason it was considered newsworthy and bold
| when Sherman did it and he was incredibly restrained
| because he was operating in his own country.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| Military theory struggles to provide serious benefit
| above trite things because the actual reality of war
| changes every single day.
|
| The most successful military theory is still the extreme
| basics: Your troops will do better when they want to do
| war. You need to feed troops and give them plenty of
| ammo. Training matters.
|
| Adapt or die
|
| >But then, seeing the harm that this is doing to the
| world, should we not see about changing the rules of war
| to reduce this likelihood and make things more decisive
| again, with the aim of reducing overall harm to
| civilians?
|
| Why would I follow your "rules of war" if it causes me to
| lose? There is no global authority to force anyone to
| follow rules, that's the whole point.
|
| If there was, _there would be no war_.
| WillAdams wrote:
| The checklist is one's own ethics and morale guideposts ---
| every interaction with others has to be done with a
| consideration for the long-term strategic goals rather than
| short-term gains --- Clausewitz argues that the will of the
| people of whom the military is an extension of and their ethics
| and mores have to be taken into account and all actions done in
| accord with what will make an acceptable news story.
|
| Consider the old adage:
|
| >Never do something which you wouldn't want your grandparents
| to read about in a newspaper, or to discuss with them over
| Sunday dinner.
|
| By extension, a military force should:
|
| >Never do anything which when shown on the evening news would
| result in a Congressional inquiry (or a War Crimes Tribunal).
| falcor84 wrote:
| I'm all for "Be excellent to each other", but in war, the
| first and foremost consideration is whether the strategy is
| effective. I'm not a big Clausewitz scholar, but I can't
| imagine that he or any other general would accept a strategy
| that prioritises the well-being of the opposing side to the
| point of their own side admitting defeat.
|
| As I see it, the only way that we can have "Rules of War" is
| by proving that a war _can be won_ while maintaining them.
| Otherwise (and unless you have a magic wand to make humans
| non-aggressive), these rules are worse than useless, because
| they limit the more ethical side, while making them lose to
| the less ethical.
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| Anyone can pretend to have this and that ethics when its
| comfortable and easy, its only under extreme duress when
| all pretenders are revealed.
| iamnothere wrote:
| I think the lesson is that you can never be sure that you
| will meet your military objectives--failure is always a
| possibility--and the blowback from that failure will be
| more limited if you appear to have conducted your war with
| adequate respect for noncombatants.
|
| Failing to conquer a nation (or depose its government, or
| secure some land, or defend a border, or whatever your
| objective is) may be shrugged off by your own nation, and
| you may even be able to normalize relations after some
| time. But if you abuse the noncombatant population, you
| often create bitter enemies, generational hatred, and
| global pressures on your society from third party
| observers. In the worst case this eventually escalates to
| mutual threats of genocide and total war.
|
| Even if a nation wins a conflict through sheer brutality,
| they may lose the occupation, or the reconstruction, or
| good relations with important partners, or all of the
| above. And they may create an enemy who will one day return
| with a vengeance.
| falcor84 wrote:
| From my reading of history, there's no straightforward
| correspondence between the ethics of the winning side and
| its ability to have good relations with the losing side.
| As a clear anti-example, in later stages of WW2, the
| allied forces were very willing to engage in attacks on
| population centers to achieve a decisive victory faster
| (particularly: Dresden, Hamburg, Hiroshima and Nagasaki),
| and the resulting relationships between the allied
| countries and Germany and Japan could not have been more
| positive even if the most optimistic poet in 1944 were to
| written lyric poetry about the best possible future.
|
| To be clear, I'm not advocating for cruelty, but I'm
| wondering if going back to an approach of "surrender or
| we'll kill you all" would save more lives than the
| current situation of "do everything you can to avoid
| doing too much harm at any one time", which ends up
| prolonging conflicts indefinitely.
| pjc50 wrote:
| > resulting relationships between the allied countries
| and Germany and Japan could not have been more positive
|
| I think there may have been a "lesser evil" aspect to
| that. The Allies had good relationships with _West_
| Germany almost immediately after the war because they
| were saving the defeated Germans from the USSR. Japan
| reconciled with the USSR but there are still tensions
| between Japan, Korea, and China over the war.
| iamnothere wrote:
| In both cases the aggressors were the first to engage in
| atrocities, and their atrocities were much more severe
| than those inflicted upon them. So both seem like a
| unique case. Additionally, both were part of a global
| conflict, which is uncommon. In a global conflict there
| aren't many bystanders who can effectively implement
| sanctions or apply diplomatic pressure.
|
| > I'm wondering if going back to an approach of
| "surrender or we'll kill you all" would save more lives
| than the current situation
|
| This is just as likely to provoke a "fight to the death"
| response from the defender which is often enough to
| prevent you from achieving your objectives. There are
| very few large conflicts where the objective is simply
| "eliminate the defenders".
| paddleon wrote:
| Friend, I have respect to where you are coming from, and
| ask you to please think a little longer term.
|
| You don't prioritize the well-being of the other side, but
| you do want to avoid radicalizing them. The more reasons
| they have to surrender, the more likely they are to
| surrender, thus ending the conflict sooner AND keeping the
| end conditions one they are comfortable living under.
|
| If instead they feel they are in a fight to the death, then
| you have a much tougher battle on your hand because they
| will fight to the death. You'll still win (maybe) but it's
| going to cost you in personelle and time and money.
|
| Next aspect. Moral of your troops. Everyone wants to be a
| hero, very few people join the military because they want
| to kill. And those that are in it to kill tend to be toxic
| leaders which is really bad for the rest of the team.
|
| "Rules of war"/"rules of engagement" are methods that allow
| your troops to maintain their humanity and sense of purpose
| under horrific situations. You give up that and you are now
| undercutting the fighting power of your own forces.
|
| The military did not come up with these ideas to make
| themselves weak. They came up with them and enforced them
| because they are the source of strength.
| falcor84 wrote:
| But that's the question - how do you fight honorably and
| win? How many examples can you offer (from any time in
| history), where the winning side conducted the campaign
| in a "gentlemanly fashion" (or however you want to call
| it), won, and got the respect of the losing side and
| lasting peace?
| pjc50 wrote:
| American Civil War?
| paddleon wrote:
| How does WWII strike you?
|
| Notice that Germany and Japan are now strong allies.
|
| Also notice that many people think the cause of WWII was
| that the WWI surrender forced unsustainable terms on
| Germany thus fueling the resentment that lead to WWII.
| watwut wrote:
| > Also notice that many people think the cause of WWII
| was that the WWI surrender forced unsustainable terms on
| Germany thus fueling the resentment that lead to WWII.
|
| And many historians dispute it. Partly because those
| terms were standard for the time and better then what
| Germans themselves planned to enact after they win.
|
| And partly because the German population never believed
| they lost the war. They believed they would winning
| absent "stab in the back". That is why the allies
| insisted on actually conquering Germany with no in
| between solution. The victory had to be absolute.
| paddleon wrote:
| To address your concern-- if two people are fighting and
| one thinks "I won't hit below the belt" that person is at
| a tactical disadvantage. Even worse if they think the
| other side has also agreed to that rule.
|
| So in that sense you are absolutely correct.
|
| But I invite you to think bigger. If one side lays siege
| to another side's city, and offers terms of surrender,
| the city needs to believe that the terms will be honored
| otherwise they don't surrender.
|
| Which is a large part of European history during the
| period from the middle ages up until Napoleon figured out
| how to use artillery, i.e. hundreds of years of examples
| where "fighting honorably" was the winning strategy.
| paddleon wrote:
| and one more time, sorry, you triggered a rant.
|
| if you can't count on your troops to be disciplined
| enough to follow your rules of engagement, how can you
| count on their discipline to follow your other orders? If
| you cannot show them that you are also disciplined, how
| do you expect them to maintain their respect for you as a
| leader?
|
| If you don't have honor, what are you fighting for? Troop
| moral is what wins wars.
|
| what's worse than death? Not having anything worth living
| for.
|
| very very few people find honor in being the most evil
| person. And those few who do make very bad leaders; you
| either avoid having them in your armed forces or you
| limit their impact.
|
| If one of your squadmates is an "I'll do anything to win"
| person, how can you trust them not to ditch you if that
| is their best survival option? Prisoner's dilema
| situations are common in battle
|
| I encourage you to visit a US military cemetery. You will
| sometimes see shrines to the military virtues. Courage,
| honor, pride, family, discipline all rank pretty high.
| nradov wrote:
| In WWII the Allies didn't take any steps to avoid
| radicalizing the other side. We implemented starvation
| blockades and fire bombed cities, killing millions of
| enemy civilians. They surrendered unconditionally because
| they were utterly destroyed and had no more capability it
| resist.
| pjc50 wrote:
| The broader point is that an unethical military victory
| erodes your political support, which might lead you to win
| the battle but lose the war.
| nradov wrote:
| The obvious counter example is WWII. The victorious Allied
| forces conducted widespread strategic bombing campaigns and
| starvation blockades against Axis civilian targets. This was
| highly effective and saved the lives of many Allied personnel
| but judged against some modern criteria could have been
| considered "war crimes": for example, see the fire bombing of
| Dresden. None of the Allied leaders were put in front of a
| tribunal because the strategy worked and Congress was fully
| on board. The uncomfortable reality is that sometimes the
| only practical way to win and preserve your own forces is to
| massacre enemy civilians on an industrial scale.
| TheCoelacanth wrote:
| Whether or not strategic bombing was actually effective in
| WWII is widely disputed.
| wslh wrote:
| Obviously, there is a plenty of content with this search:
| _urban warfare site:il filetype:pdf_
| pydry wrote:
| Russia is following Clausewitzian principles pretty
| assiduously.
|
| They've got a set of 3 clear objectives and their tactics on
| the ground, e.g.
|
| * prioritizing attrition over the capture of territory.
|
| * avoiding urban fighting where possible (e.g. a multi-year
| avoidance of zaporizhia and kharkiv).
|
| * minimizing civilian casualties.
|
| Reflect not only the objectives, but the desire to avoid a lot
| of the "messiness" the author referred to. The fact that
| Ukrainian civilians fear busification more than drone strikes
| is a testament to that.
|
| None of the other parties (Ukraine, Hamas, Israel) appear to
| follow clausewitzian logic, though.
| wolvesechoes wrote:
| You cannot say something that can be considered even sligthly
| positive about Russia and its strategy.
| psunavy03 wrote:
| If this was remotely true, they'd have won the war already.
| Russian operational and strategic decision-making has been a
| bonfire of blazing incompetence since the beginning, which is
| what led to things breaking down into WWI-style attritional
| warfare.
|
| Leaving the moral dimension aside, this entire war has been
| basically two JV teams going at it since the beginning. NATO
| would have wiped the floor with the Russian military based on
| their performance so far, and it's surprising considering
| what a juggernaut everyone claimed the Russian military was
| pre-war.
| pydry wrote:
| >If this was remotely true, they'd have won the war
| already.
|
| They're invading the largest country in Europe armed by a
| military bloc constituting 60% of world military spending.
| Which part of that screamed quick to you?
|
| >Russian operational and strategic decision-making has been
| a bonfire of blazing incompetence
|
| They somehow managed to achieve a body bag exchange ratio
| of 44:1 and an extreme busification crisis in Ukraine with
| a volunteer force.
|
| It's a more impressive showing than Iraq.
|
| >led to things breaking down into WWI-style attritional
| warfare.
|
| Putin announced the strategy of attritional warfare in
| March 2022 after the land bridge was secured, so one could
| hardly argue that this wasnt the plan.
|
| Ukraine has done a good job of playing into their hands by
| trying to cling on to land long past the point where it
| becomes defensible and getting enveloped in cauldron after
| cauldron.
|
| Hence the issue where Ukrainian civilians are now more
| afraid of their own government's roving kidnapping gangs
| than living under Moscow's rule.
|
| That part is probably going to be the real kicker in the
| end.
| psunavy03 wrote:
| I suppose if you've completely swallowed Ruscist
| propaganda, this all tracks.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Which part of that screamed quick to you?_
|
| Congratulations, you've shown superior strategic
| capability than Putin's entire pre-war military brass.
|
| > _where Ukrainian civilians are now more afraid of their
| own government 's roving kidnapping gangs than living
| under Moscow's rule_
|
| Was this written by AI?
| pydry wrote:
| >Congratulations, you've shown superior strategic
| capability than Putin's entire pre-war military brass.
|
| Congratulations on deluding yourself into believing he's
| losing this war against all of the evidence I guess.
|
| >Was this written by AI?
|
| Have you used it so much that you cant distinguish it
| from real life any more?
|
| Try talking to some Ukrainians some time - ones that live
| there.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _he 's losing this war against all of the evidence_
|
| He's not winning on the timelines his military brass
| originally predicted.
|
| Putin and Ukraine are in a stalemate. That takes Russia
| off the table as a near peer to the U.S.
|
| > _Try talking to some Ukrainians some time_
|
| I have. They're not on that part of TikTok.
| omnee wrote:
| The amount of total financial support provided to Ukraine
| is lower than that which Russia has earned from the same
| bloc. And military support is the smaller fraction of
| this total. So, the support has been important but
| without Ukraine deciding to resist Russia vehemently, the
| Donbass would have long been conquered.
|
| I do agree with your criticism that in certain places,
| such as Bakhmut or Avdiivka, Ukraine has lost many men
| needlessly when in an indefensible position. Saying that,
| Russia is making at best incremental gains for huge
| casualties. They certainly aren't going to conquer the
| rest of Donbass by this year or even by the 4th
| anniversary.
| pydry wrote:
| >The amount of total financial support provided to
| Ukraine is lower than that which Russia has earned from
| the same bloc.
|
| The amount of aid sent during the war totaled up to about
| $300 billion, which is roughly equal to the Russian
| military budget for the same period.
|
| Thats not counting all of the "soon to be expired" stuff
| they handed over in 2022/2023, declaring it was worth $0
| because it would have been disposed of.
|
| >Saying that, Russia is making at best incremental gains
| for huge casualties.
|
| For every body bag they get back theyve recently been
| handing over 44.
|
| Territorial gains are only relevant for them right now
| insofar as it serves their overriding goal of attrition.
|
| >They certainly aren't going to conquer the rest of
| Donbass by this year or even by the 4th anniversary.
|
| If it serves the overall goal of attrition im sure theyd
| be happy to drag it out beyond February. Theyre not on a
| deadline.
|
| The problem is that the more the Ukrainian army gets
| hollowed out by attrition now, the faster and more
| complete the eventual collapse will be.
| TiredOfLife wrote:
| > minimizing civilian casualties
|
| Russians target civilian objects - apartment complexes,
| hospitals, metro entrances, passenger trains. Constantly do a
| second strike when emergency crews arrive. They use drones to
| hunt civillians who live near frontline.
| pydry wrote:
| Gazan civilian casualties eclipsed Ukrainian within about
| two weeks.
|
| Militaries routinely use civilian objects for military
| purposes, so that these objects are targeted isnt
| meaningful in and of itself - like the time a pizza
| restaurant was targeted and it later emerged that the
| restaurant hosted a rather large military gathering.
| TheCoelacanth wrote:
| Obviously because Gaza is virtually defenseless and
| Israel has roughly one active duty soldier for every
| seven adults in Gaza. It's less of a war than just a
| massacre.
|
| Ukraine and Russia on the other hand are relatively
| evenly matched, so killing civilians is much harder.
| weregiraffe wrote:
| Lol. They don't call Russians orcs for nothing, you know.
| tim333 wrote:
| I think you can explain Russia's poor performance somewhat
| from Clausewitzian principles:
|
| "primordial violence, hatred, and enmity" - weren't really
| there - most Russians viewed Ukrainians as their brethren.
|
| "Chance and Probability" - the Russians have proved pretty
| inflexible. I mean after they failed to take Kyiv in three
| days they could have gone home and saved a lot of bother,
| maybe keeping some lands in the south.
|
| "Reason and Policy" - didn't make much sense. Few Russians
| wanted to go to war so Putin could lord it over the
| Ukrainians as well as the Russians. This looks more like a
| political move by Putin to keep power.
|
| If Russia had actually had a clear objective to annex Ukraine
| they could have mobilised and knocked them out in no time but
| instead we have a mess and kind of stalemate which to me
| seems to be moving in Ukraine's favour as they can now hit
| most targets inside Russia.
| corimaith wrote:
| Also probably to note that much of the "ideological" battles in
| early Europe, whether it was legitimacy for the throne or
| religious conflicts tended to end in sobering sieges not unlike
| Gaza. The difference is they actually all did starve to death
| when they refused to surrender. Siege of La Rochelle as the
| climatic battle betwen King Louis and the Huguenots, the
| population declined from 22k to 5k, comparable to Gaza. But the
| Huguenots really did loose in the end when they were too weak
| to resist entry.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| Clausewitz's writing (and especially _On War_ ) is very
| abstract and philosophical, to the point that when he mentions
| specifics it's almost incongruous.
|
| There's a bit in _On War_ where he descends from a lofty
| discussion on what victory means and how generals should should
| figure that out before the battle starts, to state abruptly
| that chasing a fleeing enemy is a bad idea, particularly
| through a forest, because it 's a good way to get your forces
| strung out and cut down. This part is so vivid I've often
| wondered if he or a superior officer succumbed to enthusiasm
| and Clausewitz learned this lesson the hard way.
|
| One problem with reading Clausewitz is that he was writing in
| an era of large set-piece battles where you had blocks of
| infantry that still marched around in square formation, cavalry
| charges and so on, though centuries-long practices were
| changing thanks to Napoleon's tactical innovations. Clausewitz
| writes in generalities rather than specifics because commanders
| of the time were very familiar with standard dispositions and
| didn't need them laid out in detail, and likewise strategic
| ideas like trying to ravage your enemy's supply lines and
| bypass forts hadn't changed significantly in millenia.
| Clausewitz was trying to give shape to the questions of whether
| and why one should go to war in the first place, how to break
| out of escalatory cycles so you don't end up isolated and so
| on. I often think he has more to say to the fields of
| international relations/statecraft than to pure military
| analysis.
|
| If you prefer something less abstract there's a good small book
| by Machiavelli on the topic (confusingly also titled _On War_ ;
| easiest to find as a double-volume with _The Prince_ ) and of
| course Sun Tzu. I think the Samuel Griffith translation is the
| best one because Griffith was a marine officer in addition to
| being a scholar. Lidell-Hart's book _Strategy_ also stands up
| to repeat reading and functions as a great roadmap of European
| military history.
| ckemere wrote:
| In the case of the active conflicts (Gaza, Ukraine), it seems
| that there is a strong disconnect between internal-facing media
| and political will and external facing media on potential allies.
|
| I would have liked some more unpacking of how this disconnect
| would have been interpreted by Clausewitz.
|
| It also struck me that as an outsider to these conflicts, I
| assume that the combatants are acting rationally from the
| perspective of the adage ("No one starts a war--or rather, no one
| in his senses ought to do so--without first being clear in his
| mind what he intends to achieve by that war and how he intends to
| conduct it") and I judge the morality based on the inferred
| intent. That would also have been interesting to unpack...
| Jimmy-Corleone wrote:
| Our "government" ( who ever "our" pertains to within the US) has
| been lied always lied and will continuing on lying to the people
| within the American society.... But so long as the people accept
| They will continuing on doing
| mamonster wrote:
| > Victory in this environment requires more than technological
| superiority. It demands clarity of purpose, coherence between
| means and ends, disciplined execution, and moral restraint--the
| very fundamentals Clausewitz insisted upon. These are not
| optional in the urban century. They are decisive.
|
| If I learned anything from both Gaza and Ukraine, it's that its
| the complete opposite that's true. You go clearing from house to
| house, some AQB fighter is gonna pop-out of a tunnel and pop an
| IED into your Merkava tank. You do that enough times and your
| army's morale is going to be shot. You wanna win, you have to
| bomb dual use assets and only fight when its needed. If you can
| do a hunger siege, flood by bombing a dam or something else, then
| do that.
| pjc50 wrote:
| "make a desert and call it peace". There's still two million
| people in Gaza.
| jedimind wrote:
| Notice how he's euphemistically paraphrasing the genocidal
| approach ("hunger siege" => starving the besieged native
| population) that Israel has already been using from the very
| start[1][2]. He is writing it from the POV of the IDF (e.g.
| usage of merkava, references to tunnels) - hence he is
| obviously a Zionist. So he's trying to sell the false
| narrative that the IDF wasn't already genocidal from the very
| start, which the mountains of evidence easily disprove. They
| only advocate for such heinous measures, because they assume
| that they will permanently have the upper hand. As soon as
| the tables turn and he realizes that his justification for
| such an approach would suddenly benefit the natives they
| wanted to ethnically-cleanse, then he would suddenly flip-
| flop on his opinion and would consider such an approach
| immoral and unethical - to avoid having to taste the same
| medicine that he has been recommending for others.
|
| [1] Israel/OPT: New testimonies provide compelling evidence
| that Israel's starvation of Palestinians in Gaza is a
| deliberate policy
|
| https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2025/08/israel-opt-
| ne...
|
| [2] 13 December _2023_ : "US President Joe Biden has said
| Israel is starting to lose global support over its
| _indiscriminate bombing_ of Gaza. "
|
| https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-67699255
| TheCoelacanth wrote:
| You are just giving an example of how lack of "coherence
| between means and ends" leads to failure.
|
| A military occupation (means) is not an effective way to
| achieve lasting control over the civilian population (ends)
| unless much of the population is already on your side, so it is
| foolish to try to use those means to achieve those ends.
|
| Russia has also been hurt quite badly by lack of moral
| restraint in the war against Ukraine (which in the context
| Clausewitz used it I believe means more whether you have
| rational control of your actions than whether your actions are
| "good" or "bad"). Attacking civilians is usually extremely
| ineffective at achieving anything other than making leaders
| feel good that they are hurting their enemies and usually just
| hardens the enemy's resolve to continue fighting.
| aerostable_slug wrote:
| I think Russia has been quite restrained. I'm not defending
| them in any way, but many Ukrainians still have electric
| power, running water, and other trappings of modern society.
| If the present Russian regime chose otherwise I'm not sure
| that they would. It doesn't take a great deal of precision to
| mission-kill water works and other civil infrastructure that
| has survived in rear areas.
|
| It seems to me both sides have been sending signals with
| their respective attacks on 'homeland' targets, rather than
| going fully gloves-off. Agreed that it's not working out for
| the Russians.
| AuthAuth wrote:
| Russia targets Ukrainian Infra. It goes down and ukraine
| brings it back online. They also have air defense assets
| protecting key infra. Russia doesnt leave it up because of
| moral reasons, they're doing what they can to win and that
| includes attacking the grid.
| EA-3167 wrote:
| It's essentially just this; in urban warfare with entrenched
| enemies you can choose who suffers, but not whether there's
| suffering. The endeavor is inherently horrific, and that horror
| in both the cases of Ukraine and Gaza are dictated by the
| decision by one party to use the urban environment to maximize
| casualties. Whether it's the Russians in Bucha or Hamas in
| tunnels under schools, both are fully aware of what they're
| doing.
|
| Unfortunately the mentality of most people has been grossly
| oversimplified to the point of staging everything as a
| melodrama.
| vonnik wrote:
| I found this to be a remarkably uninsightful work. He somehow
| negates the inherent drama of war with the milquetoast prose and
| myopia of an academic. Much of what he says is in fact false,
| presumably because he is far from the action and relies on
| Clausewitz as a crutch for thought.
|
| The key nodes to control have to do with supply chain, energy and
| information; ie depots, road and rail, bridges, factories,
| substations and data centers or satellites.
|
| Ukraine has severely weakened Russia by attacking those points,
| as Russia has Ukraine.
|
| Beijing could well defeat Taiwan (and the US by proxy) by
| controlling its sea lanes, cutting its cables, and jamming its
| radio spectrum.
| nradov wrote:
| China might be able to blockade Taiwan for a while but China's
| own SLOC are far more vulnerable. They are dependent on
| critical food, energy, and mineral imports -- most of which
| pass through a few choke points where they are still unable to
| project sustained naval power. The US and its allies could cut
| those off at any time and China lacks the internal reserves to
| survive a long blockade.
| maxglute wrote:
| Manufacturing consent for war is important, news at 11. Snark
| aside, it's getting harder to generate moral high ground to
| maintain the facade of LIO supremecy. The problem with modern
| American imperialism (and European colonialism) is it's hard to
| sell to your (multicultural) people we need to to sacrifice blood
| and treasure to remove/occupy bad/inferior people on the other
| side of the world. More after decades of mass media recognizing
| you're actually sacrificing blood and treasure to collateral
| damage a bunch of civilians. More so when the spoils of war seems
| meagre relative to cost, and all the resources prosecuting one
| could have been focused on domestic serenity. Clausewitz (mostly)
| lived in a context of fighting for survival/dominance against
| neighbours, which I guess is apt for RU/UK, ISR/GAZA discussed in
| this article but the actual belligerants in either war are less
| sustained by morality / or need moral cover as realist interest.
| Who needs moral cover is however their sponsors, and really we're
| talking about US+co who needs to convince constitutents of the
| moral cause to support proxy wars, instead of just admitting: we
| get to cripple RU by sacrificing UKR, or keeping MENA influence
| is worth starving and killing tons of kids.
| wolvesechoes wrote:
| There is quite obvious reason that Israel does what it does -
| commiting an equivalent of mass child sacrifice is quite good at
| uniting Israelis even if lot of them protest against that.
|
| If you are hated by everyone outside your tribe, you will stick
| with your tribe, because you have lost other options.
| themafia wrote:
| > "war is not merely an act of policy but a true political
| instrument, a continuation of political intercourse, carried on
| by other means."
|
| If _and only if_ War is utilized as a last resort. Otherwise this
| is self serving nonsense used by the political class which
| utilizes war to orient the population and to maintain a dark and
| grotesque part of our economy.
|
| It's 2025. Institutions like the "Modern War Institute" not just
| existing but also pumping out this outdated amoral claptrap is
| obscenely depressing.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _If _and only if_ War is utilized as a last resort_
|
| Nope, always. War is politics by violent memes. Pretending it
| is only used in the last case is incredibly dangerous, since it
| ignores both provocation and deterrence.
| themafia wrote:
| Then that's not "political intercourse." I understand that
| war is not actually used as described in the quote. Which is
| the point. These military ideas of war are romantic
| fantasies.
|
| Although I'm sure the victims of all the holocausts in human
| history will be heartened to know that it was just politics
| by a different means.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _that 's not "political intercourse"_
|
| The full phrase is "the political intercourse of
| Governments and nations" [1].
|
| Clausewitz's point is that if "such intercourse is broken
| off by war, and that a totally different state of things
| ensues, subject to no laws but its own," then not only does
| international law become irrelevant, but diplomatic
| resolutions to war impossible. Rejecting that war is a
| continuation of politics underwrites atrocity. (If war only
| happens as a last resort, and you are at war, it follows
| that there is no further recourse than war.)
|
| > _These military ideas of war are romantic fantasies_
|
| Clausewitz wasn't a military romanticist. To the extent
| here are romantic ideals at play, it's in pretending war
| _isn 't_ a continuation of politics.
|
| > _I 'm sure the victims of all the holocausts in human
| history will be heartened_
|
| Why is this relevant to the correctness of the theory?
| Should we reject the heat-death hypothsis because it's
| uncomfortable?
|
| I've already argued why rejecting war as a continuation of
| politics rejects diplomacy as a way to end wars. The Third
| Reich is a good demonstrator for why rejecting the
| political component of war is dangerous on the other end.
| Appeasing Hitler makes sense if parties will only pursue
| war as a last resort. Acknowledging his political
| interests, on the other hand, would have shown why--in that
| case--appeasement was destabilising.
|
| [1] https://www.clausewitzstudies.org/readings/OnWar1873/BK
| 8ch06...
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