Clausewitz vs. The Scholar: Martin Van Creveld's Expanded Theory Of War CSC 1992 SUBJECT AREA History EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Title: Clausewitz vs. the Scholar: Martin Van Creveld's Expanded Theory Of War Author: Major K. M. French, United States Marine Corps Thesis: Many people view Martin van Creveld's views on the nature of warfare in the twentieth century to be radical and even heretical. Yet on close examination, his model on the nature of warfare provides a useful framework for the evaluation of non-conventional warfare. Background: Carl von Clausewitz is widely accepted and re- vered as the father of modern strategy. Yet he has not been without critics. The most recent critic of the writings of Clausewitz is Martin van Creveld, who makes his case in his book, The Transformation of War and in a series of lectures at the U.S. Marine Corps Command and Staff College, Quantico, VA in 1991 and 1992. Van Creveld proposes a nontrinitarian model for the analysis of war and argues that Clausewitz's model of a trinitarian arrangement among the people, army and government is no longer valid. This paper examines van Creveld's thesis, explains his framework and contrasts it to Clausewitz's conventional theory. Two cases are examined which illustrate that Clausewitz's model does not hold for all types of warfare. First, Medieval warfare is shown to be totally outside of Clausewitz's theory. Next, trends in warfare since 1945 are examined to illustrate that forces are currently at work that are not well explained by Clausewitz's strictly political framework. Conclusion: While still valid for conventional warfare, Clausewitz's trinitarian model does not satisfactorily ac- count for all types of warfare, specifically most forms of low intensity conflict and unconventional war common since 1945. CLAUSEWITZ VS. THE SCHOLAR: MARTIN VAN CREVELD'S EXPANDED THEORY OF WAR OUTLINE Thesis Statement. Many people view Martin van Creveld's views on the nature of warfare in the twentieth century to be radical and even heretical. Yet on close examination, his model on the nature of warfare provides a useful framework for the evaluation of non-conventional warfare. I. War Theories A. Clausewitz 1. Background 2. Political Nature of Warfare B. Van Creveld 1. Contrast to Clausewitz 2. Trinitarian Warfare 3. Five Basic Issues 4. Nontrinitarian War II. Historical and Contemporary Analysis A. Medieval Warfare 1. State 2. Army 3. People B. Golden Age of Clausewitz 1. Consolidation of State System 2. Dominance of State System III. War Since 1945 A. Technology and Nontrinitarian War B. Nuclear War C. Current War CLAUSEWITZ VS. THE SCHOLAR: MARTIN VAN CREVELD'S EXPANDED THEORY OF WAR Carl von Clausewitz, who first set his ideas down in the 1820's while Superintendent of the Prussian Kriegs- akademie, is probably the most revered and quoted military theorist of this century. Yet, for all his popularity, many people over the years have challenged the primacy and validity of his positions. Over the ensuing decades, other writers have come to disagree with, even disparage the work of Clausewitz as naive, pretentious, even monstrous. One of the recent assaults on the theories of the father of mod- ern strategic thought has been engineered by the Israeli military historian, Martin van Creveld. Van Creveld pre- sents his case on Clausewitz in a work entitled The Trans- formation of War. He has further advanced his thoughts in this area in a series of lectures given at the U.S. Ma- rine Corps Command and Staff College in 1991 and 1992. Many people view van Creveld's propositions as radical, even heretical. Compared to Clausewitz's turgid prose, van Creveld makes for somewhat more exciting reading. His writ- ing is clear and direct, and his approach is to load up the pages with heaps of historical examples to drive home his points. Never one to mince his words, his non-traditional views are often at odds with conventional wisdom. The pur- pose of this paper is to examine the main premises which van Creveld advances about strategic thought and evaluate his new model in contrast to traditional Clausewitzian thought. The basis for this comparison shall start with an era which Clausewitz chose to ignore, since according to him, it had almost nothing to say about the nature of warfare as he saw it being practiced. Yet, Medieval warfare, despite what Clausewitz may have thought, provides an interesting coun- terpoint on which to evaluate the theories which the Prus- sian master advances. Then we shall turn to an examination of modern trends in warfare in terms of Clausewitzian thought and van Creveld's model. But first we will set the stage with an introduction of the two theorists, beginning with Clausewitz. War Theories -- Clausewitz To acknowledge that Carl von Clausewitz occupies nearly unequalled prominence in the galaxy of Western military theorists is a position that is hardly controversial. For over a century and a half, his propositions, set forth in the unfinished masterwork On War, have framed the debate from which nearly all serious writings about war have pro- ceeded.  Authors of every military work of lasting importance seem unable to set pen to paper without at least a mention of Clausewitz's name or the citation of at least one of his many very quotable passages. Prevalence aside, most stu- dents of strategy would agree with Peter Paret that On War is by far the single most influential work on the subject ever written. Over one hundred sixty years after the author's death, On War is still studied in every major Western command and staff college by those who wish to understand the nature of war. In order to attain even a rudimentary level of compe- tence in strategy, one must become at least familiar with the basic postulates of Clausewitz. This fact alone could be sufficient proof of his enduring and widespread influence in the modern world of military thought. Yet, the influence of On War lies much deeper than the frequency with which it is quoted. The postulates of the Clausewitzian model are basic, almost axiomatic to under- standing modern warfare. So elemental are his observations, if Clausewitz had not done it first, later theorists would have found it necessary to identify the same issues in or- der to even begin a discussion of war. Certainly it is not possible to attempt to summarize a work such as On War in a few short pages. For the purposes of this analysis, that is not necessary. We are primarily concerned here with what has become the foundation of nearly all discussions of modern warfare. Namely, the political nature of war. The central contribution which Clausewitz made was his assertion that war is above all else, a politi- cal activity. It is important to understand why Clausewitz saw war as primarily a political act. For this, we must look at the nature of the world in which his thinking was influenced. Before he was anything else, Clausewitz was a Prussian sol- dier. He entered military service at the tender age of twelve as an officer-candidate in Prussia under the great Scharnhorst and died in uniform some thirty-nine years later in 1831. During this time, Prussia suffered a series of defeats at the hands of the most dynamic and powerful armies that Europe had ever witnessed. As did many thinkers of his era, Clausewitz set out to understand the nature of the Napoleonic genius and to understand the lessons which the revolution in warfare demonstrated to the world between 1793 and 1815. He had personally experienced Prussian defeat and saw that governments needed to harness societies as well as armies to conduct war on the same scale as Bonaparte. As early as 1807, while still a war prisoner in France, he came to believe that war was an instrument to be used by governments in the conduct of foreign policy. By 1827, Clausewitz had finished nearly all of On War at least in draft form. In a progress note on his work, he tells us what he believed to be the foundation of all thought on the conduct of war. This is contained in perhaps the most quot- ed passage in all his work. Namely, that "war is nothing but the continuation of policy with other means." In fact, his plans were to reinforce this point in a re-write of Book Eight of On War which was intended to be a discus- sion of the organization of war as a whole. Even in its unfinished state, On War repeatedly emphasizes Clausewitz's vision of the political nature of war and its necessary sub- ordination to politics. In a few brief paragraphs we have sketched the essen- tial basis for warfare from Clausewitz's time to the present. That is, war is a political activity conducted by states, against other states as a rationally employed in- strument of policy. This brings us to the question of the continuing valid- ity of On War. The theory is strongly biased in its narrow applicability to the system of nation-states extant during Clausewitz's time. Is the theory, therefore, general enough to be useful in all cases found in our current experience? For an answer to this let us turn now to one of the more recent critics of the Clausewitzian model. War Theories -- Van Creveld Against the backdrop of the traditional Clausewitzian model, authors have advanced alternate theories as to the nature of war and the shape of future warfare. Beginning with Baron Antoine Jomini, theorists have advanced opposing views on the nature of war and strategy. More recently, in 1978, Ambassador Robert T. Underhill advanced the idea that wars are no longer useful or rational in modernized societ- ies. This he felt was due in large part to the huge cost which modern societies would have to bear in order to toler- ate warfare in their midst. Modern societies are so depen- dent on the delicate infrastructure of electricity, communications, and transportation that if war did break out, the society itself would cease to exist. He predicted that this trait would tend to force wars into the less de- veloped corners of the world. To him, paradoxically, war should be most common precisely where there is little worth fighting over. In 1990 Martin van Creveld picked up some of the threads of Ambassador Underhill's ideas and proposed an al- ternative view of warfare. In The Transformation of War, Van Creveld defines the current strategic framework as a trinitarian model by tracing its roots to the theories of Clausewitz. Namely, he points to that passage which de- scribes war as . . . a paradoxical trinity -- composed of primordial violence, hatred and enmity, which are to be re- garded as a blind natural force; of the play of chance and probability within which the creative spirit is free to roam; and of its element of sub- ordination, as an instrument of policy, which makes it subject to reason alone. The first of these aspects mainly concerns the people; the second the commander and his army; the third the government. These three tendencies are like different codes of law, deep rooted in their subject and yet variable in their relationship to one another. A theory which ignores any one of them or seeks to fix an arbitrary relationship between them, would conflict with reality to such an extent that for this reason alone it would be totally useless.  The passage is rarely quoted and less often seen in its en- tirety. Yet, as Michael Howard noted, it sums up the es- sence of Clausewitzian doctrine. It defines the elements of war and assigns these elements to three actors which interrelate in ever changing ways: the people, the army, and the government. So we find the essential requirements for the Clause- witzian model. First we need a social system which recog- nizes states. Then, the forces within the state that must be managed are the trinity of people, army, and government. Based on the primacy of these elements, van Creveld proposes that a new term - trinitarian strategy, is appropriate for what military thinkers have until now thought of as con- ventional strategy. While he never really defines the term, for our purposes it will be taken as that conflict which is undertaken by sovereign states against other sovereign states in order to further political interests. Van Creveld sees much lacking in the comfortable as- sumptions under lying the trinitarian approach to strategy. Clausewitz limits his view of the history of warfare to that system which emerged after the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648. This treaty signalled the end of the post feudal era which was dominated by the Thirty Years War. Since then wars had been waged predominately by states against states. In fact, since that time, common convention and an evolving body of international law helped to solidify the notion that states are the only entity morally and legally allowed to wage war. Acts of violence by other entities tended to not be regarded as wars at all, but rather as uprisings, rebellions, and people's wars. We will return to this theme in a later section, but first we turn to a summary of van Creveld's nontrinitarian model of war. A New Analytical Framework Van Creveld proposes a more general approach to under- standing the nature of warfare. The approach centers around five key issues which attempt to describe the critical fac- tors inherent in war. The issues are meant to define the nature of the conflict in terms of the principles involved. The aim is to define war, as did Clausewitz, in non- prescriptive terms. But van Creveld goes farther and also seeks to describe it in a manner which is not dependent on the existence of the system of sovereign states which Clausewitz's trinitarian approach requires. The first of the issues, by whom war is fought, seeks to define the roles assumed by those who are involved in making war. In modern conventional terms, the answer to this question is that wars are fought by uniformed, well- regulated armies under the direction of the state. But seen through history, the role of states could be taken up by various leagues, associations, city-states, religious or- ders, and other entities, which throughout history, can and have conducted war. The second issue, what is war all about, identifies the relationships among those who participate in war and those who may be caught up in its currents. One must understand jus in bello in order to gain a full understanding of how a war is conducted and what its affects might be. Included in the analysis are treatment of prisoners, civilians, the types of weapons allowed, how one surrenders, and how the societies involved draw the line between acts of war and crimes or atrocities. Next comes the question of how war is fought. This question addresses the classic issues of modern military strategy in terms of force creation and force application. In truth, there is nothing new here. Van Creveld addresses the question in terms of the classic Clausewitzian problems of friction, chance and the skill of the commander. He adds to this the task of creation of force and how it is best applied. As did Clausewitz, he emphasizes that distinctive aspect of conflict typified by the interactive nature of combat between two intelligent, independent wills. The next issue to be addressed is what war is fought for. To this Clausewitz would reply with the now famous dictum, "War is a continuation of politics with an admixture of other means." Perhaps no other line from On War is quoted so often. Yet, the implicit assumption which lies behind this declaration should be examined. It implies that armies must be governed by states and be subservient to their will. War becomes an instrument in the hands of the state, a means to an end. As we shall discuss later, it may be too restrictive to assume that war is always a means to an end. A strong argument could be made that war can be an end in itself. Van Creveld identifies conflicts such as political wars, religious wars, and struggles for national or ethnic existence which became much more than mere means to an end. Put another way, it is possible for policy, interests, and the definition of what is rational to change over time and to differ among cultures. To understand the nature of war, we must be sensitive to this possibility. The last question to be addressed and perhaps the most critical is why war is fought. Van Creveld believes this question must be considered at the most personal level. That is, what is it that motivates a soldier to risk his life? This question allows one to understand the sources and motivators of an army's fighting spirit. The politician and military leader must be very clear about just what it is that motivates men to fight and understand very well what can cause men not to fight. Similarly, one must look very carefully at the factors that makes one's opponent fight. History provides numerous examples of fighting spirit which are totally alien to Western society. One need look only as far as World War II to find examples of Japanese kamikaze pilots and more recently to Khomeini's waves of Iranian youth marching to heaven through Iraqi mine fields to see examples of motivators totally foreign to Western practice. Taken together, these questions overlap considerably with many of the key points first delineated by Clausewitz over one hundred sixty years ago. Yet, they offer a means to probe deeper than the old master would have us, based strictly on the content of On War. Nontrinitarian War Van Creveld's model readily accepts the existence of a type of warfare which does not fit well into Clausewitz's primarily political model. He proposes that if Clausewitz's theory Is based on a three part system of people, army, and government, then the appropriate term for this type of war- fare is trinitarian warfare. It follows that anything which does not fit this model is something else entirely, that is, nontrinitarian warfare.  If we examine the type of warfare included by Clause- witz in his search for examples, we see that he relied pri- marily on what was for him recent experience. In his chapter, "On Historical Examples", he explains that less recent historical examples should be avoided. He states that conditions were so different in other times that ear- lier wars have few practical lessons for us. This is not to say that Clausewitz dismissed all an- cient history as useless. He did consider certain lessons from antiquity to be relevant. Yet his overwhelming reli- ance was on what for him was recent experience: wars begin- ning with the Wars of Austrian Succession (1740 - 1748) and the Silesian Wars (1740 - 1745). It is important to point out the implications of this position. For Clausewitz, this meant his model would be based on the system of nation states which were then in con- trol of the European continent. Modern war, as he experi- enced it, was waged on a huge scale by vast, expensive armies. These armies were managed by a large and evolving staff system of highly trained officers. It was probably inconceivable to one who had witnessed first-hand the power of the grande armee that real war could be waged by any oth- er means. For the nearly three hundred years since the Peace of Westphalia, this perspective was accurate for the most dominant forms of war. Yet, this point of view had a constraining effect when it came to understanding the various other forms of warfare which existed in other times, with other technologies, or with other political arrangements. If Clausewitz was right about warfare in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries because he drew the right lessons about the relationships among people, army, and governments, then what happens if the relationships are radically changed or even eliminated? This is the essence of van Creveld's nontrinitarian war the- ory: war may be conducted by entities other than states and by means other than armies. To illustrate the concept we will examine two cases. First, we will look at warfare in medieval times to show that it is possible to have war under radically different social and political conditions than envisioned by Clausewitz's trinitarian model. Then we will advance to the present to examine some trends in warfare since 1945 which indicate that even now we may be living in a period which does not lend itself well to examination strictly within the trinitarian framework. Medieval Warfare To understand why Clausewitz chose to base his theory in recent experience, one need only look at what passed for warfare prior to the modern era. Feudalism was finally re- placed by a system of sovereign states which the Treaty of Westphalia codified. Prior to this, the predominant form of political organization was a chaotic blend of alliances be- tween individuals and various religious allegiances typified in the feudal systems of Europe. We have the luxury of being able to take a longer view of history and can look back at feudalism and recognize that this was an intricate social and legal arrangement which required a fluid and complex relationship of power among the entities. Viewed in terms of Clausewitz's trinitarian model, the discrete roles of people, army, and government were very much different than those seen in his own day. To begin, the concept of a sovereign state does not really apply to the feudal period. Holdings of feudal lords were non-contiguous, small, and usually independent areas of real estate administered as private holdings. War could be waged by any man of honor who had the desire and the means. In fact, the intricate web of feudal obligations, duties, and rights gave rise to many disputes which natu- rally resorted to violence since there was no higher author- ity to which one could turn except God's judgement. In such a system, the fief holder was himself the govern- ment, if indeed, the term government applies at all to this arrangement. Battle was a matter of social order. In fact, the chivalric code held as a central tenet the belief that war was a positive, ennobling experience. The catch was that it applied only to those worthy of the law. War and its glories were an affair only for the elite. Peasants and serfs fell outside the realm of its protection and were subject to the brutal exigencies of pillage and rapine. As for armies, according to Michael Howard, the only fighting man of any consequence, the only miles who counted, was the knight. Yet the knight was a special soldier. He required a variety of mounts, attendants, grooms, weap- ons, and of course, armor. The only way to provide for this extremely expensive weapon system was to grant the knight a fief and require in return a certain number of days service in return. By granting a fief, the lord obtained an obliga- tion of military service from the knight. At the same time, this arrangement also conferred a particular social status. The knight, who was also the army, also got to be the gov- ernment within his fiefdom. As such, he could wage war if he deemed it necessary. The arrangement illustrates the murky distinction between armies and governments, since in this case, army and government were the same. The last element of the Clausewitzian trinity, the peo- ple, is very difficult to define in feudal terms. In one sense, the people seem not to exist. If one considers serfs or peasants, then indeed they did not enter into the equa- tion at all, since they were technically possessions, not people. In later Medieval periods, there is evidence in England of using the commoners as a tax base with which to finance wars. One scholar surmises that by 1337 there may have been some popular knowledge of the on-going war with France, but beyond that few details were probably known to the average English commoner.[l9] The people were required to contribute little or nothing of note to war and certainly not to politics, since it was the ruling class who did the fighting, not the serfs. All this serves to illustrate two points. First, it is likely Clausewitz purposefully dismissed the Middle Ages as irrelevant since they were so different from the current political state of affairs. Secon, if Clausewitz dismissed this period from his consideration, how are we to evaluate his theory of war if it is not broad enough to properly de- scribe the relationships found within it? This is the crux of the argument that van Creveld advances. Namely, the trinitarian form of warfare which has been ascendant since at least the Treaty of Westphalia is by no means the only form which warfare can assume. Any theory which either in- adequately describes or dismisses altogether different sys- tems such as feudalism ignores a major portion of the history of warfare. The Golden Age of Clausewitz There can be little doubt that for at least a century and a half after his death, the trinitarian model upon which Clausewitz based his theory of war was truly the most preva- lent form of warfare. Since before the French revolution to World War II the dominant form of international institution was the state. Aided by advancements in indus- try and technology, the state came of age. When deemed necessary by the government, it sent its armies to war, in order to fight other armies sent by other states. The armies were comprised of huge segments of the population mobilized according to plans drawn up and supervised by ever increasingly sophisticated professional staffs. The brief treatment here is by no means meant to imply that little of interest went on in the development of war- fare until 1945. This was hardly the case, as the period in question witnessed some of the most sweeping changes in the manner and scale with which war was waged. Still, despite all the changes in technology and tactics, war remained es- sentially the same as it was since Clausewitz's time. The nature of the relationships among the people, army, and gov- ernment were refined and clarified, but remained, in es- sence, unchanged. Had Clausewitz lived to witness the great wars fought during the one hundred and twenty years after his death, he would have easily been able to recognize the general form and manner of their conduct since things were so similar to the strategy of his own day. In effect, the entire period was an affirmation of the basic notions which the Prussian scholar-warrior originally set down. States pursued their interests in relation to other states; armies fought against other armies; and the people were mobilized with increasing efficiency to fill out the ranks and provide material and moral support on the home front. Effects of Technology Since 1945 The Clausewitzian trinity had things pretty well in hand for more than a century. But the end of World War II brought with it changes that call into question the adequacy of a model for warfare and strategy so firmly rooted in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The first of these changes is a rapid and nearly incomprehensible acceleration in the rate of technological change. This change was cou- pled with a somewhat more subtle yet equally significant drop in the effectiveness of conventional forces against a growing non-conventional threat. A characteristic of Clausewitz's approach was his deci- sion to ignore the impact of technology on his basic theory. Most likely, he did this not out of ignorance or dislike of technology. He cites gunpowder as a factor worthy of his- torical analysis and recognized the impact of technology on tactics. He probably chose to leave technology out since it would not be one of the unchanging factors which would govern the conduct of war and so would not fit well into a long enduring theory on its nature. Yet at the end of World War II, the singular applica- tion of nuclear technology which precipitated the capitula- tion of the country of Japan, wrought a change to strategy and the nature of military power which defies neat inclusion in the long established trinitarian model. All at once, states had the ability to wage war on a sudden and massive scale that in effect eliminated the need for two legs of the trinitarian model. In a war of atomic weapons, sure to be swift and devastating (for both sides, if one is to believe most nuclear strategists), there is no real need for armies at all. In addition, the object of the war, rather than being as Clausewitz would have seen it, the destruction of the enemy's armed forces, became the destruc- tion of the enemy's ability to retaliate in kind and the destruction of his major population centers, government in- stitutions, and industrial complexes. If war were to become so swift and devastating1 the third leg of the trinity, the will of the people, becomes irrelevant, since the conflict requires no long-term popular commitment to wage success- fully. And so for the first time in centuries a change oc- curred in the basic framework identified by Clausewitz. Armies and the people began to lose significance, albeit in the context of a unique type of warfare, the strategic nu- clear war.(21] Less devastating examples of technology can be found in the advances in the electronics and computing fields. Breakthroughs here allow the miniaturization of weapons technology to the point where hand-held anti-aircraft mis- siles pose a significant threat to jet aircraft streaking over a battlefield at speeds in excess of four hundred miles per hour. Sophistication of explosives and detonator tech- nology allow the construction of small yet powerful remotely-controlled bombs. These examples are illustrative of the means available to nearly anyone with the money or connections to obtain them. In fact they have been used by organizations as unsophisticated as the mujahidin in Afghan- istan and the various militia groups in Lebanon. Advances in technology have impaired the ability of conventional armies to locate and destroy the enemy they are to fight. Technology has enabled sophisticated weapons, which till now were too complex, expensive, and unwieldy to be used by any but highly trained armies, to be employed by militias and rebels. This has served to put military power in the hands of entities other than the armies controlled exclusively by states. In many, if not most, conflicts since 1945, the enemy has looked very much like the local civilians. For example, the British experience in Cyprus in 1951 found the garrison there involved in a conflict with a local resistance well armed with large amounts of explosives who were from the religious and professional ranks. The experience was much the same in other post- colonial struggles, to include Vietnam. Armies increasingly had to deal with opponents which were hard to track down and destroy. Van Creveld argues that a related problem is becoming visible. That is, that technologically sophisticated armies are not effective against primitive, unsophisticated, or irregular forces. Sarkesian stated as much in 1985, noting that the Clausewitzian emphasis on enemy armed forces is likely to be ineffective in low-intensity-operations. Citing the record of failure of the modern armies of the world in places such as Kenya (1952), Vietnam (1954 to 1973), and Afghanistan (1979-1989), van Creveld argues that technological sophistication is actually an impediment to fighting a non-conventional force.(24] While this may be so, certain types of technology are extremely useful to non-conventional forces fighting a dispersed, hit-and-run type of war against a massed conventional force. Ironi- cally, technology seems to hinder the conventional force while it also aids the nontrinitarian force. The implica- tion is that conventional forces are at a distinct disadvan- tage when facing nontrinitarian foes. Current Wars Michael Carver's survey of wars since 1945 seem to bear out the premise of the ineffectiveness of conventional against non-conventional forces. It also confirms the prev- alence of nontrinitarian war. He analyzed some sixteen ma- for conflicts which had a major impact on great Britain. Of these, twelve involved opponents who did not wear uni- forms, attend staff colleges, or fight in ways similar to the West. To put it another way, the wars were nontrinitar- ian, in that they seldom manifested all three or Clausewitz's elements of people, army, and government. It should be pointed out that of the twelve nontrinitarian con- flicts, eleven ended in victory for the non-conventional forces. If we examine the most current wars, we will find a similar trend. Of the major conflicts in 1991, twenty-five out of twenty-eight involved at least one belligerent who could not be typified as either a state or an army proper. The situation was similar in 1990 with twenty- three conflicts of twenty-eight being non-conventional. In each of these wars, at least one of the belligerents did not represent a state, have a trained regular army or neces- sarily rely on the support or interest of the populace. Laffin's survey of conflicts is not restricted to dis- tant third-world rebellions and bush wars. He includes in current wars the "troubles" in Northern Ireland, Peruvian coca wars, and ethnic violence in Yugoslavia, to name a few that are quite close to, if not within, the Western devel- oped world. These conflicts are prime examples of the na- ture of nontrinitarian war as described by van Creveld. They are violent, protracted, involve fighters not necessar- ily related to a state, and routinely involve civilians. Quite simply, they are all very messy affairs, difficult to either mediate or understand in conventional terms. What are the Implications for Strategy? I hope to have shown that far from being the first and last word on the nature of warfare, Clausewitz's trinitarian model offers only a portion of what is required in order to understand the range of conflicts now in existence. Van Creveld is the most recent and perhaps most elo- quent in a long line of those who doubt the applicability of Clausewitz's underlying assumption of the primacy of the state and the central role played by the army in modern war- fare. Others have held similar positions. Writers such as Michael Howard, Bernard Brodie, and Richard Simpkin have voiced their concern over the inability of organized forces to overcome nontrinitarian opponents. All the authors point to the growing specter of the lack of utility, even helplessness, of conventional armed forces against low- intensity threats. Van Creveld provides us with a more gen- eral framework for understanding nontrinitarian types of war which do not fit neatly into Clausewitz's model. Moreover, this nontrinitarian type of warfare, far from being a his- torical curiosity from the dusty medieval past, is alive and well in the present. It is thriving in many parts of the world today, albeit with higher concentrations in the second and third worlds. Conventional warfare is certainly far from dead as the recent Gulf War demonstrated. Yet, despite the dramatic U.S. led victory against Iraqi forces in a vintage World War II mechanized battle, there is scant evidence of future op- portunities to employ heavy conventional forces outside the Korean peninsula. In a recent Parameters article, Dan Bolg- er expressed perhaps the proper perspective on the U.S. led victory in the desert. He noted that while the Gulf War was going on, U.S. Marines evacuated civilians from civil-war torn Liberia, an American helicopter crew was shot from the sky by Salvadoran guerillas, and U.S. installations in the Phillipines remained under increased security precautions to counter threats of civil unrest and provocations by com- munist guerillas. His list did not include the on- going military commitment to the counter-narcotics campaign, three additional humanitarian operations, and an evacuation from Somalia. All this underscores the vast range of threats facing modern forces. Since 1945, our forces have only occasionally had to fight a mid to high- intensity war while attempting to maintain the capability to be effective in the far more prevalent low intensity con- flict. While Clausewitz must surely not be totally disregarded in the last decade of the twentieth century, we must care- fully examine the assumptions which underlie his model. These assumptions are the basis for the organization of our armed forces and the strategy with which we use military force. Quite simply, the record shows our forces fight best when they fight other armies. It should be clear that trin- itarian assumptions are not universally valid, as demon- strated by our forces as they engage nontrinitarian opponents in counter-drug, counter-insurgency and counter- terror operations. We must accept the possibility that our forces and strategy do not adequately protect our security in light of the nature of warfare as it is now evolving. Only by refusing to fight war as it once was, can we defend our country in future wars which are likely to look quite different from anything Clausewitz might have imagined. END NOTES 1. Among modern writers who took exception to Clausewitz's theories were J.F.C. Fuller and Richard Simpkin. See bibliography for titles. 2. Martin van Creveld, The Transformation of War (New York: The Free Press, 1991). 3. Carl von Clausewitz, On War, trans. and ed. Michael Howard and Peter Paret (Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press, 1976), p. 87. 4. Peter Paret, ed., Makers of Modern Strategy, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986), p. 213. 5. Ibid, p. 192. 6. Clausewitz, p. 87. 7. John J. McIntyre, ed., The Future of Conflict, (Washington, D.C.: National Defense University Press, 1979), p. 11. 8. Clausewitz, p. 89. 9. Michael Howard, The Causes of Wars, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984), p. 4. 10. Dennis M. Drew and Donald M. Snow, Making Strategy, (Maxwell Air Force Base, AL: Air University Press, 1988), p. 81. 11. Clausewitz, p. 87. 12. Martin van Creveld, The Transformation of War, p. 49. Van Creveld has been known to coin new phrases which eventually enter common use. The most notable example is the term directed telescope, introduced to explain a command and control technique used by Napoleon to directly get information from the field. 13. Clausewitz, p. 173. 14. Clausewitz, p. 179. 15. Martin van Creveld, "Late Medieval Warfare: Politics, Society, Economics, and Organization", USMC Command and Staff College, Oppenheimer Chair of Warfighting Strategy Lecture, 17 Sept. 1991. 16. Michael Howard, War in European History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1976), p. 6. 17. John Barnie, War in Medieval English Society (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1974), p. 70. 18. Howard, p. 2. 19. Barnie, p. 32. 20. Clausewitz, p. 170. 21. Many U.S. policy concerns since 1945 have revolved around the issue of escalation of conventional war into tactical nuclear war and then to strategic nuclear war. The most notable example of this is the Cuban Missile crisis, where a limited threat quickly escalated into a strategic threat. 22. Michael Carver, War Since 1945 (New York, NY: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1981), pp. 45-47. 23. David J. Dean, ed., Low Intensity Conflict and Modern Technology (Maxwell Air Force Base, AL: Air University Press, 1986), p. 19. 24. van Creveld, p. 22. 25. John Laffin, The World in Conflict 1991 (Oxford: Brassey's, 1991). 26. John Laffin, The World in Conflict 1990 (Oxford: Brassey's, 1990). 27. Richard Simpkin, Race to the Swift (London: Brassey's Defence Publishers, 1985), p. 284. 28. Daniel Bolger, "The Ghosts of Omdurman," parameters, XXI, No. 3 (Autumn 1991), 28-39. 29. For the record, Operation Eastern Exit evacuated over 300 U.S. diplomats, including Soviet diplomats, from Somalia. Operation Fiery Vigil evacuated over 17,000 U.S. and Philippine nationals from the area devastated by the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo. Operation Provide Comfort aided thousands of beleaguered Kurdish refugees in both Turkey and Iraq, under conditions just below the threshold of combat. Operation Sea Angel aided in excess of 140,000 Bangladeshis in the wake of the devastating flood which struck that country. All these operations took place within six months of Operations Desert Shield and Storm. BIBLIOGRAPHY Barnie, John. War in Medieval Society. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, l974. Bolger, Daniel. "The Ghosts of Omdurman." Parameters, XXI (Autumn 1991), 28-39. Carver, Michael. War Since 1945. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1981. Clausewitz, Carl von. On War. Ed. M. Howard and P. Paret. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1976. Creveld, Martin van. The Transformation of War. New York: The Free Press, 199l. Dean, David. Low Intensity Conflict and Modern Technology. Maxwell Air Force Base: Air University Press, 1986. Drew, Dennis, and Donald M. Snow. Making Strategy: An Introduction to National Security Processes and Problems. Maxwell Air Force Base: Air University Press, 1988. Fuller, J.F.C. The Conduct of War. Westport, CN: Greenwood Publishers, 1961. Garden, Timothy. The Technology Trap: Science and the Military. London: Brassey's Defence Publishers, 1989. Howard, Michael. The Causes of Wars. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984. ---., War in European History. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1976. Laffin, John. The World in Conflict 1991: Contemporary Warfare Described and Analysed. London: Brassey's, 1991. ---. The World in Conflict 1990: Contemporary Warfare Described and Analysed. London: Brassey's, 1990. ---. The World in Conflict 1989: Contemporary Warfare Described and Analysed. London: Brassey's, 1989. Levy, Jack. War in the Modern Great Power System, 1495-1975. Lexington, KY: The University Press of Kentucky, 1983. McElwee, William. The Art of War: Waterloo to Mons. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1974. Midliarsky, Manus. On War. New York: The Free Press, 1975. Paret, Peter, ed. Makers of Modern Strategy: From Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986. Parker, Geoffrey. The Military Revolution: Military Innovation and the Rise of the West, 1500-1800. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988. Shephard, John. "On War: Is Clausewitz Still Relevant?". Parameters, XX (Sept. 1990), 85-99. Simpkin, Richard. Race to the Swift: Thoughts on Twenty-First Century Warfare. London: Brassey's Defence Publishers, 1985.
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