Increasing or Decreasing Friction

“All this simplification and compression emphasized ‘method and routine at the tactical level’ to mitigate internal friction. Boyd took issue with this intense focus on reducing friendly friction to the lowest absolute level. As he saw it, this inward look ‘failed to address if you want to try to magnify [your] adversary’s friction and uncertainty.’”

In addressing this, I will merely refer to this piece by Olivia Garard (also containing a very interesting digression on Clausewitz and The Iliad), which deals specifically Boyd’s comments on Clausewitz’s view of friction. As she writes, “I imagine Clausewitz rebutting Boyd: If one cannot be certain enough about oneself, or one’s own disposition, then how could one be sure enough of the adversary to affect them in such a way?” This gets at the core of Clausewitz’s difference with Boyd. Clausewitz in no sense opposes trying to magnify the friction of the other side, but he does not dwell on it because it is a fundamentally situational question that is often practically beyond our reach. Instead, he argues, as a principle, one must be concerned with the center of gravity, both defending our own or striking at the enemy’s.

In short, the danger Clausewitz perceives with emphasizing imposing friction as an end in itself is that it causes one to lose sight of what is vital: typically, defeating large numbers of enemy troops. As he explains in the chapter on stratagems, deception operations and cunning plans to impose friction on the enemy can work, but they are rarely economical, since they often fail and will weaken our forces through dispersal, which increases the effects of friction. The thing Clausewitz insists we always hold in mind is that the enemy can always demand a “cash payment” in the form of forcing a major battle on us. In such a situation, it can easily be fatal to have our combat power frittered away on friction maximizing missions, as the dispersal required also increases our own friction, which makes it difficult to match the enemy’s concentration and prevent them from simply overwhelming us by weight of numbers (a victory that their concentration is likely to enable them to exploit.)

Thus, in emphasizing the friction that can be imposed on the enemy, Boyd neglects the dangers of the friction that dispersal produces, losing sight of the rationale behind Clausewitz’s principles: that conducting war is extremely difficult and that merely achieving mediocre results often takes all our effort. Using stratagems to weaken the enemy is an exception to the rule, which war integrates into its theory by demanding exceptional circumstances. Our own weakness may require us to look to high-risk, high-reward options, or a particular defect of the enemy may make them particularly vulnerable to such a means, but there must be sufficiently strong justification.

The Schwerpunkt

“As Clausewitz saw it, the center of gravity ‘is always found where the mass is concentrated most densely.’” Clausewitz does indeed say this in Chapter 27 of Book VI. Yet, in Book VIII, Clausewitz is explicit that the center of gravity is often the enemy’s capital, as it was for Napoleon in the Waterloo campaign. Furthermore, “in small states dependent on greater ones, it lies generally in the army of these allies; in a confederacy, it lies in the unity of interests; in a national insurrection, in the person of the chief leader and in public opinion..”1

The reason for this apparent contradiction is that Clausewitz—in both cases—is deploying an analogy from physics to aid in describing two different but related things. The word he uses, Schwerpunkt, has since become fashionable jargon, but makes relatively few appearances in On War. Literally translated, it means “heavy” or “dense” point, which makes its use as an analogy clearer in some places than the translation of “center of gravity” might imply. In Book VI, he is talking about the center of gravity of an enemy force, as the rest of the paragraph makes clear: “There are, therefore, in these armed forces certain centers of gravity, the movement and direction of which decide that of the other points, and these centers of gravity are situated where the greatest bodies of troops are assembled.”2 The center of gravity is not a weakness, but thing that will move other things along with it. “We must constantly ask ourselves what effect the advance or retreat of one part of the forces on either side will produce on the other parts.” This concept is more broadly applied when discussing the plan of a war overall in Book VIII, but here clearly refers only to “the center of gravity of an enemy’s military power.”

We may therefore say that Boyd makes some facile criticisms of the concept: “‘In a donut, the center of gravity [is where] there is no mass. In a hollow steel ball, it’s where the steel isn’t. In a dumbbell, it’s in the connection between the mass.’” It is true that in physics the densest parts of an object are not always the same as its center of gravity, but an total fidelity is not necessary for an analogy, which is illustrative, not a form of proof. If this can be considered legitimate theoretical critique, then writers ought never to seek to illustrate by analogy or metaphor—unless they can be assured of its absolute congruence.

The most Clausewitz can be said to be guilty of is using an analogy imprecisely. What Clausewitz is arguing (in Book VI) is that the center of gravity in an army is found where its masses of troops are gathered. As he says in the preceding paragraph, “The circle of influence of a victory is determined by its magnitude, and this is determined by the masses of the defeated troops.” The analogy of the center of gravity is applied to illustrate the way in which a force directed at this center produces the greatest effects on the object. That we might imagine this part of war to function like a part of physics to better visualize it does not mean we should seek to apply the laws of physics to war to understand it. One cannot dismiss the effects of a blow to a mass of troops by appealing to the effect of a blow to the center of gravity of a donut.

As far as his meaning in Book VIII is concerned, it is in a section addressing a plan of war where the total defeat of the enemy is the aim. Here he writes: “it is… by seeking out constantly the nucleus (Kern) of hostile power, and staking the whole thing in order to gain the whole, that we can actually strike the enemy to the ground.” He also describes the center of gravity as “a center of power and movement… upon which everything depends;”. This is a much firmer use of the analogy, in that it is not dependent upon the density of mass, but the point upon which forces hinge.

In neither case does Clausewitz rely on the actual mechanics of physics to define his meaning, but only as analogy. The validity of an analogy has no bearing on the validity of an assertion. It’s necessary to look clearly at this because one of Boyd’s central critiques of Clausewitz is based upon conflating not only these two uses of the analogy, but conflating the analogy with the strict mechanics of reality. This mistake leads into a common but fundamental error: the stereotyping of Clausewitz on the subject of mass.

The Return of the Mahdi of Mass

The Clausewitz that Boyd is criticizing seems to be no more than the phantom conjured by B.H. Liddell Hart, who named him the “Mahdi of Mass” responsible for the carnage of the First World War, bearing little resemblance to Clausewitz’s actual writings.3 Though Boyd was contemptuous of Hart, his characterization of Clausewitz is nevertheless an echo of his. In truth, Clausewitz is agnostic on how you deal with the enemy’s mass; if you have a clever tactic that lets you soundly defeat them with few losses, so much the better. The center of gravity is the target—that does not imply inartful means.

For Clausewitz, the reason (in Book VI) that you strike the center of gravity is that its being “moved” brings the lesser parts along with it. Boyd in fact works himself back to somewhere near Clausewitz’s actual position, “Boyd wanted to ‘find that thing that allows [the organic whole] to retain [its] connectivity;’ and once identified, ‘break down those connections and get everything flying off in different directions, [and] now you’ve got many what I call non-cooperatives. Each one’s a little center of gravity not connected up with the other one…then you scarf them up.’”

Yet, Clausewitz maintains that usually the only thing that can break the cohesion of a force is a large number of its troops being defeated. There is no hidden thing that can cause a whole army to unravel without fighting if only one is clever enough to see it. If peculiar circumstances permit such an occurrence, the theory of war must leave the matter of correctly perceiving these opportunities to the judgment of the commander.

Thus, Clausewitz asserts the primacy of defeating the enemy in battle and overcoming the greatest part of their forces possible. This does not imply this is the only viable means in war, merely that other means should be thought of in relation to this one—that is to say, by whether they aid in ultimately attaining a victory over a significant mass of the enemy, whether they “move” his center of gravity. What Clausewitz aimed to counter was the notion that one could avoid the risks and costs of battle by striking at lesser objectives, such as capturing territory or maneuvering without seeking battle—ideas that were prominent in the pre-Napoleonic literature on the art of war.

The problem with Boyd’s supposed contrast with Clausewitz’s “strength against strength” is that the enemy gets a vote. Clausewitz, from the outset, establishes that situations must be judged individually, and so writes under the presumption that the two sides in question are acting competently, to examine tendencies within war itself, rather than characteristics of a specific case. This point is important because a competent opponent will not allow you to do what Boyd advises (to “break down those connections”) while he has significant forces at his disposal. As Clausewitz writes, “The bitter earnestness of necessity usually forces us into direct action, so that there is no room for that game [of stratagem]. In a word, the pieces on the strategical chessboard are lacking in that agility which is the element of stratagem and cunning.”4 This is to say, in war, you should expect to be hard-pressed by your enemy; frustrating his plans to defeat you will (as a rule) require so much effort that your ability to execute complex schemes will be limited (in addition to the intrinsic friction that all actions in war are subject to.)

Brown gets at this idea when he acknowledges, “Though Clausewitz noted that the center of gravity could be something besides an enemy’s army—such as a national capital, a rebellion’s leadership, or the community of interest in an alliance—his examples were generally physical objects valuable enough to an enemy that they would be well-protected.” Thus, there may be rare occasions on which the enemy makes a massive blunder and exposes their center of gravity (in either sense), but where this is not the case, it becomes necessary to fight to attain it, and it must remain the highest objective even in these cases.

Clausewitz asserts that this must be accepted even if the cost is high, because this is the only means to overthrow (i.e., utterly defeat) the enemy, which is the presumed objective in this section of Book VIII. His intent in this section (again explicitly stated) is to caution an attacking commander against instead going after lesser objectives, such as the occupation of a lightly defended province, that do not actually threaten the enemy’s center of gravity. The reason for this has to do with the notion we addressed earlier: that time benefits the defender more than the attacker. As such, even if it’s a hard fight to destroy the enemy center of gravity (destroy their army, take their capital, depending on the case), it will be easier to do so sooner rather than later, when time has sapped the power of the attacker. This is not always the case, but these are exceptions, and therefore require justification.

Clausewitz does not say that one should reject the idea of using maneuver, deception, and all kinds of stratagems to weaken the enemy and so more easily overcome him. What he continually reinforces, however, is that real war limits the scope of these efforts, and so he cautions against undue faith in them. The great danger—that he knew from experience—came in trying to use clever stratagems against an enemy willing to relentlessly seek battle. He likewise knew the tendency of officers whose only experience with command came from books to imagine being able to devastate their enemies with brilliant plans and cunning stratagems. The emphasis on defeating large numbers of enemy troops is therefore not merely a theoretical distinction, but a practical one. There is little that can compensate for having a great mass of one’s forces defeated and there is much that defeating a great mass of the enemy can compensate for. Holding this thought in mind is therefore considered a helpful point of reference for the student of war.

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Conclusion: A Coup d’œil of Boyd

That Boyd did not understand Clausewitz is understandable—but the manner in which he engages with On War demonstrates a failure to grapple with its core arguments, even those which were laid out explicitly, in its most frequently read parts, or directly adjacent to the parts he refers to. Boyd, for example, disagrees with Clausewitz on the superiority of the defense, citing the example of Nazi General Hermann Balck, who achieved success by attacking numerically superior Soviet formations. In this, Boyd fails to acknowledge that Clausewitz’s understanding of the defensive explicitly includes opportunistic attack, asserting instead that he had an “absolute notion.”

Likewise, Boyd demonstrates no awareness of Clausewitz’s assertions as to the proper role of theory, what can be accomplished by it, and what the roles of “absolutes” and “principles” are within it. Clausewitz writes at length on what theory ought to do, how its principles ought to be employed, and what must be left to the judgment. Even from merely reading the immediate context of the sections referenced, Boyd’s characterizations are implausible, simply incompatible with a close reading of the text.

I understand that an essay of this nature from a “Clausewitzian” may appear defensive. But in truth, the most damning thing I can say about Boyd is that I have seen nothing that represents Clausewitz well enough to really constitute an attack on him or his theories. Clausewitz’s reasoning is not challenged, and so requires no defense. Rather, this article has been an effort to differentiate Clausewitz from the vaguely Clausewitz-shaped object that Boyd evidently enjoyed tilting at.

In looking at Boyd more generally, my overall judgment must rely upon a certain coup d’oeil, as I am historian of Clausewitz, not Boyd. With that being said: in surveying the claims and arguments present in the slides and transcript in Snowmobiles and Grand Ideas, I could not escape the impression that Boyd seems only able to imagine himself in the position of a Napoleon (or a Balck)—with superior means, morale, and cunning—(perhaps with inferior numbers) but never in the opposite position, as someone facing Napoleon, with a demoralized force, inferior organization, outmatched as a commander.

Boyd repeatedly talks about what one ought to do to the enemy, presenting a vision of an enemy paralyzed by clever maneuvers and stratagems. This is all very good on paper, but in real war, as Clausewitz says, even our greatest efforts often scarcely manage to produce more than average results. Characteristic to his view of war as an interaction between “living wills,” is the comment that “We assume that the defender acts just as faultlessly and judiciously as the assailant.”5 The same cannot be said for Boyd, with his conviction that one can reliably produce “non-cooperatives” that can be “scarfed up” to avoid the collision of mass against mass.

One must wonder if this can be attributed to their respective service histories. John Boyd’s career was as a fighter pilot in Korea, in which he never had the chance to fire a shot in anger. He then spent his as an instructor in air combat, before being brought into the Pentagon, where he would remain as a consultant even after his retirement (this tenure was interrupted by a short time in Vietnam, in non-combat roles). Boyd was, generally speaking, a peacetime strategist. This is not to disparage Boyd’s service—as Clausewitz often lamented, the scope of an officer’s career is often determined by factors far beyond human control. Yet, the conceptual error of underestimating the capacity of the opponent is one more easily made when has not faced the bitter realities of combat against a peer or even superior enemy.

Clausewitz, by contrast, experienced years of intense and bitter conflict, first in the crushing defeat in 1806, then in the grueling retreat into the Russian interior, and finally fighting to Napoleon’s defeat in the Hundred Days. He therefore spent his years of active service grappling with the problem of facing a superior enemy, and sought to study war in a way that was useful both for someone with the talent of Napoleon, and for someone who had the unenviable task of facing him. Clausewitz’s experiences with real war served as a reminder of how much of one’s exertions were required to merely avert disaster, and of how infrequently opportunities for great victories were granted.

The defeat of 1806 and the role it played in Clausewitz’s thought is something that separates him from Boyd. The challenge Boyd sought to address was how the US had failed in Vietnam, despite vastly superior means. Clausewitz grappled with the question of what Prussia ought to have done in 1806, when facing Napoleon with an outdated and inferior army. His theory is thus concerned as much with avoiding disaster, as seeking great success. In both cases, he finds boldness, moral courage, to be at the core. Whether one has the superiority needed for a stunning victory, or are merely attempting to ward off a crushing defeat, in both cases one must seize upon the best chance at success, and not be dissuaded by the immediate ease of other courses that are less promising.

In Boyd’s service history, influence, and theory of war, I cannot help but see a parallel with Alfred von Schlieffen. Both men saw limited combat; both inspired a number of devotees, long after they had left the scene (both also had a reputation for asceticism); both had something they saw as the key to victory in war. For Schlieffen, this was the turning movement and envelopment, for Boyd, this was the magnification of an enemy’s internal fiction, the disruption of their ability to resist, primarily through speed and deception.

The Essential Difference

Where Clausewitz greatly differs from both men is that he argues that there is no one approach that is universally superior or more likely to lead to great success in war. This is a view derived from his belief that people fought differently in the past not because they did not know better, but because the prevailing social and political realities constrained their ability to fight any other way. That is to say, Frederick the Great could not have fought as Napoleon did, nor could Napoleon have fought as he did if he lived in the times of Frederick the Great. This variation of war not just in its form, but in all its essential phenomena is what makes producing a useful theory for it so difficult.

For Clausewitz, theory establishes the baseline for sensible or natural conduct, which must always be modified by the particular circumstances of the case. If one wishes to learn about war from books, Clausewitz prescribes “critical analysis,” the judgment of a commander’s decision in a historical case, comparing it to alternatives.6 In this respect, the principles of theory serve as a starting point, providing the student a point of reference from which to begin exercising their judgment, and which can be referred back to without needing to recapitulate them each time they occur. In practice, Clausewitz leaves it to the genius of the commander to judge the unique situation they encounter, and find the route to a great victory if one is available, acknowledging that book learning cannot prescribe any one method that is universally applicable.

Sometimes you do, in fact, have the opportunity to do as Boyd advises and inflict such disorientation on the enemy through maneuver or stratagem that they’re incapable of major resistance. But this requires specific circumstances that are not universally present and cannot be created by the skill of a commander where they are not. Taking Boyd’s view as the principle would in most cases lead to disaster, as complex schemes to disrupt the enemy by dispersion fall afoul of friction, and tend to be overwhelmed by the simple superiority of strength by concentration. That is to say, if you try to disperse your forces and probe for Napoleon’s weaknesses, he’s going to bring concentrated force to chew up your dispersed forces. If you meet concentration with concentration, you may or may not find opportunities for a great victory, but you can limit your opponent’s opportunities. For a more recent example, one could perform a critical analysis of the Battle of Kursk from the Soviet perspective.

What is key to understanding Clausewitz correctly, as opposed to falling into the trap of Liddell Hart and Boyd, is that concentration is not incompatible with intelligent use of force. If I have a sound tactical plan for my five divisions to attack your one, you’re going to get rolled unless you bring about a concentration to match mine. You might have a very clever plan for this one division to hold out, but there’s no way to guarantee this is really a better plan than mine—this has to be judged on the basis of the particular situation, whether I’m an opponent against whom you can afford to risk not answering concentration with concentration.

What Boyd appears not to understand is that when you get two sides trying to hold each other “by the throat” and “go through the back door,” you’re going to end up with a brutal collision of mass against mass, even if you gain the advantage. The Eastern Front is the prime example of this, with both sides suffering grievous casualties even in their most successful operations (Barbarossa, Bagration, etc.). As Clausewitz might say, what is more natural than that the tactics suitable for Desert Storm (or Frederick facing Daun) would spell disaster against a peer foe (facing Napoleon)?

Thank you for reading this article. I am aware in writing this that many hold strongly differing views on Boyd and his ideas and encourage comments in that vein. However, I would very much appreciate that wherever possible, direct reference to statements made by Boyd is made, as thanks to Ian T. Brown and Frans P. B. Osinga, much of his material is available online in Snowmobiles and Grand Ideals, and questions of interpretation are much more productively discussed with a common reference to the verbiage and context at hand.

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“Now if one or the other finds that he has deceived himself in his calculation… In such a case he manages as best he can, and hopes for favorable events in the future, although he has not the slightest foundation for such hope, and the war in the meantime drags itself feebly along, like a body worn out with sickness… If this influence of the political object on war is once permitted, as it must be, there is no longer any limit, and we must put up with descending to such warfare as consists in a mere threatening of the enemy and in negotiating. ”

-Carl von Clausewitz, On War

Hostile Interests

To begin, it’s worth laying out the main forces that led to this war. Of these, there are three major forces affecting the two main initiators (Israel and the United States):

1. The first, which affects both Israelis and American interests, is Iran’s persistent hostility. This has fostered a nucleus of hawks in multiple countries that would like to strike Iran to harm it and reduce its capabilities. They have been hitherto incapable of convincing policymakers of the worth of this course of action.

2. On the US side of the equation, success in Venezuela has given Trump victory disease (the phenomenon where success leads to ill-considered action out of a sense of invincibility). The aforementioned hawks have been able to leverage this sense of invincibility to couch their own arguments for action. This is to say: the hawks knew the real costs, but concealed them by appealing to Venezuela as a model, intensifying the effects of victory disease.

3. For the Israelis, the prime mover is the October 7th attacks. Strange as it may seem in hindsight, before the attacks, the confrontation between Israel and Iran (including its proxies) was at a stable level of low intensity. Neither side saw escalation as in their interest, even as both saw a need to confront the other. October 7th, with limited Iranian involvement and far greater success than even Hamas anticipated, disrupted this equilibrium. Israel has since seen it as necessary for its security to weaken or destroy Iran’s network of proxies, including Iran’s ability to support and protect them. Israel’s success in attacking the leadership of Hezbollah and in the Twelve-Day War emboldened it, and demonstrated the weakness of Iranian threats of escalation.

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By keeping these forces in mind, we can better understand the various statements and actions of the parties involved. Looking at the current situation, we can assess that of these interests, Israeli interests are being fulfilled, as are those of the US hawks. Some parts of the US administration represent the “hawk” perspective and see the weakening of Iran as a worthy goal in itself. For them, Iran has been irrevocably committed to destabilizing the Middle-East and so action against them was needed sooner or later, and the present constituted an unusually good opportunity. The interests of the President however—and anyone else in his circle who truly believed the Venezuela model was applicable—are not being fulfilled. Trump, expecting a Venezuela situation, has buyer’s remorse, but no easy exit.

For him, perhaps, the war is already a defeat. However, the line between those pursuing the Venezuela model and the hawks is far from clear—many who hoped for an outcome on the Venezuela model (or for outright regime change), may have been content to simply weaken Iran in the traditional hawkish view if that failed. In this conception, the attacker would merely be revising his policy goals in light of a clearer understanding of the situation. He has been defeated in one respect, but now pursues a lesser objective. Throughout this discussion, it must be remembered that victory means only achieving an objective—it does not mean doing so economically. In other words, not every victory is worth its price.

You may wonder why we have not categorized Israel as having victory disease, considering this war was driven in part by preceding success in the Twelve-Day War and against Hezbollah. This is because Israel is pressing a genuine advantage against an opponent that is its primary security concern. In contrast to the United States, there are no bigger fish for Israel to be frying. Bearing the costs of war is justified in their calculus if it can prevent another 10/7. Furthermore, the costs of Iran closing the strait are both relatively and absolutely less significant to Israel than to other states. In other words: this war (or escalation within an existing war) has costs much more proportional to the benefits Israel can expect than is true for the US.

It must also be remembered that this war is a failure of Iranian deterrence; their aim was to shelter their proxies under the threat of missile attacks and the closing of the strait. These proxies have been greatly degraded, and the threat upon which Iranian deterrence rested proved insufficient to prevent the assassination of all its senior leadership. It is true that this war was initiated in part because of American misjudgment, but this misjudgment was enabled by an accurate perception of Iranian weakness.

If this were simply a conflict between Iran and the US, finding terms for a ceasefire would not be as difficult. Iran only needs to inflict enough pain in the strait to feel that the US understands that it miscalculated in its attack. Since the US actually did miscalculate, this would not be all that difficult to achieve; future US admins are unlikely to repeat the attempt. Of course, this requires that Iran accurately perceive the driving force behind US involvement. If Iran believes that the US struck merely because the hawks got their way (as opposed to the hawks being able to exploit the victory disease produced by success in Venezuela), then Iran may erroneously believe deterring future strikes requires drawing out the conflict. In this way, the intrinsic uncertainty of war may lead to its prolonging. But in any case, this war is not merely between the US and Iran, a complication which we will now address.

The Center of Gravity in a Coalition

We don’t want to get into a pedantic discussion about the meaning of center of gravity, so we will instead rely on how Clausewitz describes it in Book VIII Ch. 4: “...a center of power and movement… upon which everything depends.” He further describes it as the core (Kern) of hostile power. If this seems vague, it is deliberately so. Clausewitz cites a host of historical examples, before declaring: “the result cannot be determined from general causes… All that theory can say here is that the main point is to keep the predominant conditions of both parties in view.” In other words: it depends. He goes on to give examples of centers of gravity, which include a state’s army, its capital, the leaders of a rebellion, or—in weak states with a stronger ally—in that ally’s army. In all cases, however, it is the thing that carries everything else along with it if it is moved i.e., what is indispensable.

It must be caveated that this section addresses specifically the matter of overthrowing (utterly defeating) the enemy. In that kind of war, the center of gravity has particular importance, in that it must be overcome, and so it is perilous to expend resources pursuing tangential aims. In limited war, as we have discussed, the aim is instead only to alter the enemy’s calculus of probabilities, so that they deem concession preferable to continuing the fight. Nevertheless, the center of gravity still has relevance in such a war, for its importance means that threats or blows against it will have a greater impact than those directed elsewhere.

The center of gravity is therefore often only clear in hindsight, but must be sought in the moment with imperfect information. When facing one other state, this determination can be made in a relatively straightforward manner. However, if multiple states declare war on another, the matter may become more complex.

If two or more states combine against a third, this constitutes, politically speaking, only one war. However, this political union also has degrees. The question is whether each state in the coalition possesses an independent interest in the war, and an independent force with which to prosecute it, or whether there is one among them whose interests and forces the others lean on for support.1

In this latter case, Clausewitz claims the center of gravity can be worked out in relation to this main state. In the current war with Iran, the immediate conclusion would be to designate the US as this main state. However, it’s also possible to regard Israel as the main state of a coalition if we expect that its cessation of participation would lead the other members of the coalition to do the same, whereas the same could not be said of any other member. This may seem odd, considering the disparity in size and strength between the United States and Israel, but the center of gravity is not merely a question of might, but also of political commitment (which we have elsewhere discussed).

In Clausewitz’s terms, a belligerent’s capacity for resistance is a product of the factors of the quantity of means available and the strength of the will. A state with more limited resources but greater strength of will may have an overall greater capacity for resistance than one with greater means but lesser will. If Israel is willing to continue to prosecute this war alone but the same is not true of the United States, the center of gravity of the coalition must rest with the former. Yet, the reverse may also be true—Israel may only be willing to prosecute this war for the duration of American involvement, content to be carried along, satisfied with the marginal gains it attained through an ally’s endeavor. In either case, there would be only one center of gravity to the coalition, which Iran ought (in principle) to direct its efforts against.

But what about the former case? What if there are multiple states in the coalition that possess independent interest and means to prosecute the war? Clausewitz goes on to say “There are very few cases in which this kind of conception is not permissible, and where this reduction of several centers of gravity to one cannot be made. But if this cannot be done, then indeed there is no alternative but to look upon the war as two or more separate wars, each of which has its own aim.”

Israel certainly possesses independent means and may have its independent interests (on this subject, Yair Rosenberg’s assessment of the changed calculus post Oct. 7th is convincing). From this, it would follow that we ought to talk about two separate wars. If both parties have independent interests and means, an American loss of interest in the war would not necessarily carry Israel along, nor the reverse. If it does, it will have been justified to consider it one war. But if either is willing to carry on its campaign regardless of the decisions of the other, then it would be correct to regard the whole as two wars. If this is so, then Iran must reckon two centers of gravity. If the US is the sole center of gravity in the coalition, if it is moved, it will pull the others along with it. If Israel is its own center of gravity (or indeed the coalition’s center), it must be moved separately.

Therein lies the problem for Iran: closing the Strait of Hormuz is an effective means of affecting the US, but not so much Israel. It would not be unreasonable for Iran to hope that the US is in fact the center of gravity of the coalition. In any case, the relative ease with which Iran can produce political effects against the US justifies action against this important component of the coalition. However, if we are, in fact, dealing with two wars, Clausewitz’s conception of the center of gravity in a coalition suggests that Iran will be unable to apply significant pressure to Israel, which greatly complicates the question of ending the war.

The Danger of Closing Hormuz

Israel has very different incentives to the US and Iran has no clear means to compel it to accept a durable ceasefire. Iran may attempt to keep the strait closed in an effort to pressure Israel in a roundabout manner. Not only is this unlikely to work—it is also in-itself dangerous. Iran has enjoyed some lassitude in putting a knife at the throat of the global economy because this response appears proportional to the US-Israel decapitation strike. If Iran declares that it will block the strait until the Israelis commit to not bombing them (or if they re-close the strait in the future in response to another round of Israeli strikes), international opinion is likely to react differently. The international community may try to pressure Israel, but—as we’ve established—this is a core interest for Israel, and there is little leverage anyone else has to dissuade them. Thus, Iran will be holding a knife to everyone’s throats, demanding something they literally cannot deliver. In this situation, while there are unlikely to be friendly feelings towards Israel, it will be imperative to open the strait, which means destroying Iran’s ability to close the strait.

This, then, is the danger for Iran in trying to use the Strait of Hormuz to pressure Israel: it risks making other states desperate enough to back Israel since they would see no other way of reopening the strait. This may explain the reported behavior of the Gulf States in encouraging the continuation of the war—they don’t want Iran to be able to continually have the leverage of the strait. The problem for them, of course, is that anything short of regime collapse or a ground invasion would leave Iran with the capabilities necessary to make passage through the strait uninsurable. Perhaps they fear that a swift end to hostilities may incentivize Iran to leverage the strait again in the future. Alternatively, their view may be as simple as getting as much damage done to Iran as possible while Uncle Sam happens to be in the trigger-happy mood under the assumption that the weaker Iran is, the easier it will be to manage and contain.

In this situation, Iran has to estimate how much it can gain by closing the strait and how much of a risk it runs by doing so. There is a point where the economic damage done in fact creates a drive for the affected states to escalate the conflict with the aim of eliminating the risk of a future recurrence. In other words, Iran must try to inflict enough pain to deter future strikes without appearing intractable.

Defining Victory

It will be no small thing if the Islamic Republic avoids collapse (or even significant civil strife) as a result of this war, but it will be hard to consider it a victory. As we have said, Iran’s strategy for decades was the use of proxy forces that it could arm and protect by threat of escalation, including missile attack and closing the strait. This threat of escalation has utterly failed in deterring Israeli strikes and shows no prospects of doing so in the future. Consequently, Iran has little chance of rebuilding its network of proxies to a pre-war level after this war concludes. The regime is unlikely to give up its ambitions, but it must now continually reckon with the prospect of Israeli strikes.

This is to say: if Iran’s only objective was survival, then its use of proxy forces was a poor means towards this end. It is much easier to establish the deterrence needed for regime survival when one is not sponsoring terror in neighboring states. As such, we should evaluate success for Iran by a number of criteria. Among these are: regime survival, persisting influence of the axis of resistance, development of its nuclear program, and reestablishing deterrence.

The last will be the most difficult, for the reasons we have mentioned i.e., the difficulty in imposing costs on Israel. Nevertheless, even if Iran fails in this respect, it retains the ability to pursue its other ambitions—bombing alone cannot fully prevent them, nor coerce Iran to abandon them. What bombing can accomplish is making them more difficult—making it harder for the regime to maintain stability, support and protect its proxies, durably advance its enrichment capabilities, etc. In this respect, unless Iran can somehow deter future Israeli strikes (or advance its ambitions unhindered by them), this war must be counted as some degree of a loss for the Islamic Republic.

At this juncture, a likely outcome for this war is simply a victory for Israel, in that it has done significant damage to Iran, including Iranian ability to support proxies and deter attacks upon them, and established that it can resume strikes at any point in the future. Whether such an outcome can be counted as a victory for any of Iran’s other opponents is a more open question. It is likely this war will succeed in reducing Iran’s capabilities, but this is a kind of victory that is in-itself not worth much—not quite pyrrhic, but certainly hollow. For states without the threat of a 10/7 in their calculus, however long it takes for the strait to reopen and the level of economic damage caused in the interim (in addition to the intrinsic costs of military action) have to be weighed against whatever stability can be gained in light of a weakened Iran.

For a weakened Iran to be both substantially and broadly beneficial, the weakness of the Axis of Resistance would have to be followed-up upon by an aggressive campaign of diplomacy, investment, and institution-building in affected states. This is something the United States lacks the inclination and capacity (following the “DOGE” cuts) to accomplish. If Europe wished to demonstrate its strategic autonomy, it might act, but this is unlikely for both institutional reasons and financial ones, particularly in light of the existing strain in supporting Ukraine. The Gulf Coast states are the most likely to attempt to capitalize on the situation, but what they can or are willing to accomplish alone remains in question.

As it stands, when regarding the situation as a matter of statecraft, one cannot help but recall Ludendorff’s remark before the ill-fated Spring Offensive of 1918, “We’ll hack a hole in [the front line]. The rest will sort itself out.” (Wir hauen ein Loch hinein. Das Weitere findet sich.)

The aim of this war is to reduce Iranian power in the hope that this will, in itself, spontaneously produce a better regional order. Iran has certainly been a malign influence and a reduction of its capacity is—in absolute terms—beneficial. But it is senseless to embark on a costly war with this as an aim without a plan for confirming and exploiting the weakness inflicted.

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On War’s famous first chapter includes Clausewitz’s clearest comment on the subject of ending wars:

If we want our opponent to fulfill our will, we must therefore put him in a position that is more harmful than the sacrifice which we demand from him; the harmfulness of this position must, of course, at least not appear to be temporary, otherwise our opponent would wait for a better time and not give in. Each change that could be produced through continuing military action must lead to an even more harmful position, at least in theory.

Here, however, Clausewitz is talking in terms of theory and mere concepts. He goes on to say that in reality, this question is addressed by estimations of probabilities, not absolutes. These absolutes are helpful in showing the mechanism by which actions occur, such as what it is that compels a belligerent to fulfill another’s demands (pain, and the prospect of a yet worse situation). This first chapter deals with war primarily as a mere concept, before determining the effects of the real world upon these pure ideas. The second chapter relates to means and ends in real war and so provides concepts that can be more readily applied to the ongoing Iran war.

War in the abstract means a fight to the utter defeat, or overthrow, of the enemy. War in the real world, however, is a subordinate tool of policy—it is created from political circumstances and exists for the sake of political goals. In this way, limited war is possible. One reason for this is, as Clausewitz phrases it, is: “...the value of the object [the war is fought over] determines the measure of the sacrifices with which it is to be purchased.” Which means the value both sides place on whatever it is they are fighting over determines the lengths to which they’ll go to obtain or deny it. A lesser objective will call forth lesser efforts.

He describes the result of this dynamic: “We see, therefore, that in wars in which one side cannot completely disarm the other, the motives to peace will rise and fall on both sides according to the probability of future success and expenditure of force required.”1 Which is to say, the willingness of either side to come to a negotiated settlement depends on how likely continuing the war will lead them to a more favorable position and by how much effort they anticipate that would cost them. From this, we may see how many real war can be limited and conclude well-before either side is anywhere near helplessness, despite all that Chapter 1 established about the escalatory nature of war.

The conclusion of wars is also addressed here in this second chapter: “If [the motives for peace] were equally strong on both sides, they would meet in the middle of their political difference…” But Clausewitz goes on to say that no equivalence is needed for both sides to make peace, “As long as the sum of them added together is sufficient, peace will result, but naturally to the advantage of the side that has the weakest motives thereto.”2 Thus, the aversion to the costs and odds of continuing the war can be unequally distributed, but still produce peace, with the settlement being the more favorable to the side that needs peace less. An assessment of probabilities and effort can induce an agreement to peace, despite there being no significant fighting or decisive battles, as has been the case in many real wars. Thus, Clausewitz writes, “the original political intentions change very much in the course of the war, because they are partly determined by the successes and the probable results.” As we will see, this has implications for the strategic conduct of war, which no longer aims at the overthrow of the enemy, but the influencing of the enemy’s assessment of the likely progress of the war.

Changing the Odds

Chapter 1 compares war to a game of cards. But it is a game where no symmetry can be assumed—the decks are stacked, so to speak. Each player does not know for certain what cards his opponent has, and can really only clarify his view by playing the game i.e. waging war. Yet, just as a card game may involve real money, and so be subject to a system external to itself (in the sense that the players have a concern beyond winning, namely preserving their cash for other purposes), war is subject to politics. If a player suspects his opponent has the deck more in his favor than he first supposed, he may give up on seeking victory, and instead merely try to extricate himself at as low cost as possible. But his expenditure and appetite depends not just on the odds, but the kind of odds he’s willing to accept based on his personality and circumstances. The gambler with little cash may play more conservatively than someone with more wealth than he could possibly lose, but he also may play more aggressively if loan sharks await him outside the room.

In the kind of gamble that war’s subjective nature makes it, war, in most cases, no longer concerns itself with the utter overthrow of the enemy, but rather with changing the odds or—more precisely—the opponent’s perception of them. Clausewitz describes two primary means for influencing the enemy’s view of the prospect of success. The first of these is the destruction of the enemy’s forces and the occupation of his territory, similar to a war aimed at his total overthrow. However, Clausewitz notes that this will be carried out in a markedly different manner, since trying to totally defeat the enemy is very different from trying to just achieve enough to change his calculus of the odds, so that he would prefer to make peace than to carry on the fight. In practice, with outcomes a matter of probability, it is often sufficient for the goal of military action to be merely the shaking of an enemy’s confidence, so that the future looks unhopeful and he is willing to accede to our demands rather than face it. Whether this is possible and what victory is required to achieve what aims will naturally depend on the political situation and the nature of the demands.

The other means for accomplishing this are “such enterprises as have an immediate bearing upon policy.” Clausewitz describes his meaning very clearly, even providing examples:

If there are any enterprises which are particularly suited to breaking up the enemy’s alliances or winning new allies for ourselves, to stimulating political activities in our favor, and so forth, then it is easy to conceive how much these can increase the probability of success and become a much shorter way to our object than the defeat of the enemy’s armed forces.

This is quite far from Clausewitz as he is often stereotyped: as the prophet of decisive battle. Indeed, besides these, Clausewitz names three special means by which the enemy’s expenditure of forces can be increased, and the “price of success” increased. The first is by what he calls Invasion, though by this he does not mean it in the conventional sense of the word. Rather, he defines it as “the occupation of the enemy’s territory, not with a view of keeping it, but in order to levy contributions upon it or even to devastate it. The immediate object is neither the conquest of the enemy territory nor the defeat of his armed forces, but merely to do him damage in a general way.”3

Another method of increasing the enemy’s costs is by prioritizing doing harm over maximizing the chances of defeating the enemy in battle. He argues that while maximizing the chances of defeating the enemy would seem to be the more “military” choice (and maximizing pain the more political) “from the highest point of view, both are equally military, and each only effective if it suits the given conditions.” To aim at inflicting a defeat on the enemy in battle would reduce his military means, but this remains a political goal, and is only called for in certain political circumstances. That is to say, all military action depends on the political circumstances, and so must be judged by the political outcomes sought. What is necessary in one case would in another be disproportionate in risk or cost to the aim.

“The third way, by far the most important from the number of cases to which it applies, is the wearing out [Ermüden, tiring or fatiguing] of the enemy… The idea of wearing out in a long struggle implies a gradual exhaustion of the physical powers and the will by the long continuance of action.” Clausewitz chooses to illustrate this point with the example of Prussia in the Seven Years’ War:

Frederick the Great in the Seven Years’ War would never have been in a position to defeat the Austrian monarchy, and if he tried to after the fashion of a Charles XII,4 he would inevitably have been brought to ruin. But after his skillful use of a wise economy of his forces had for seven years shown the powers allied against him that the expenditure of forces on their side would far exceed what they had at first imagined, they made peace.

In this kind of defensive strategy, the aim is to convince the aggressor that what he wants is simply not worth the price. The means of doing so is by demonstrating that the cost of attaining his goal is higher than he had anticipated when he undertook the war, which makes peace on lesser (if not unfavorable) terms a preferable alternative to its continuation. A state may have the sheer strength to accomplish its aims, but war is part of political business—whether it’s worthwhile to actually do so is a separate question entirely. Therefore, even a greatly unequal contest of strength may end in favor of the weaker party, since he need not be able to even ultimately threaten the defeat his opponent, but only to ensure the costs of his conquest would be uneconomical.

In summation, Clausewitz writes:

When political objects are unimportant, motives slight, and the tension of the forces small, a cautious commander may skillfully try all sorts of ways by which, without great crises or bloody solutions, he may twist himself into a peace through the characteristic weaknesses of his opponent in the field and in the cabinet.5

However, cautions that it must always be remembered that the true nature of war has the destruction of the enemy as its highest law, to which either side may appeal (if circumstances do not hinder them), forcing a response in kind. Mistaking an enemy bent on destruction for one that can be dissuaded is a mistake that is often ruinous.

Theory and Practice

For Clausewitz, the inherent strength in the nature of the defensive was in awaiting the moment in which the balance of force permitted the return to the offensive, its transformation into the “flashing sword of vengeance.” Exhaustion and delay were components of defensive fighting, but only as means to the end of defeating the enemy in a decisive battle. This end need not actually be reached, but the very threat of the counter-attack was where the defensive derived its power. That is to say, an attacker can be induced to make peace when his forces are exhausted not because they are exhausted, but because their exhaustion makes them vulnerable to defeat in battle, and the danger of this compels a peace settlement. Clausewitz considers political exhaustion as something else entirely, which can’t be considered a tendency of war itself, but a characteristic of certain kinds of war—the half-hearted ones.

It is in some respects odd to call the intensive bombing campaign over Iran “half-hearted,” in light of the destruction and even the rhetoric involved. War is by it nature a deadly business, even for the least of wars. In this case, at-most one of the belligerents considers the war a matter of life-and-death, and this one lacks the means to force the other side to escalate the war. Iran’s primary enemies (Israel and the United States) lack a land border with it, and lack the motives for a ground invasion (whereas Iran lacks the means to force such a war upon them). This war, despite its rhetoric, is therefore fundamentally limited in the sense that Clausewitz meant it.

Certainly, the Iranian regime has at least as much invested in winning the war as Frederick the Great did in the Seven Years’ War, but neither has/had the capacity or opportunity to escalate matters to confrontation of whole nation against whole nation. Iran simply lacks the military means to force decisive battle on its enemies, whereas its enemies (even if they strictly have the means) lack the will and inclination to assume the risks of decisive battle, and are instead using lesser means to pursue lesser objectives.

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While we would hardly see the tensions between Iran and the states opposing it as “small,” the motives as “slight,” or the political objects as “unimportant,” they can be counted as such in comparison to the life-or-death struggle of nations that states can embroil themselves in. In the kind of “fight to the finish” that was characteristic of the Napoleonic Wars (and reached its apex in the world wars), simply drawing things out was not enough; unless the attacker lost their superiority (becoming vulnerable to counterattack) they would continue to have the means and motive to attempt to destroy the defender utterly. Frederick the Great was able to take advantage of the half-hearted character of war in that time, allowing him to wait for the political exhaustion of his enemies to deliver him from their numerical superiority. It is only in cases where the aims of the war are limited that this kind of exhaustion (rather than ultimate destruction) can be the aim of the defender.

It is only in the eighth chapter of Book VIII that Clausewitz addresses the plan of a war in the case of “Limited-Aim Defense.”6 Here, he writes, “The ultimate aim of a defensive war can never be an absolute negation… Even for the weakest there must be something by means of which he can hurt his opponent and threaten him.” Keeping in mind what was established in Book I Ch. 2, the aim for each side is to influence the perceived probability of positive developments for the other, so that prospects seem poor enough that the opponent would prefer to pay the price needed to terminate the war.

As history shows us, this is not an absolute process, but rather both sides modify their demands as they perceive their prospects changing. Countless wars have ended after one side, despite having gained an advantage, nevertheless chooses to give up on pursuing their original aim and makes do with something lesser, sometimes even nothing at all; this occurs when the attacker deems the probability of success lower than he had guessed when first undertaking the war or the cost of attaining his aim higher than he supposed. The reciprocal of this, of course, is that unexpected opportunities (often spurred by victory in battle) often lead to an attacker seeking gains beyond his original target.

War for the Weak

Particularly useful for our purposes is what Clausewitz writes of the greatly inferior defender: “in case his weakness does not permit him to consider any important counter-stroke,” his aim is “an alteration of the circumstances, an improvement of the situation… this improvement from without can be nothing else than a change in political relations; either new alliances spring up in favor of the defender or old ones directed against him collapse.” When this is so, “the defender tries to keep possession of his own country as long as possible, because in that way he gains the most time, and gaining time is the only way to his aim.”

In this the limitations of a work written in the early 1800s may be noticeable: Clausewitz does not address the possibility of an air campaign, which does not attempt to seize territory. However, his description of the aims of a defender too weak to contemplate a counter-attack provides a suggestion as to why airpower alone has so little coercive power: it cannot deprive a state of its territory, nor threaten to do so; so long as a state has its territory, it has the means to generate new forces, to a lesser or greater extent depending on how devastated the territory is.

In any case, the core assertions remain valid. The ultimate aim of the defender must be to inflict a defeat (or damage, in the case of a limited war) on the attacker, which is enabled by the exploitation of inherent advantages of the defensive, which can create a more favorable balance of forces. Where the overall imbalance of forces is so great that this cannot be done, the only thing left is to play for time, since time not only weakens the attacker more than the defender (provided the attacker has not occupied the parts of the country the defender needs to sustain himself), but time also provides the opportunity for political circumstances to shift, which may entirely alter the balance of forces.

What we see in Book VIII, Ch. 8 then, is the reciprocal of Clausewitz’s better known comments in Book I, Ch. 1: if the defender sees the harmfulness of his position as temporary, he knows he can get a better outcome (even if it’s still unfavorable) by waiting. We may apply this quite easily to the war with Iran: so long as Iran sees the current harmfulness of the situation as temporary, there is little incentive to come to terms. In immediate terms, this means Iran is unlikely to feel compelled to negotiate until the coalition’s stockpiles have been further depleted. The nature of the bombing campaign is such that its intensity is limited by munitions stocks, and so its intensity will abate—hardly the threat of an ever-more harmful position. This is particularly acute when it comes to interceptors. Iran’s capacity to strike is being reduced, but this is not occurring as quickly as the coalition’s capacity to defend against these strikes is being reduced. The harm the coalition can inflict on Iran was largely front-loaded, whereas Iran’s capacity to harm takes time to be effective, both in terms of economic pain and in wearing down interceptor stockpiles.

Yet, this is not the end of the story. Political factors must be taken into account on both sides. Even considering the limitations of stockpiles, continual bombing at whatever level can be sustained by the coalition is still a harmful position for Iran. The question remains: what sacrifice is likely to be demanded of Iran? Likewise, what might Iran be willing to sacrifice in exchange for extricating itself from the painful position of constant bombing? It is in light of these aims that the pressure each side applies to the other must be considered.

Factors of the Will

As addressed in Book I, Ch. 1, part of the capacity for resistance depends on the will, which cannot be quantified, only judged. The strength of the will is also directly modified by the political circumstances. For Iran, this means both domestic politics, as well as the international situation. In international terms, this means the solidity of the coalition they find opposing them. If they believe it is likely members will peel off, that will be a strengthening factor to the will, just as the belief that members will join or intensify their involvement weakens the will to resist.

In domestic terms, if an uprising (whether separatist or popular) is greatly feared, that may be sufficient for Iran to take a bad deal—the prospect of dealing with such a scenario amidst a bombing campaign would be the “even more harmful position” that makes the sacrifice appealing. Likewise, a leadership vacuum may produce a power struggle, which would incentivize a swift settlement. However, political circumstances can also strengthen the will to resist. This of course includes the reciprocal of the aforementioned (if the population is understood to be compliant or loyal, the leadership firmly consolidated), but also includes the emotional element. As Clausewitz says in his first chapter, since wars are waged by humans, the heart is always involved, even if its influence relative to the mind varies. Iran’s leadership is highly ideological, but it is far from entirely insensitive to raison d’état.

Rather than speculate on Iran’s internal politics, we may instead note some factors that produce or accent pressure. The history of mass protests in Iran that ended in violent repression makes the degradation of Iranian state capacity a factor. The economic weakness of Iran is also a factor, as is the shortage of water, in consideration of the popular discontent this has produced. The death of the ayatollah has undermined the balance of power within the regime and the consolidation of power is likely to be hindered by the continuation of the war. This is all to say, prolonging the war may increase the pressure on the coalition to come to terms favorable to Iran, but it is not a given that this will outweigh Iran’s own need for peace as the war drags on.

Thus, it must be noted that both Iran and the US have the incentive to present their will to prosecute this war indefinitely as infinite, regardless of their real disposition. This is for the same reason that both parties in a negotiation are incentivized to at least pretend to be willing to walk away. Both sides evaluate what they are willing to offer in exchange for peace based not just on the actual situation, but on the basis of how they expect it to develop.

A yet larger question is whether this should be considered a discrete war, or merely an intensive campaign within an existing one. War, as Clausewitz defines it, has nothing to do with questions of a formal declaration or legal status, but of the use of violent means towards political goals against an opposing force. A glance at the history of war reveals a number of wars that have lasted years or decades, containing only intermittent periods of energetic activity. If the aim of this campaign is not peace, but merely to gain a stronger position from which to continue to wage a protracted struggle, the actions within it will have to be judged in light of that goal.

This is to say, it matters greatly whether the aim of the coalition is to coerce Iran into giving up the idea of projecting power via proxies and pursuing nuclear weapons or whether the aim is merely to reduce their abilities to do so (or to defend against future strikes). Likewise, it must be asked whether Iran hopes to merely endure and continue its campaign of supporting proxies and/or pursuing nuclear enrichment or whether it hopes to secure a peace deal to protect these interests.

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Post-Script on The Relationship Between War and Policy

From this passage, one might gather that the Iran war constitutes a blunder in which policy has promised itself a wrong effect from certain military means and measures. This may be true in a certain sense, but this is not what Clausewitz is addressing here. The subject here is whether policy can have a negative effect on the conduct of war. The only case Clausewitz argues this is possible is when policy tries to achieve something with military means that are intrinsically incompatible with its aim e.g. having an army support itself by foraging in barren country, ordering forces to move distances that are impossible. He compares it to the way someone who hasn’t fully mastered a foreign language might misspeak.

What Clausewitz is not talking about is an erroneous assessment of the political effects of a particular military act. Policy has the right to take all sorts of risks, even foolish ones. Whether or not bombing the Iranian regime can cause it to collapse, or give in, is ultimately a judgment of probabilities, which is the hard task of war—the essence of the strategic problem on the level that touches policy. In cases such as these, as he says, “It is not [the influence of policy], but the policy itself which should be found fault with.” Misjudging an opponent and the kind of pressure required to compel him into acquiescence is a failure of policy, not an example of malign influence.

An instance of this failed judgment is in Napoleon’s 1812 invasion of Russia. Clausewitz argues his primary fault was misjudging the impact of taking Moscow on the Tsar. Had Napoleon been right that this would force the Tsar to come to terms, the campaign strategy would have been sound. The political effects of any action are always a matter of probability, but Clausewitz argued that Napoleon had deceived himself as to the probability of this action having the desired political effect upon his enemy. How this parallels the current situation needs no explanation.

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This article is centered around this piece by Ian T. Brown, published in The Strategy Bridge in 2018 (this is the kind of topical analysis you can expect here at Dead Carl and You). The essay draws upon the lectures of John Boyd (1927-1997), an American fighter pilot and military theorist, influential for his contribution to the Energy–maneuverability theory of aircraft performance, and the “OODA loop” concept of decision-making, and relates his comments on Clausewitz’s On War. This article is written not for the sake of criticizing John Boyd, but criticizes him for the sake of preventing the proliferation of his misunderstandings of Clausewitz.

Brown’s essay provides Boyd’s views on Clausewitz with relatively little commentary, with its stated primary purpose being a documentation of them. Brown also writes: “Second, and perhaps more importantly, [the purpose] is to offer it as [a] whetstone to help hone the “Clausewitz says X” approach to contemporary conflict.” The “Clausewitz says X” tendency is a good target for correction, as there are many more Clausewitz quotations that are misleading when deployed out of context than those that are fully self-contained.

We will largely not address Boyd’s ideas here in general, but rather engage specifically with what his statements on Clausewitz reveal about his understanding of the ideas in On War in contrast to what Clausewitz actually meant, largely relayed in his own words. It will be left to the reader to draw their own conclusions as to how this reflects on Boyd’s theories and method more generally. Nevertheless, for the sake of context and completeness, the quotations on Clausewitz from Brown’s essay will be supplemented by reference to his co-authored book on Boyd, Snowmobiles and Grand Ideas, which includes primary sources of transcripts and slides, and can be accessed here.

The Aim of On War

In summary of Boyd, Brown writes: “Overlaying a Clausewitzian framework on the adversary du jour can be problematic, as said adversaries do not always share that strategic perspective.” This framing indicates a misunderstanding of the purpose of On War. Its purpose (as Jon Sumida’s book Decoding Clausewitz emphasizes) is to help officers and statesmen develop the acumen or genius necessary to rapidly judge a situation sufficiently correctly, including the character and style of an adversary. As Clausewitz says quite clearly, “[theory] is meant to educate the mind of the future commander—or, more accurately, to guide him in his self-education—not to accompany him to the battlefield.”

Clausewitz’s aim was to describe war and the tendencies within it in a way that was accurate, and he therefore describes his investigation as scientific. He did not provide a particular lens or perspective, but rather sought the truth of the matter. For example, he claims the political standpoint has primacy as the way to view war because war is essentially political; it would therefore be inaccurate to grant any other standpoint primacy. What this means is that if one wants to take other perspectives on war, one must grapple directly with Clausewitz’s claims of truth. Otherwise, one may easily fall subject to the harsh criticism Clausewitz levied at contemporaries writing on war who offered only a hodgepodge of observations, without making clear the standpoint from which they were speaking, producing advice that was either banal or too vague to be falsified.

Boyd also claims: “If you have a narrowband radio, you can’t examine the other bands, can you? If [the enemy]’s got a wideband, he can examine yours, plus he can operate the other stuff and be hosing you and you don’t even know it…you want the wideband filter. And if you’re only using Clausewitz, you got a narrowband filter through which you’re looking at the world of conflict.”

It is true that, the more widely read you are on theories of war, the more likely you are to be able to understand what assumptions your adversary is operating under. But this view continues to misunderstand Clausewitz: his contribution is an investigation of the nature of war and a method for using this to develop sound judgment in matters of strategy. If your adversary knows you have used Clausewitz’s method, he cannot use it to anticipate your actions with any success. To be Clausewitzian means to know that strategy must be founded on the concrete facts of the case at hand, with theory being merely an aid in learning to do so. An adversary would have much better luck anticipating your actions by doing the same—looking at the particular. Knowledge of other writings may be helpful, but their helpfulness depends on the truth they contain and whether truth and falsehood are correctly identified by the reader. If one reads widely but insufficiently critically, one will easily accumulate nothing but a mass of false impressions.

Brown describes Boyd’s engagement with Clausewitz as follows: “Boyd sought not so much to circumvent Clausewitz as to use the Prussian’s concepts as fuel in his own mental refinery.” Treating the concepts in On War as mere fuel in a refinery does them a disservice, and—more importantly—is an implicit rejection of the scientific spirit of investigation that underlies Clausewitz’s work. This is an error not unique to Boyd. We might say most readings of On War have been of a similar nature. But Clausewitz deserves a more serious engagement by any student of war. He aimed not just at a particular perspective, but at the truth, to whatever extent he in reality succeeded or failed in his task.

This is to say: Clausewitz believed there were truths about war to be found and that he had found some of them. The contention of Clausewitz is that war has an unchanging nature or essence, and observations about this essence are valid for all wars, past and future. The premise and his findings ought to be accepted or rejected by succeeding theorists, not impressionistically used as stimulus. If his theory has failed, one must say so, and argue for what one believes is the essence of war (or else for the impossibility of such a theory).

Returning to the idea of lenses, Brown quotes Boyd as saying: “[if one thought] we’re just going to use Clausewitz as the lens filter to look at the problem, you’re going to make a horrible mistake…because all you’ve told me is your thinking hasn’t proceeded beyond 1832, and a lot of things have happened since 1832.” This is a rather facile criticism of Clausewitz, which again indicates a lack of understanding of the aim of On War. On War most basically consists of two components: a methodology for usefully theorizing about war’s unchanging nature, and Clausewitz’s own findings in his investigation. The enduring fame of Clausewitz stems—not just from his writing—but from the failure of succeeding thinkers to continue in his vein of investigation or to develop upon his methodology. One need not agree with Clausewitz’s method (or one might agree with his method but not his findings) but an appeal to the passage of time is an odd non-sequitur, like a stage magician’s attempt at misdirection. A method of inquiry is not intrinsically invalidated by the passing of time or the occurrence of events. One might as well point out that Carl is dead, and ask the use of taking advice on war from a dead man.

Terrain Troubles

“[Clausewitz] gets in the mountains, which is rough terrain. Then he says offense is the stronger form.”

“Because this crazy notion, that defense is a stronger form, if it is, then how come he says that the offense is stronger in the mountains? And he sort of alludes it’s stronger in the forest.”1

It appears that Boyd is referring to a digression in Chapter 15 of Book VI, where Clausewitz writes, “The attack thus acquired a general superiority, and the defense had no other means to make up for this than by seeking protection from impediments of ground, and for this nothing was so favorable and general as mountainous ground.”2 What Boyd misses is that this is not a general statement, but part of a digression in which Clausewitz is recounting the historical development of tactics and explaining why the convention of defending mountainous terrain was at one point logical, even as it remained popular past its relevance.

The “general superiority” of the attack refers specifically to the advantage of deploying second, in a prior age when armies were both large and unwieldy, causing the defender to more heavily rely on the natural superiority of the defensive that is gained from terrain. He then goes on to explain the further development of tactical practice in mountainous terrain up to the recent past where,

The offensive had once again gained an absolute preponderance through the continuous advance being made in mobility, and it was only from the same means that the defense could seek help. But mountain ground, by its nature, is opposed to mobility, and thus the whole mountain defense experienced, if we may use the expression, a defeat not unlike that which the armies engaged in it in the Revolutionary War[s] so often suffered.

In its context, this is clearly not commentary on the overall relationship between attack and defense, but about the traditional use of mountains in tactics and how useful they are for the defender. Clausewitz argues that mountainous terrain is unsuitable for a defender who is intending to fight a decisive battle. This is in no sense contradictory to the idea that the defensive is the stronger form of fighting. Indeed, the defensive—as Clausewitz defines it—has the significant advantage of choosing the ground on which it intends to fight. It is only natural that some terrain suits it better than others and Clausewitz wishes to warn the reader not to be taken-in by then-conventional ideas about the utility of mountains.

The topic ends with the isolated line, “A general who gets himself into disaster in an extended mountain position deserves to be court-martialed.”3 His point being that the extended mountain positions that were fashionable tools of the defensive in the 18th century are inappropriate for war with modern, mobile armies. It in no sense follows from this that Clausewitz was saying the offensive is stronger than the defensive in mountains, but that the defender who chooses mountainous terrain to fight a defensive battle is making a mistake that nullifies some of his own advantages. The defensive is still stronger but to a lesser degree.

Returning to the other instance Boyd cites, “Then he gets in the forest, and he’s a little bit more clever. I read that very carefully. He’s sort of saying the offense is the stronger form, but he couldn’t say it.”

It is less than clear what Boyd is referring to here. A possibility is Clausewitz’s comment, that, “The defender has more need than the assailant of an unimpeded view all around him, partly because, as a rule, he is the weaker, partly because the natural advantages of his position cause him to develop his plans later than the assailant.”4 Or perhaps Boyd is referring to the assertion that “Such a wooded country cannot, therefore, be brought into any sort of favorable relation to the defender’s engagements…” Clausewitz then mentions a couple of uses for the kind of cultivated forests he is talking about for the defender’s maneuvers, but his overall point—as with mountains—is that these features of terrain are not strong ground from which to fight defensively.

In either case, Boyd’s error seems to be that he assumes what Clausewitz calls a “true polarity”5 applies in real war. Thus, Boyd assumes that because it is disadvantageous for the defender to fight in woods and mountains that this terrain is therefore advantageous to the attack, and indeed gives it an overall superiority over the defense. This is not the case, as an advantage omitted by the defender does not automatically create an overall advantage for the attacker. Clausewitz assumes throughout Book VI that the defensive is a form of fighting relied upon out of weakness (an imbalance in force). Thus, the defender seeks to make use of the advantages of that form of fighting (waiting and terrain) to overcome the superiority of the attacker’s forces. It is in this context that he is explaining why—counter to then-conventional wisdom—the direct defense of mountains and forests is not a productive use of the advantages of the defensive.

These may seem like nitpicks on Boyd, but he chose to decontextualize comments in these chapters, which were concerned largely with tactical questions of warfare in Clausewitz’s day, and assert that they contradicted one of his main theses: the superiority of the defensive. This misunderstanding of Clausewitz’s assertions regarding the two forms of fighting leads to further errors in interpretation, as we will now see.

The Offensive and the Defensive

“So therefore, if it depends upon the situation, then you say, why do you say it’s a stronger form? The stronger form depends upon what’s the situation. Whether you’re going to use the offense or defense depends upon the situation. But [Clausewitz] didn’t say it that way, because he had to have an absolute notion. That’s horseshit. Even in his own book, if you read carefully, he’s got it wrong.”6

A moment’s consideration shows how Boyd is entirely missing the overall point that Clausewitz is asserting: that the defensive form of fighting is an overall strengthening factor. That the defensive is the stronger form of fighting does not mean defending is always the better thing to do, as Boyd implies Clausewitz’s position to be. The caveats that Clausewitz attaches to his observations, the particularities from politics, chance, and friction, etc. must always be held in mind when considering his assertions, so as not to mistake tendencies for laws.

That the defensive is the stronger form of fighting does not imply a positive doctrine of applying it universally, which would be self-evidently absurd. “Whether you’re going to use the offense or the defense depends on the situation” is not incompatible with the notion that the defensive is the stronger form of fighting. The defensive, in the sense Clausewitz means it, is not merely passively awaiting the enemy attack, but involves the use of the attack, just as the offensive form of fighting also intermixes the defensive.

But as we must return the enemy’s blows if we are really to carry on war on our side, therefore this offensive action in defensive war falls in a certain sense under the heading of defense… We can, therefore, in a defensive campaign fight offensively, in a defensive battle we may use some divisions for offensive purposes, and lastly, while simply remaining in position awaiting the enemy’s onslaught, we still send offensive bullets into his ranks to meet him. The defensive form in war is therefore not a mere shield, but a shield formed of skillfully delivered blows.7

With this in mind, Boyd’s other comments on the subject make it difficult to escape the conclusion that he did not understand what Clausewitz meant.

As Brown summarizes, “‘And later on, Clausewitz comments on morale, arguing that “if you got more morale and the other guy’s got less, it also may be the offense may be stronger,’” and “From these apparent contradictions, Boyd determined that what Clausewitz was ‘really saying then, the offense or defense, whether one’s stronger than the other depends upon the situation, whether it be terrain or people and that.’”

To this we can counterpose Clausewitz’s plain language, “What is the object of defense? To preserve. To preserve is easier than to gain; from which it follows at once that the means on both sides being supposed equal, defense is easier than attack.”8 Again, whether or not to attack depends on the situation, but the defensive remains the stronger form of fighting. The attacker may have an easier time attacking in rough terrain than in flat terrain, but that does not give the attacker an overall advantage over the defender. “Less advantageous” is still advantageous, in the same way that two is less than three but still greater than one. Boyd simply doesn’t address these comments, which fully explain the contradiction he perceives.

The issue here is not that Boyd contradicts Clausewitz, but that he does not engage with or acknowledge Clausewitz’s arguments. Instead, he presents Clausewitz as claiming that the defensive is always the better course of action (an implausible position), and claims that this not being so in every case disproves Clausewitz’s notion.

Discussed at length in Snowmobiles and Grand Ideas, Boyd’s counter-example for the superiority of the defense is the testimony of Hermann Balck, a Nazi general who successfully took the offensive when outnumbered, inflicting heavy losses on Soviet offensives. “in Balck’s cases, he said there’s no way I can defend with three divisions. I’m going to get cleaned. So he got a surprise attack, cleaned up the attack.”9 Putting aside the problems that come from relying on this kind of evidence,10 one has to wonder: did Boyd really believe Clausewitz had never considered the counterattack? It is true that Balck won tactical victories despite being outnumbered, but he nevertheless had the “stronger” force in Clausewitizian terms. The error here is that Boyd chooses to interpret “strength” in this instance as a numerical matter. Clausewitz, meanwhile, refers to the overall strength of a force, including its subjective factors, like morale, experience, and organization.

The idea that this very conventional example counters the thesis of Book VI (the longest of On War) betrays a lack of serious engagement, as indeed Chapter 5 of this very book shows:

If the defender has gained an important advantage, defense has done its part, and under the protection of this advantage he must return the blow if he does not want to expose himself to certain ruin… A swift and vigorous transition to attack—the flashing sword of vengeance—is the most brilliant point of the defensive. He who does not bear this in mind from the first, who does not from the first include it in his conception of defense, will never understand the superiority of the defensive.11

Documentary evidence shows Boyd read On War, yet one cannot help but suspect that he found the opportunity to use Clausewitz as a foil more appealing than accurately representing his views.

This article was written as a single piece, but is truncated for this format of publication. The second part will be forthcoming shortly, addressing absolutes, the Schwerpunkt, mass, and speed and concentration.

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If America’s War Colleges teach politics instead of war, strategic failure is inevitable… [war college] curricula need to build warfighters who think strategically, not uniformed ‘strategists’ who are more concerned with diplomacy than closing with and destroying America’s enemies.

These come from the pictured article by a pseudonymous author, with the risible title “Making the War Colleges Great Again.” The author is apparently a retired officer who attended one of these institutions. Amongst his criticisms and suggestions, he calls for the purging of civilian faculty, at least partly on the basis of their “visceral and vocal hatred for the current administration.” This advocacy for Soviet-style “political correctness” from war college faculty is a view unfit for any American, let alone an officer, and gives you some idea of the tenor of the article.

The piece is banally shallow and incompetent, only worth reading in full if you have a sense of morbid curiosity. Nevertheless, we can still make use of it by following Clausewitz’s example of using the shoddy work of others to illustrate a better way to study war. Throughout this article, I will be juxtaposing arguments made in the essay with quotes from On War to elucidate Clausewitz’s concept of military education.

The Aim of Education

In his book Decoding Clausewitz, Jon Tetsuro Sumida argues that Clausewitz had the major purpose in On War of establishing a method of developing military skill, or genius. He cites Clausewitz, “The knowledge needed by a senior commander is distinguished by the fact that it can only be attained by a special talent, through the medium of reflection, study and thought: an intellectual instinct which extracts the essence from the phenomena of life, as bee sucks honey from a flower.”1 By this, Clausewitz means the kind of intuition necessary to grasp the essence of a situation from the incomplete information available and within the general strain and chaos of war. Sumida argues that the method Clausewitz envisioned for developing this talent was the mental reenactment of command decision-making, using historical examples. He writes:

This combination of theory and history amounts to historical reenactment of strategic and tactical decision-making experience, which is to be followed by reflection on that experience. The two actions constitute a form of learning that approximates that which takes place in actual war of any kind… Clausewitz regards his theoretical approaches as scientific because their primary function is to make possible productive observation of particular experience… rather than to serve as guides to decision-making.2

Indeed, Clausewitz himself is explicit that developing a particular way of learning from experience is the only possible and therefore legitimate goal of theory. He writes,

A Positive Doctrine is Unattainable

Given the nature of our subject, we must remind ourselves that it is simply not possible to construct a model for that of war that can serve as a scaffolding on which the commander can rely for support at any time. Whenever he has to fall back on his innate talent, he will find himself outside the model and in conflict with it; no matter how versatile the code, the situation will always lead to the consequences we have alluded to: talent and genius operate outside the rules and theory conflicts with practice.3

Since positive doctrine is impossible, the role of theory is thus to stimulate the mind to develop talent and genius so that, in actual war when a commander must rely upon it, the muscle is well-trained, so to speak. No set of rules can capture all the possibilities of war and war itself involves circumstances that preclude the systematic, rational investigation of all possibilities. Clausewitz therefore declares: “Knowledge must be so absorbed into the mind that it almost ceases to exist in a separate, objective way.”4 He elaborates: “In almost any other art or profession a man can work with truths he has learned from musty books, but which have no life or meaning for him. Even truths that are in constant use and are always to hand may still be externals.” He gives the example of an architect applying a formula to determine the strength of a feature of a building, using a process that is set, “of whose logic he is not at the moment fully conscious, but which he applies for the most part mechanically. It is never like that in war. Continual change and the need to respond to it compels the commander to carry the whole intellectual apparatus of his knowledge within him… By total assimilation with his mind and life, the commander’s knowledge must be transformed into a genuine capability.”

From this it follows that the aim of education must be the development of a comprehensive capacity for intuitive judgment, so that an accurate assessment can be made without conscious reasoning, for which there is no time in war. Even in modern war where much more information is available to the commander, this hold true. The availability of information in no way alleviates the necessity for the kind of skill that Clausewitz describes; the commander must still discern the essential significance that lies behind all the information presented to them. They must do this in trying conditions, with information they know may be false, outdated, deceptive, or mischaracterized. They must therefore rely—not on rules or formulas—but their judgment and intuition, which can only be honed by experience.

The Method

Clausewitz posits that the only effective means of education for higher ranking officers is the critical analysis of military history, by which he means a detailed mental recreation of the decisions of the relevant commanders, guided but not subordinated to theory (which is in turn tested against the historical record). Through this process, which he terms “critical analysis,” a prospective commander may turn the dusty tomes he consults into a serviceable approximation of experience in higher command.

Clausewitz examines Napoleon’s decision to lift the siege of Mantua to attack the Austrian relief force.5 While he won a famous victory, he lost the siege train necessary to take the city, being forced to blockade it for another six months. Clausewitz argues that Napoleon might have instead taken the defensive with his 40,000 men against the relief force of 50,000 and instead actually taken the city by siege and that as doing so would have had a greater strategic effect than the destruction of the relief force. He views Napoleon’s decision as influenced by the at-the-time prevailing but superficial view that defending siege lines was an outdated form of fighting, typical of the 17th century. Clausewitz identifies this oversight as the likely cause of the decision, rather being developed through a serious consideration of the alternative, which appears to have never struck Napoleon.

Clausewitz argues that, through critical analysis, we can see that despite Napoleon’s bold intent in attacking the relief force it was—in reality—the lower risk, lower reward option compared to continuing the siege and daring the Austrians to try to relieve it. Napoleon’s bias towards offensive action and deference to conventional views on forms led him to do the opposite of what he really intended—he wanted to take the more audacious course that promised a greater victory, but in reality ended up on the safer road with a lesser magnitude of success.

It is this kind of analysis that can hone the capacity necessary for higher command: looking critically from the perspective of the commanders involved and asking: what did they know? What were they trying to do? What drove their decision? What alternatives did they have? What effects did this choice have? What effects would the alternatives have produced? This, in Clausewitz’s view, was the purpose of critical analysis: to allow future commanders to hone their judgment and synthesizing intellect through the study of military history and the empathetic consideration of the judgments of past commanders. As Clausewitz writes,

“What is most needed in the lower ranks is courage and self-sacrifice, but there are fewer problems to be solved by intelligence and judgment. The field of action is more limited, means and ends are fewer in number, and the data more concrete: usually they are limited to what is actually visible. But the higher the rank, the more the problems multiply, reaching their highest point in the supreme commander. At this level, almost all solutions must be left to imaginative intellect.6

Clausewitz’s intent was to create a theory that would enable the development of this imaginative intellect, so that officers could be prepared to face the myriad of unique situations that each particular war produced and for which no doctrine could account. It is the responsibilities of higher command, of making sense of a complex situation with incomplete information under duress, that require true genius and a cultivated insight. The role of education for senior officers such as attend the war colleges ought to be to provide students with these tools, not fixate on pedantic issues best reserved for field manuals.

Tactics And Strategy

We must staff War College faculty [sic] with our best warfighters, ones who have had a successful tactical command at the colonel/captain level...

No great commander was ever a man of limited intellect. But there are numerous cases of men who served with the greatest distinction in the lower ranks and turned out barely mediocre in the highest commands, because their intellectual powers were inadequate.7

The tactically successful can impart tactical wisdom and help refine the positive doctrines that are suitable for that level of war. Duties of higher command, which the war colleges ought to be concerned with, require starkly different capabilities than lower levels of leadership. Achieving tactical success is not easy, but it requires more physical courage than moral courage or a penetrating insight. A record of tactical success is no guarantee of strategic insight, as the history of war shows.

Tactical success therefore has little to offer to the development of the creative mind necessary for higher levels of command responsibility, where the currency is the synthesis and comprehension of how the glimpsed parts stand in relation to the whole. Clausewitz is very clear about why tactical instruction is an unsuitable focus for the education of senior officers:

…anyone who thought it necessary or even useful to begin the education of a future general with a knowledge of all the details has always been scoffed at as a ridiculous pedant. Indeed, that method can easily be proved to be harmful: for the mind is formed by the knowledge and the direction of ideas it receives and the guidance it is given. Great things alone make a great mind, and petty things will make a petty mind unless a man rejects them as completely alien.8

An overemphasis on the business of fighting and killing will lead officers to be concerned with things below their responsibility, and to view war as a matter of applying set formulas to given problems, as tactics can resemble. This kind of education would be suitable only for the mediocre, its lessons ringing false to anyone with a real genius for higher command. We can only pity the officer who imbibes purely these pedantic platitudes and must face an opponent whose thinking has been whetted by critical analysis of actual strategic problems.

The author also persists in the “lethality obsession” that I have previously written on, intoning: “[war colleges] are schools to teach senior leaders how to better kill the enemy.” The business of higher officers is not killing anyone directly. Clausewitz declares that, “In many cases, particularly those involving great and decisive actions, the analysis must extend to the ultimate objective, which is to bring about peace.”9 He then goes on to provide an example of analyzing Napoleon’s 1799 campaign in Italy, looking at Napoleon’s reasons for advancing on Vienna and connecting it with his decision to shortly after sign a relatively moderate peace with the Austrians as well as the Austrian decision to cede provinces to France rather than try to wage a more total war of resistance.

He traces the military circumstances (Napoleon had overextended himself, the Austrians had fewer forces available to defend Vienna than Napoleon believed they might) to the ultimate mutual political decision to accept peace. It is this process that Clausewitz argues provides the strategic experience that develops the intuition needed for higher leadership, and consists the method of “mental reenactment” Sumida argues is at the core of On War. As Clausewitz repeats, violence and killing are only part of combat, which is the means of war, while the ends are “those objects which lead directly to peace.” The latter is the aim of strategy, with which senior leadership is concerned and which gives significance to tactical success.

Self-Conception

The civilian suit madness sends a deep, deep subliminal signal that says, “You are no longer a warrior, You are now a politician, or a civil servant, or a contractor. Welcome to Inside the Beltway.

A commander-in-chief need not be a learned historian nor a pundit, but he must be familiar with the higher affairs of state and its innate policies; he must know current issues, questions under consideration, the leading personalities, and be able to form sound judgments…10

The role of PME is to teach officers how to reach the higher level of judgement that integrates the aims of policy into its understanding. Someone who can only think like a warrior may be suited for commanding a regiment, but not an army.

Knowledge Will Be Determined By Responsibility

Within this field of military activity, ideas will differ in accordance with the commander’s area of responsibility. In the lower ranks, they will be focused upon minor and more limited objectives; in the more senior, upon wider and more comprehensive ones. There are commanders-in-chief who could not have led a cavalry regiment with distinction, and cavalry commanders who could not have led armies.11

Commanders need not be themselves politicians or diplomats, but they must understand how they think and how war (and the actions within it) will affect their calculus.

An example can illustrate what this means in practice: say a commander is tasked with defending a third country from invasion. They must find a course of action that does not merely defeat some part of the enemy’s forces, but leads the enemy to actually give up on their intent to invade that country. Determining which course of action will produce this effect requires this kind of higher judgment that understands both war (as the instrument) and the enemy with whom it is to interact, in all the particularities of the case. Thus, at the highest level, the commander must also be a statesman, understanding the policies of his government, as well as those of his enemy, and how events and his decisions will impact the attainment of those. Clausewitz is explicit that political responsibility varies by degree, becoming greater as it approaches the commander-in-chief. If a commander cannot grasp the policies that underlie their application of force, they will be increasingly ineffective in their role as their seniority increases. The commander-in-chief (in Clausewitz’s sense the most senior commander) has the responsibility of using military force to convince the enemy to make whatever political concession is sought by policy. There is scant possibility of doing so if one cannot think politically.

“Civilianization”

The civilianization of our uniformed military is a great threat to warfighting ability, and it must end.

That the political view should wholly cease to count on the outbreak of war is hardly conceivable unless pure hatred made all wars a struggle for life and death. In fact, as we have said, they are nothing but expressions of policy itself. Subordinating the political point of view to the military would be absurd, for it is policy that has created war. Policy is the guiding intelligence and war only the instrument, not vice versa. No other possibility exists, then, than to subordinate the military point of view to the political.12

As the purpose of the armed forces is to fulfill the policy aims given to it by civilians, it must be to some extent “civilianized” to be effective. Likewise, it can only fulfill the essential function of ensuring civilians understand the tool which they intend to use (military force) if equipped with a sufficient understanding of civilian government. If officers are trained as semi-literate pedants who cannot utter a sentence without leaning on buzzwords like “warfighter” or “lethality,” they will be (rightly) disregarded when they raise objections for civilian plans for the use of force.

The author goes on to propose criteria for the board of governors of the war colleges, that one must be a retired officer, and that: “These officers must have conclusively demonstrated excellence commanding tactical units.” For all the earlier claims regarding the need for strategic education, the author evidently has no interest in seeking candidates that have demonstrated the kind of strategic insight essential for higher leadership. The bottom line is that his ideal officer seems to be not a Frederick or a Napoleon, but a captain of the hussars, at best a Patton, at worst a Louis Ferdinand or Armstrong Custer. If the war colleges need correction, then I would suggest the first step be to not waste time on individuals like the author or—at the very least—not allow them to graduate with such a poor grasp of the meaning of the word “strategic.”

This cuts to the heart of the matter: the role of war colleges is not to produce warriors—the armed forces have no shortage of them. Their role is to produce decision-makers capable of operating at the strategic level. This means individuals that possess not just knowledge, but a real skill, namely that of rapidly grasping the essence of a situation from incomplete information and making sound decisions based upon it. One need not even agree with Clausewitz’s pedagogical method to recognize the requirements for assuming the responsibility of higher command.

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Aside from morality and legality, invading Greenland is, strategically speaking, utterly pointless. Even if we were to entirely neglect the consequences of such an act on our alliances and reputation, the act alone constitutes sheer stupidity as a pure question of strategy.

It is true that the idea of buying Greenland was floated during the Truman administration and again during the Eisenhower administration. However, a number of factors differentiate that endeavor:

1. The offer was made secretly, so as to prevent any political or diplomatic complications over the question.

2. The significance of Greenland was peculiar to the time—a nuclear attack on the US would have had to have come over the Arctic by Soviet bombers—technology has since starkly reduced its importance.

3. Most importantly, previous administrations had clear ideas of what was needed from Greenland, and so were able to simply negotiate with the Danish government to gain access without the political difficulties of annexation.

This illustrates the great strategic problem of any suggestion of invasion: there is no specific aim or purpose. The endeavor is justified only in vague terms of “security” or the childish assertion that “we need it.” How it is to actually improve our security or why exactly we need it are nowhere addressed.

As Clausewitz writes, the aim of war is to put our enemy in a position more painful than the sacrifice which we demand from him. What exactly is it we want from Greenland? What have they denied us that we should seek to gain by force?

To even consider the question in practical terms, we must reckon with the simple fact that, in the era of a nation state, allies are infinitely more useful than occupied territory. Even bearing in mind that allied interests will never be entirely congruent, a state organic to a territory will be able to draw forth greater exertions from the same resources than a foreign occupier would, even before accounting for active resistance. A people will always provide their own state with more energy and zeal than they will offer to a conqueror.1 There is less “friction.”

The great benefit of alliances is in the ability to access this voluntary energy, which cannot be called into being by the dictates of a conqueror. Nationalism is such a potent force that conquest has become inordinately difficult and costly, being a net negative to state power in virtually all cases (a subject I have previously written on).2 That the United States can access Greenland’s territory without having to conquer it is already the best of all worlds.

The Logic of the Flasher

Since there is no strategic logic behind this endeavor, we must offer our own explanation of what motivates it: proponents of the invasion are attempting a sleight of hand to pass off the logic of masturbation as Machiavellianism. Nowhere in The Prince will you find the suggestion to attack your allies for no discernable purpose. No, the logic employed to support an invasion of Greenland is purely onanistic—that conquest, that being a conqueror, is a pleasant fantasy to indulge in. You must forgive the crudeness of the metaphor, because no other comparison would keep fidelity with the crudeness of the motives involved.

This motive explains why it’s not particularly important to its proponents whether the invasion actually happens: the appeal is in the fantasy. Indeed, even were it to be carried out, those crowing about conquest and blustering about their strength and virility will not be doing any conquering themselves; the reality will merely be fodder for their enjoyment by proxy.

Difficult as it might be for a rational person to believe, the real purpose behind the push for invading Greenland is the thrill, the pleasure that its proponents get from drawing outraged reactions. This is why they say such anti-social things. They signal vice rather than even pretending to possess virtue, declaring themselves cold-blooded warriors devoid of concerns for Right or Law in order to get a rise out of people. Rather than any kind of strategy, this is the logic of the trench-coated flasher in the park—inflicting unpleasantness on others for the sake of one’s own gratification.

That outrage is the aim is evident in the fact that Greenland’s status has not been a serious question for the better part of a century. The United States made it through the duration of the Cold War without annexing Greenland. After all, as a 1959 report from the State Department said, “we are permitted to do almost anything, literally, that we want to.” Since then, there has not been even a purported change in the strategic situation that suddenly makes the acquisition of Greenland necessary, only the petulant insistence that “we need it.” There has been no coherent argument for this policy, being defended only reflexively out of either sheer partisanship, or being defended because the lie itself is gratifying—again, the logic of the flasher—an exercise of power through bald-faced lying. Stubbornly insisting on something in the face of all evidence is a form of power, or at least a way to feel powerful. Senseless though it is, it is sufficient to provide the thrill.

These people desire outrage, but they also do things that deserve it, from a strategic, moral, legal, and even religious perspective. How might we avoid playing an unwilling part in their self-gratification? In the long term, denying them power is the answer. In the short term, knowledge of their motivations allows us to at least understand their actions and to deny them the thrill they get from our outrage. Cold contempt serves us just as well.

First, though, it’s worth asking why we should care about the use of jargon like “Hybrid War.” Jargon is useful when it helps to more simply convey a concept, when it is introduced for brevity and clarity. At its best, it is a way to concisely say what you mean, without repetitiously setting terms. At its worst, jargon is instead vacuous, concealing more than it conveys. Regrettably, it is this second kind that is the more common.

This is the case for a number of reasons, but chief amongst them is the pervasive and understandable fear of saying plainly and precisely what it is we mean. Jargon is a useful device with which to shield one’s views from the discomfort of direct scrutiny. With jargon, one can interpose any number of shibboleths and superficial complexities between the meat of the contention and the attention of the reader. By vigorous application of technical terms, we can make ourselves hard to pin down to concrete points that can be directly contradicted, allowing our argument to instead linger in a twilight of vague plausibility.

This kind of jargon, jargon as a smokescreen, is worth wafting away for the sake of honest inquiry. This is all the more so in matters of strategy, an area in which a clear view and practical understanding are essential. In this piece, I hope to subject the concept of hybrid war to this scrutiny and provide an explanation as to why I find the concept as lacking in utility. To begin this endeavor, we ought to start with the obvious question: what is hybrid war?

A Jargon Chimera

“Seemingly a relic of the Cold War-era international order, conventional military campaigns have given way to hybrid warfare involving cyberattacks, information campaigns, and an array of other non-violent pressure.” Thus reads an article published by the Atlantic Council two days before Russia invaded Ukraine. For another definition, there is a NATO report, which provides the description: “an interplay or fusion of conventional as well as unconventional instruments of power and tools of subversion. These instruments or tools are blended in a synchronized manner to exploit the vulnerabilities of an antagonist and achieve synergistic effects.”

If phrases like “fusion of conventional as well as unconventional” and “synergistic effects” somehow did not clear things up for us, there is also an article in The Conversation by Andrew Dowse and Sascha-Dominik Bachmann, which supplies its own definition. They write, “[hybrid warfare] refers to the use of unconventional methods as part of a multi-domain warfighting approach. These methods aim to disrupt and disable an opponent’s actions without engaging in open hostilities.” The distinction of “without engaging in open hostilities” gives us something to chew on, but “unconventional methods as part of a multi-domain warfighting approach” is a description that offers no clarity, even were we to go to the trouble of dissecting it.

When it comes to gray zone warfare, the UK Strategic Command has the following to say: “The term comes from a colour-based metaphor. The idea is that a completely benign or peaceful action carried out by a group or nation can be defined as ‘white.’ Whereas a clearly hostile action, which could be seen as an act of war, can be defined as ‘black.’ So, with that in mind, anything between these would be ‘grey.’ The grey zone is a murky area, consisting of everything which isn’t full-on conflict, but isn’t exactly an innocent act either.”

This is much clearer language, but some scrutiny makes it clear that the common vagueness to these definitions is a product of a fundamental weakness in the concept. After all, many actions are entirely peaceful, but not entirely benign. As Clausewitz observed, at times there may exist such a tension between nations that a very minor incident sparks off a proverbial mine, causing a conflagration entirely out of proportion to the spark itself. The same action, say a border violation or a dispute over fishing rights, may in one circumstance cause only intensified diplomacy, but immediately cause war in another. Is it only in the gray zone in the first case? May we only say so in retrospect, with the act in the moment being in a state of superposition between open and hybrid war? If our only points of reference are benign pacificity and open war, then the more relevant question is: what isn’t hybrid war?

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There is Nothing New Under the Sun

It is very hard to see what the idea of the “Gray Zone” can offer us. “Actions that aren’t benign but don’t seek open war” is such a broad category as to be useless. Do tariffs and assassinations have anything meaningful in common merely because they are neither benevolent peace nor open hostility? Using measures that fall between completely benign action and open war to seek strategic advantage has a name: statecraft. It is true that statecraft encompasses both benign action and open war as well, but this is a product of the essential unity of this spectrum of action as part of political intercourse, with no part of it standing outside of statecraft.

Hybrid war might seem to have more utility, as the addition of violence by armed forces brings war into the equation. But in all cases of war, the political intercourse does not cease. War being fundamentally part of statecraft, there is nothing particularly “hybrid” in the use of political means for political ends. Each war is as “hybrid” as another, no matter how limited or extreme its conduct. A war that seems particularly “political” is, in all likelihood, merely a limited war. To mistake this for something novel is liable to produce endless confusion, not least about the nature of war.

Part of the difficulty stems from the fact that, while the term “Hybrid War” is older, it has—in many respects—become synonymous with “what Russia did to Ukraine in 2014.” Deniability and information warfare are its main characteristics, traits that enabled successful aggression in the nuclear era. Understandably, there has been much ink spilled over understanding what happened and how to prevent its recurrence. We will put aside for a moment the question of the suitability of the term “Hybrid War” for this particular phenomenon, and instead ask whether the phenomenon is distinct enough to merit its own term. If we glance at the record of history, we will quickly see that this is not the case.

In 2014, Russia took advantage of the momentary political chaos in a neighboring state to invade and annex a part of its territory without triggering a general war. The term “Fait accompli” describes Russian actions accurately and allows us to more clearly understand them by talking about a true historical phenomenon, of which there are many instances to draw comparison. Rather than accepting hybrid warfare as an innovation in methods, we may see Russian actions as analogous to other instances of faits accomplis.

Translated literally as “a fact completed,” a fait accompli means an action to change the situation which is completed before an opponent can interfere or otherwise respond, so that a new status quo is established which an opponent must choose to contest on the new terms. In practice, a fait accompli is distinguished by conquest without serious fighting, without immediate escalation to open war. The core significance of the fait accompli is in the way it shifts the onus to act. Typically, the onus to act is on the would-be conqueror; he must choose the escalation to war which the defender will be practically obliged to respond to and fight out a war. Because the choice is on the aggressor, he may be deterred.

The fait accompli reverses this: if an object can be seized without fighting, the conqueror may place himself in the position of the defender, with the onus to act on the victim, who now has the task of forcing the aggressor to vacate the seized territories, something difficult to do without open war, especially as the newly seized territory will not be left vulnerable to a reciprocal fait accompli. A fait accompli can fail, simply becoming war. States go to great effort to protect themselves from faits accomplis by communicating as clearly as possible that nothing may be seized from them without immediate open war. They therefore occur only when deterrence fails, with the war-making capacity of states being an intrinsic check on their use.

One might argue that the concept of Hybrid War seeks to incorporate the Russian actions that were aimed at influencing the decision whether to contest the fait accompli, such as the use of deniable forces. Yet, proponents of the concept cannot articulate what it is about these efforts (covert, diplomatic, or informational) that distinguishes them from statecraft. There is nothing more logical or natural than for a state to employ all forms of statecraft to dissuade and deter any effort to reverse a fait accompli. That proponents of Hybrid War believe a diplomatic and informational campaign accompanying military action is such a deviation from the norm as to require its own term betrays a mistaken concept of war in general. Military action is a means of statecraft—statecraft is not war by others means.

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The Prerequisites for the Phenomenon

It was not the deniability of Russia’s little green men that allowed them to cross the Ukrainian border without a general war. For a fait accompli to work, the target must be too weak to contest the seizure or to credibly threaten a lengthy war, which is naturally rare. Ukraine was uncommonly weak when Russia struck in 2014 and, even then, Russia failed to achieve its objectives in the Donbas, being forced to commit conventional forces to protect its gains. Many states have the capacity to seize territory from another by surprise attack, but the promise of having to fight a war over it is sufficient to deter aggression. Most states can fight a war—even if outmatched—for at least some amount of time, which permits third parties to weigh in, denying a fait accompli. These third parties have the opportunity to try and prevent the aggressor from aggrandizing themselves, a decision that will only be marginally impacted by the statecraft that surrounded the attempted fait accompli.

It was Ukraine’s particular incapacity in 2014, paralyzed by revolution and with an armed forces hollowed-out by corruption, that gave Russia the opportunity to achieve a fait accompli. No less crucial is that the West had no great interest in Ukraine’s territorial integrity. It is not historically unusual for states to lack interest in preserving the territorial integrity of others, but ordinarily considerations of the balance of power provide an interest in preventing other states from expanding. Russia’s approach required both a weak target and for the opposing alliance to lack interest in seriously contesting its actions. It was these circumstances that were exceptional, not the tactics employed. Focusing on tactics draws analysis away from the political conditions that made their employment effective.

For instance, Russian information operations, such as the claims about separatists and “little green men,” were designed not so much to actually deceive the West as to provide a fig-leaf for Western inaction. Had Russia openly declared that Crimea was theirs by right of conquest, it would have been a direct challenge to the taboo on aggression and so increase the political pressure on the West to take action. By gesturing at Western principles such as the responsibility to protect and self-determination, Russia sought to signal moderation, in the sense that their aims were merely to take territory from Ukraine and not to seek a broader confrontation with the West. Russia’s weak justifications were effective because many in the West were looking for an excuse to not get involved without having to openly abandon the idea of an international order.

We may say that Russian success relied on a measure of self-deception which is typically only present when the matter does not approach vital interests. The intrinsic subjectivity of vital interests and their relevance in this case ensures that fait accompli are risky endeavors. In addition to misjudging the reaction of third parties, a misjudgment of the strength or will of the victim can also cause an attempted fait accompli to simply be the first stage of open war. Success or failure depends more on these external variables than the tactics employed.

Our Chief Weapons are Surprise…

In 1938, Hitler fooled Chamberlain and managed a fait accompli against Czechoslovakia through the deception. But when he tried the gambit again with Poland, nobody was fooled and Hitler got a world war for his trouble. It’s worth recalling the substantial German efforts to frame its aggression as something that was compatible with Western interests and justified by the principles of self-determination and the nation state. The Germans even conducted an extensive campaign of false-flag attacks to justify their war with Poland (most notably the Gleiwitz incident). Yet, these efforts proved entirely pointless as German actions had made their intentions clearer than any information operation had the power to conceal, and the Allies declared war.

The annexation of Crimea was possible because it was unexpected and because Western leaders were more confused than threatened by it. The West consequently proved keen to make excuses for the Russians. While changing borders by force was strongly opposed, the border between Russia and Ukraine was perceived as less than wholly legitimate because it had been drawn during Soviet rule. While the West had not forgotten Hitler’s deceptive claim to merely be uniting one people in his territorial aims, the idea of a singular nation-state still holds currency, meaning Russian claims to the limited ambition of unification with ethnic Russians were given some credence. The West was therefore inclined to interpret Russian aggression as an aftershock of the dissolution of the Soviet Union, as a border skirmish to be managed rather than a serious challenge to the world order. This too may be paralleled with the policy of appeasement, mistaking Hitler’s aggression for a mere alteration of the borders delineated at Versailles rather than a bid for world power.

Yet, even in cases of grave mistakes like these, states tend to hedge their bets. The Munich Agreement was followed by Western rearmament. The 2022 invasion of Ukraine was not unexpected and met anything but ambivalence. Today, it is scarcely imaginable that any further Russian aggression would meet a reaction comparable to the annexation of Crimea. The same tactics—even more sophisticated versions of them—would fail to achieve the same effect because their initial use destroyed the political circumstances that had made them effective.

Perhaps more importantly, states with the capacity to resist are not vulnerable to a fait accompli. If Russian forces cross the Estonian or Polish borders the shooting will start, regardless of whether the Russians claim their forces are separatists or “little green men.” When the shooting starts, there’s no question of “Hybrid War.” There’s just a conventional war and ordinary decisions about involvement apply. A fig leaf is only useful if it is large enough to cover anything and if anyone is actually interested in using it. Russian claims about separatists and volunteers are not enough to affect the calculus when serious interests are at stake, as any attack on a NATO member would constitute. If a country is abandoned to Russian aggression, it will have little to do with the use of “‘Hybrid War” tactics.

Schelling and the Last Clear Chance

In criticizing the emphasis on techniques inherent in the framework of “Hybrid War,” a brief digression into game theory is necessary to discuss its value in a nuclear world, where open war between nuclear powers carries with it the risks of escalation. Writing on nuclear strategy, Thomas Schelling invoked the example of the game of chicken: two drivers drive towards the other on a collision course. The first to swerve out of the way is the loser. A collision can happen in the game of chicken, despite that being disastrous to both sides, if both players believe that the other will swerve and so maintain their course. This is an analogy for the way states can end up at war despite neither desiring it. This idea of unintentional collision is a concept vital for explaining how nuclear war is possible in the age of mutually assured destruction where the consequences are universally disastrous.

Within this framework of accidental collision, Schelling investigates the means that players have to manipulate the risk of disaster to apply pressure to the other side and induce them to “swerve” or otherwise give in. What he finds is that, counterintuitively, it is advantageous to cede the initiative, to tie one’s own hands. For example, in a game of chicken, if a player throws their steering wheel out of the vehicle, making it impossible for them to swerve, they now have an advantage over their opponent because they can no longer easily give in. They have placed what Schelling calls the “last clear chance” to avoid disaster on the other side. Once your opponent has thrown out their steering wheel, throwing out your own won’t help you at all, since you’re now the only one able to prevent the collision. Once you’re left with the last clear chance, you can either give in, or accept the now very high risk of disaster, knowing your opponent cannot reduce the odds, even if they lose their nerve.

Reality is not so clear cut, but the concepts of risk of disaster and the “last clear chance” to avoid it are useful for understanding the mechanics of escalation. The classic example in practice is the American blockade of Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis. The blockade left the Soviets with the choice to either run it and accept the escalation to a higher risk of mutual catastrophe (as American ships shot at Soviet vessels) or to back down. We might say that a Soviet attempt to run the blockade would put the choice of escalation back on the US of whether to actually sink the Soviet ship, but the order to blockade Cuba delegated that decision to commanders on the scene, taking it out of the president’s hands in the moment. By delegating authority to sink Soviet ships, the proverbial steering wheel was more or less thrown out. The Soviets knew that if they attempted to run the blockade there was little opportunity for the American president to prevent the shooting from starting, even if he lost his nerve at the last moment. This self-limitation left the last clear chance with the Soviets and so put them at a disadvantage.

The Intrinsic Weakness of Deniability

Returning to our subject, “Hybrid War” tactics, specifically the use of deniable forces or proxies, has the intrinsic weakness of allowing your opponent to force the last clear chance onto you. This was vividly demonstrated at the 2018 Battle of Khasham: the Russian proxy, Wagner Group (along with Syrian paramilitaries), engaged US-backed Kurdish forces in Syria. Unfortunately for the Russians, this included embedded American personnel. The Americans asked the Russians whether Russians were involved in the attack. In accordance with using deniable forces, the Russians denied any involvement. This, however, gave the Americans total freedom to bomb the paramilitaries and any Russian “mercenaries” involved. The Russian death toll ranges from 60-300, in return for no US casualties and one wounded Kurdish fighter.

By denying the affiliation of Wagner Group, the last clear chance to avoid escalation was left with the Russians. To interfere with American strikes against Wagner, Russia would have had to be willing to use its regular forces against America’s, something that would generally be called an act of war, which is precisely the opposite of the intent of Hybrid War tactics. The only effect of their employment was to grant the Americans a free hand against the Russian proxies. This may give us a clue as to why their employment in 2014 seemed novel: the circumstances of their effectiveness are rare.

With US forces embedded, there was a strong motive against inaction. The Russian denial of responsibility in fact made the Russians vulnerable to a fait accompli—US airpower destroyed their proxies and put the onus on the Russians to escalate. This illustrates not only the danger, but that the role of these proxies is not to actually conceal Russian involvement, but to provide a pretext for inaction. The US was not interested in inaction, and so the Russian denial of responsibility only served to ease the decision to strike. Denying the attribution of forces allows your opponent to act against you directly and put the decision on you whether to escalate towards a conventional conflict or leave the matter be. The use of deniable forces in the annexation of Crimea was a measure to ease the Western decision towards inaction, but the danger in this technique is intrinsic and therefore suitable only in particular circumstances.

The Analytic Danger of Hybrid Warfare

The great danger in becoming preoccupied by the apparent innovations of “Hybrid” or “Gray Zone” warfare is in neglecting the true schwerpunkt of the matter: the basic questions of conventional deterrence and political will. Through this lens, it is abundantly clear what made the seizure of Crimea possible, and understand that it was the political circumstances that made such tactics effective, rather than the tactics themselves. Whether Russia believes it can seize the Baltics depends upon its understanding of Western interest and its assessment of the Baltic capacity for resistance. The adaptation of Western militaries to these “new” tactics hardly rates as a concern.

If we are at a point where it is conceivable that Western governments will choose to abandon states in Eastern Europe to Russian domination, this has very little to do with Russian tactics and everything to do with changes in the Western political landscape that have destroyed the consensus of an international order. Many right-wing parties are openly contemptuous of the concept, ironically internationalizing the “America First” slogan.

Proponents of the “Hybrid War” concept will attribute this change to Russian interference in Western politics. This interference is very real, but it would be a grave mistake to overstate its impact. Russian interference fanned the flames, but the forces that devoured the consensus are organic to Western societies. Countering Russian influence will be insufficient to restore this consensus against aggression. If individuals and parties who like Russia and despise the liberal international order come to power, Russia may act freely. Whether Russia seeks to cross the Estonian border with hybrid forces or regular ones will not determine whether deterrence holds. It depends entirely on whether the Russians believe Western governments will act. If the Americans, Germans, and French all elect leaders who say they would never shed a drop of blood on behalf of another nation, no tactics are not why Russia will have a free hand. The fact cannot be escaped that deterring Russia requires combating the right-wing nativist movement across Western societies.

As Clausewitz wrote, “it is most dangerous to confuse the small with the great and to be led by the former.” It is understandable why traditionally nonpartisan organizations focused on strategy and foreign policy would reach for the elements that remain in that vein, namely Russian methods in the 2014 annexation. While these are worth examining, the bounded nature of the investigation limits its utility, as it cannot remain nonpartisan if it acknowledges the elephant in the strategic room: that there is an increasingly influential movement in Western countries that is openly hostile not just to the liberal democratic order, but to Enlightenment values in general.

There are no innovations in tactics that can protect against this. Anticipating hybrid war tactics or combating Russian influence in Western politics is not enough to secure deterrence. Nothing short of a restoration of the consensus for a liberal democratic order can achieve this. This centrality of domestic politics is something uncomfortable for national security professionals to reckon with because it is incompatible with the tradition of nonpartisanship in their profession. But nonpartisanship is no virtue when parties represent the utter rejection of the liberal world order.

So let us speak plainly of Russian efforts to subvert and overturn liberal democracy, discussing their tactics in various facets of statecraft directly, without the faux novelty of the “Hybrid War” framework. Let us, in both reflection and anticipation, always keep in view the centrality of political circumstances. Let us recognize that the business of national security cannot remain aloof from questions of domestic politics when the very idea of liberal democracy is threatened. For if democracy dies at home, what nation is there to secure?

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…war is not the working of a living force on a dead mass, rather, because an absolute passion would not be warfare, thus it is always the collision of two living forces against one another…

Pete Hegseth and the individuals who passed on and carried out his illegal orders are not guilty of war crimes. Given the absence of a state of war or other legal authorization for military action, these actions remain ordinary crimes: murder, most prominently, but also violations of laws governing conduct on the high seas. The legal specifics we will leave to the lawyers, but we do not need to resort to legal definitions to say that this was an act outside war.

Clausewitz begins his magnus opus with the question: what is war? On the one hand, he characterizes war as a mere continuation of policy with other means. On the other, he describes it as nothing but a duel on a larger scale. In both cases, what Clausewitz identifies as particular to war is violence. From the second aspect, we gain a characterization of war as the conflict between opposed wills. Clausewitz therefore gives the definition as: “War is thus an act of force to compel our adversary to do our will.”

Opposing Wills

Clausewitz’s definition of war is relatively narrow, limiting itself to use of the armed forces. In so doing, Clausewitz sought what was distinct to war, what made it a particular phenomenon of human behavior and so sought to discern war’s nature. To overly broaden the definition of war would undermine the enterprise, as it would introduce elements alien to its nature. By confining war to the use of armed forces against one another, Clausewitz can take a view of war as a “mere concept” which allows an examination both of its nature and of the forces that modify it in reality.

Following his definition, Clausewitz expounds that the concept of war refers not to action against something inanimate, but an interaction between living wills. It is for this reason that Clausewitz dismisses violence against a non-resisting element as “absolute suffering.” The exact word is “Leiden,” evoking “das Leiden Christi,” the suffering of Christ. Clausewitz invokes the concept of suffering, of passion in the sense of a Christian martyr, as a contrast to the essence of war. War’s essence is conflict, not as a euphemism for violence, but in the sense of opposing intents and actions. Clausewitz’s analogy is that of two wrestlers seeking to overthrow one another, contrasting starkly with the image of a Christlike passive acceptance of violence.

To exclude violence against the non-resistant may seem arbitrary, after all, there is much of it in the history of war. Yet, Clausewitz argued that it does not belong to war itself. We may colloquially refer to the entire duration of a conflict as “war” in the sense that a “state of war” exists, but Clausewitz was interested in war as a specific phenomenon of human behavior, distinct from other aspects. As such, while war resides in the realm of political activity, not all political activity (or indeed violence) that occurs in its duration belongs to war.

Likewise, the preparations for war, matters of training, equipment, organization, etc. do not themselves belong to war as they are not an “act of force,” nor is there yet an enemy to compel. Clausewitz’s trinity is also helpful for illustrating the matter quite plainly. War encompasses the interplay between passion, reason, and chance that is produced when two human wills clash with violent means. In preparing for war, one has no opponent to contend with, and so it is unhelpful to consider the preparation part of the same phenomenon as war itself—the lack of violence means that it is not subject to the same tendencies.

Violence as Pure Policy

Violence against the non-resisting is, of course, violence, but, as we have established, it is distinct from war as there is no clash of wills. That this kind of violence nonetheless occurs during the duration of a war is rather an illustration of Clausewitz’s assertion that war is a continuation of policy, and that war merely constitutes the addition of new means to an existing situation. The state may kill in peace or in war, and so this violence is not necessarily a part of war, but can instead be a “pure” act of policy.

At this juncture it is useful to note that violence against those without the capacity to resist should not be mistaken with violence towards combatants who are merely taken unawares, or otherwise lack the ability to harm their opponent in the moment. Infantry may have to endure bombardment without any response of their own, but this, of course, remains part of war. Likewise, the infamous “Highway of Death” in the First Gulf War also falls within the definition. Even though retreating Iraqi forces were unable to retaliate against coalition airpower, what is relevant is that combatants are involved in the contest of wills, even if in a particular moment they have been “caught out” by the enemy. It is this participation in combat (combat, which Clausewitz considers the essence of war) that distinguishes war from mere killing.

This distinction is made clear in the concept of surrender: if combatants wish to cease to be combatants, to cease to be subject to the violences of war, they may surrender. In practice, this is of course, no simple thing, but it is conceptually quite clear. Killing surrendering personnel is not part of war, being a political act (on whatever level it is initiated). If we return to Clausewitz’s definition of war, we may see why: war is an act of force to compel our enemy to do our will. When someone surrenders, they are no longer contesting our will and so no longer participating in war; their treatment becomes a matter of policy, not part of war.

It may seem futile to draw a line between war and politics, since by definition war is a continuation of politics. Yet, there are many parts of policy that do not belong to war and to which observations derived from the nature of war will be inapplicable. The distinction between war and “not-war” matters because war has a particular nature. This particular nature shapes its character, which cannot be counter to its nature. The concepts that Clausewitz identifies, the tendency towards the extreme, the superior power of the defensive, etc. provide a means of understanding war specifically. A theory of war claims no applicability to other phenomena, though elements may naturally overlap. The treatment of prisoners is not part of war, but it is one of many questions of policy that accompany it. For a theory of war to be of any use, there must be a clear answer as to when it is and is not suitable.

The Utility of a Theory of War

By looking at the nature of war and keeping in mind a clear definition (an act of force to compel our enemy to fulfill our will) we can see clearly what is not war. Violence against the non-resisting, while a political act of force, does not involve any opponent, and so is not war. There is no interaction and therefore is not subject to a theory of war. The “mass” upon which the force acts is not “dead” or inanimate, but it is, so far as violence is concerned, inert. It does not act, but is merely acted upon. As we have discussed, this is no pedantic distinction.

The strikes in the Caribbean are a vivid illustration of the value of disambiguating war from other uses of violence. Violence as a pure act of policy, distinct from war by the lack of battle, lack of contesting wills, possesses a different nature. To describe it as war is erroneous, and in this case, as in many others, it is also dishonest. The idea of war has utility as a political device, and so is invoked rhetorically. Even to the layman, the peculiarity of war’s nature is intuitively apparent. Without digressing into political theory, we may note the number of incentives for falsely claiming a state of war and asserting the naturally accompanying state of emergency. Knowing what constitutes war is a means to guard against both analytical confusion and those who seek to sow that confusion.

Hegseth: “We unleash overwhelming and punishing violence on the enemy. We also don’t fight with stupid rules of engagement. We untie the hands of our warfighters to intimidate, demoralize, hunt, and kill the enemies of our country. No more politically correct and overbearing rules of engagement.”

Carl von Clausewitz: “If we wanted to take the goal of pure theory as the actual goal we set and derive from that the means which we should apply, we would arrive by interactions to the extreme—but this conclusion would be a pure figment of the imagination, produced by a barely visible thread of logical sophistry.”

Isabel Hull’s book on the military culture of the German Army is titled “Absolute Destruction” and traces the consequences of the fixation on this concept through both the Wilhelmine era and the Third Reich. In particular, she notes how the pursuit of absolute destruction turned to wanton killing of civilians in Germany’s part in the Boxer Rebellion and to outright genocide when suppressing colonial rebellions. This drive to the extreme was ineffective and often counterproductive, being not just criminal, but a waste of effort. In On War, Clausewitz wrote, perhaps too optimistically, that the tendency of war to the extreme would find its counterweight in the principles of statecraft that abhor such a waste of effort. In Wilhelmine Germany, the army had largely escaped the oversight of any statesmen, and its assertions of the necessity of extreme measures and total victory were not seriously questioned. The German army became involved in the systematic killing of civilians in these colonial wars not through true military necessity nor a discrete political goal, but a culture that emphasized ever-increasing violence as a uniform solution.

But today we are talking about Pete Hegseth and his “vision” for how America’s military must change, for which the comparison to the army of Imperial Germany is far too flattering, though it is useful for our purposes.

A Policy of Wanton Destruction

The ideals of “lethality” and “warfighting” that Hegseth valorizes appeal to the same impulse: the barbaric desire to destroy the one whom you hate. But the purpose of war is not destruction, the mere satisfaction of instinctual enmity. The purpose is to induce your enemy to fulfill your will, to gain something. Clausewitz argues that the only reason wars of “civilized” nations involve less wanton destruction than those of the uncivilized is because the civilized have developed more effective uses of violence. But Clausewitz was by no means unaware of the ways in which the elemental forces of the emotional powers could affect the conduct of war in all cases, as he wrote, “tensions can exist that make the eruption of war a veritable explosion.” Yet, in civilized nations, this does not give rise to a shapeless mass of primal violence, but is molded by the state and civil society to form a political purpose and define its extent, based on the intensity of hostile feeling, but also rational interest.

But we are talking here about something rather different from hatred between nations leading to a war over something relatively minor becoming a vast conflagration. We are talking about the choice of the armed forces or government to insist that extreme conduct in war is itself a means to victory. Clausewitz wrote much on the concept of the extreme in war, but the extremity with which he was concerned was the extremity of effort, of how much a state and people might exert themselves in pursuit of victory. This is entirely distinct from the matter of how “extreme” or indiscriminate the conduct of a war might be. Wanton murder of civilians is not indicative of a higher degree of exertion towards victory. Murder of non-combatants may be more likely in a more passionate, all-encompassing struggle, but it may nonetheless be present in a minor skirmish with no serious aims. The decision to engage in violence towards civilians is either a raw, barbarous outburst by individuals or it is a policy of the state. In either case, it cannot be considered as something belonging to war itself, but either a personal act or an act of state distinct from the business of war.

How can this be so? Does Clausewitz not define war as the mere continuation of policy with the addition of violent means? Clausewitz also describes war as a duel on a larger scale. This illustration is useful because it demonstrates how it is the interaction between two wills that makes war a phenomenon distinct from the mere application of state power. Violence against the nonresistant is therefore no more war than a man beating his wife is a duel. To kill civilians, to merely inflict suffering on the nonresistant, is a policy choice. It is also a crime. The mistake of considering it a part of war comes from the fact that it frequently accompanies war, e.g. the deliberate, indiscriminate killing of combatant and noncombatant alike. But violence against civilians is also the act of troops firing into a crowd of protestors, which certainly does not belong to war. This distinction is important because there are many particular or peculiar tendencies produced by the interaction of wills in a contest of violence that are not present in the pure inflicting of suffering.

But what is the significance of mistaking an act of policy for part of war if war is but the continuation of policy? Aside from what we have already said about the peculiar nature of war, it must be remembered that war is a means by which policy can be pursued, and so this error would be confusing means and ends. It is disguising a political decision in the terms of military necessity to prevent it from being scrutinized, a practice we have elsewhere discussed.

A Golden Calf Named Lethality

One form of this is the “lethality” fetish. The term lacks any specific or direct meaning in the context of the practice of war. At first glance, this may seem surprising, but when we consider that battles are not typically won by exterminating the other side, the relative unimportance of killing per se is more easily explained. The cult of lethality captures a central conviction of Hegseth’s school of thought (if it can be called as much): that the key to victory is killing people. Reciprocally, that defeat can be explained by failure to kill enough people. This poor understanding of war on all levels draws immediate comparisons to Stalin’s pithy (but apocryphal) “Death solves all problems—no man, no problem” and to Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara’s attempt to quantify success in the Vietnam War in terms of body count.

But this must be accounted a serious insult to McNamara, with Hegseth having much more in common with the former; he too has little care whether the dead are civilians. In fact, the evidence before us suggests that he would prefer some number of civilians were amongst the dead as proof of the lethality with which the “operators” are “operating”. How else might we explain his philia for those who have deliberately killed civilians? His recent pathetic attempt to get the final word and “settle history” by glorifying the criminals of Wounded Knee comes to mind. More notably, Hegseth is Secretary of Defense for precisely one reason: he spent his time on Fox News defending convicted war criminal and alleged (by his comrades) murderer Eddie Gallagher. It was this that gained him the favor of President Trump.

Considering “lethality” as a goal around which to orient a military is immediately deficient on two counts. On the tactical level, killing the enemy is a means, not an end in itself. The end is to render him incapable of further resistance, for which purpose non-lethal injuries and surrender are no less suitable. Capturing prisoners in particular is generally superior to having to actually kill the enemy—convincing the enemy to give themselves up rather than sell their lives dearly will invariably be less costly.

The second count of the weakness of lethality is in its unsuitability as a metric on the strategic level. Battles may perhaps be won or lost on the basis of lethality (though we have argued to the contrary) but reducing the question of victory or defeat in war to whether there was enough lethality is plainly absurd. Strategy cannot be reduced to counting corpses. Not only does that ignore the many factors of resistance beyond mere life, it ignores that war is a political act and so success can only be measured by progress towards achieving a political end. To take killing as the purpose of a military is to confuse means for ends and reduce the enterprise to a cargo cult, imitating behaviors without understanding their purpose.

Idolatry of the “Warfighter”

Another aspect of Hegseth’s vision is “returning” to the ideal of the hyper-masculine warfighter. The idea that “warrior spirit” is the deciding factor in war is common to history; we see it in machismo, élan, bushido, and general romantic ideals of heroism. Even Clausewitz cites Napoleon’s comment that “the moral is to the physical as three is to one.” But from history we also see the impotence of raw courage and aggression in the face of superior organization, strategy, and materiel. The Romans did not lack courage at Cannae, nor the Gauls at Alesia, nor the Japanese on Iwo Jima, nor the Army of Virginia at Gettysburg, but that was far from enough to even avoid defeat. We should not find this surprising, as war is the realm of danger, so courage is the first of military virtues, which allows the others to operate; it is necessary but not sufficient. There is no amount of courage that will protect against starvation or make good a lack of ammunition, so long as the enemy is not himself deficient in courage.

This gets to the fallacy at the heart of the fetishization of courage: the very fact that courage is essential means that modern militaries are highly adept at instilling it. In a business as deadly as war, the apex of human daring is soon achieved. By this we mean physical courage, the willingness to risk bodily harm, rather than the more elusive moral courage, of a commander to take a dangerous course and assume responsibility for it, which does not necessarily correlate with the first kind of courage.

The development of physical courage therefore soon runs into sharply diminishing returns. In a clash between the brave and the brave, marginally higher courage cannot compensate for deficiencies that come from neglecting all other fundamental parts of war, such as feeding, equipping, and maneuvering masses of people in the realm of danger. It is this—not instilling courage—that is the true challenge of the practice of war.

The Crusader for Incompetence

What we have here discussed are more than mere intellectual errors. Hegseth has pursued these delusions with the zeal of an iconoclast. The targets of his arson have been the real institutions that are useful for waging war, the unglamorous sinews that appear superfluous to someone who cannot be troubled to think deeply about the business. And this is not to mention the pretextual uses of these concepts to purge certain demographics from America’s military. We should be less concerned were these views strictly confined to alcoholic Fox News hosts, even with one currently as Secretary of Defense. But the preoccupation with “lethality” and “warfighters” has proliferated, even if not in as perverse a magnitude as with Hegseth. The vacuousness of these terms is precisely their appeal. One may gesture at anything approvingly and bluster about its lethality or just as easily gesture disapprovingly and criticize its lack of lethality. What is key is not speaking in specifics, so you cannot be subject to any kind of criticism or risk of being flatly wrong.

The appeal to the mystical image of the “warfighter” is that it avoids having to discuss war in concrete terms. It sells the attractive myth that by doing more of the parts of war that look cool and really make you feel like a man, you can actually win wars. That lame pencil-pusher stuff like logistics and map exercises are only around because of political correctness, that real warriors spend all their time doing CQB drills and pushups. And let us not forget the importance of killing civilians. Surely, once the warrior ethos is restored and every soldier is as happy to stab POWs as Eddie Gallagher, the US will never lose another war.

It seems almost unfair to contrast these ideas of play-acting at soldiery with the genius of Clausewitz. But we must not forget that war is a serious business. It is easy and good to mock the fact that America has a buffoon for Secretary of Defense. But the impacts of Hegseth and his school of thought will be measured in lives. Sooner or later, someone else will be Secretary of Defense, but that is no guarantee we will be free of the influence of these delusions. The only remedy is furthering the understanding of war as a serious affair requiring serious consideration, not the performance of a caricature. The aim is not lethality. It is not feeling like a man or like a warrior. The aim is victory, of forcing our adversary to fulfill our will. If that simple fact cannot be remembered, all the tactical acumen in the world will get you nowhere.

“An enveloping movement can only be justified by a general superiority or by the superiority of our lines of communication and retreat to those of our enemy; flank positions are also conditional on the same circumstances; every attack weakens as it advances.”

-Carl von Clausewitz

As a tool for understanding the past, alternative history has something of a bad name. This is understandable given its prevalence in speculative fiction. However, imagining different pasts is essential for understanding history as it actually happened and avoiding reading a sense of inevitability into the course of events. Resisting a sense of inevitability is crucial to understanding the past because the people of the past saw their future as contingent. To them, at that time, what we know as history was merely one of many possibilities. Empathizing with them means imagining pasts that never were, which for the people of the past were futures that were causes of hope and fear. This empathy allows us to contextualize their actions, to understand what they strove for or fought against in their own terms, rather than rationalizing those motivations in light of outcomes that were not then known.

The First World War is a useful case to examine in this respect for a number of reasons. It had an immediate cause that was largely coincidental in the sense that the assassination of Franz Ferdinand cannot be considered an inevitability, nor can the escalation to a general European war. The ensuing “July Crisis” was not the first crisis between the European power blocs, yet it produced a conflagration of apocalyptic proportions, seemingly despite the desires of the participants. We will make the case that the Schlieffen Plan1 was not the only option available to Germany and the fixation on it greatly influenced the shape of the war—not necessarily to Germany’s advantage. We will first demonstrate that there were in fact alternatives available and subsequently examine the motivations for the rejection of them and the ensuing historical consequences. Through this investigation, we will see the contingency of historical events even on the grand scale, despite the continuous action of the forces that underlie them.

The Power of the Defensive and the Cult of the Offensive

To begin, it’s necessary to look at the changes in the character of war that were evident throughout the latter part of the 19th century, namely: the increased effectiveness of firepower and the increased size of armies. The former made attacking successfully more difficult and more costly, even when successful; the latter meant maneuvering required more geographical space. To elaborate on the latter: the greater size of armies, combined with the greater mobility afforded by the proliferation of rail, meant armies were not discrete points, as they had been through the Napoleonic era, but spanned the entire front line. Battles became much less discretely defined than they were in previous wars. This produced essentially continuous contact between opposing armies which could use railroads to redistribute forces along the front depending on where the other side was concentrating its efforts. Breakthrough became the prerequisite of maneuver.

These developments were not perceivable only in hindsight. Germany’s last great power war, the Franco-Prussian war, had shown many of these trends, even if they had mostly been overcome. The brutal casualties at Mars le Tours and St. Privat were genuinely traumatic demonstrations of the effects of modern firepower. The ultimate victory can be attributed to the fact that the Germans had fought well, but it was no less important that the French had fought quite poorly. Just as every Cannae requires its Varro as much as its Hannibal, so too did the great victory Sedan require a Napoleon III as much as it did the Elder Moltke. Reproducing that success could not be guaranteed because there is no means to ensure the incompetence of the other side. Had the victory in the Franco-Prussian war been rightly understood as exceptional, the implications of these developments might have been more correctly understood, and German war plans might not have been premised on recapturing lightning in a bottle.

Likewise, less chauvinism in the evaluation of the Russo-Japanese war might have provided the Germans with a very clear understanding of the power of the contemporary tactical defensive. The defensive, in fact, had remained the stronger form of war, undermining one of the assumptions on which the Schlieffen Plan was based. This fact is not evident only through hindsight; both Clausewitz and the Elder Moltke clearly stated this. The advances in gunnery and firearms that made the battlefield so deadly merely reinforced an existing state of affairs—they did not fundamentally alter the relationship between the attack and defensive.

Two Cults

Against the recognition of these developments was the “cult of the offensive.” But when we speak of the cult of the offensive in the German context, we are really speaking of two things. The first is common to Europe: the conviction of the superiority of cold steel to hot lead, of the moral advantages of the attacker, as well as the benefits of initiative, surprise, and concentration, etc. The second, however, is the belief that Germany’s precarious strategic situation could only be remedied (if it came to war) by a swift and decisive offensive in one direction. As Schlieffen’s focus came to be on France (partially due to Russian irrelevance in the aftermath of the Russo-Japanese War), this “do or die” offensive became synonymous with the Schlieffen Plan as it is popularly understood. This context is important because when discussing alternatives to the Schlieffen Plan it must be established whether these assumptions are true or at least accepted for the purposes of the hypothetical.

We have already addressed the reasons the tactical superiority of the defensive ought to have been understood. But what of the second impetus to the offensive, the need for a “knock-out” against one of Germany’s foes? It must be admitted that in a central position facing two foes, there is a clear logic to falling upon them one at a time to prevent their joining, fighting two battles each against similarly strong opponents rather than a single one against a combined, superior foe. This is where Germany’s peculiar idea of a “preventative war” originates. Preventive war is a distinct concept from preemptive war, which refers to declaring war on another state on the grounds that they are going to imminently attack, e.g. one state sees another start massing forces for an attack and declares war before the other can. Preventative war, on the other hand, does not involve any immediate threat, merely the prospect of war. In this case, the Germans feared that as Russia modernized, it would no longer be able to win a war against the Entente. As such, the General Staff in particular became increasingly convinced that a war needed to be fought against the Entente while it remained possible to do so, else Germany would be vulnerable to threats or outright invasion. This is where a second, peculiarly German cult of the offensive originates.

In this respect, the influence of the more general form of the cult of the offensive is as an accelerant: if Germany needed to defeat the Entente before demographics made that impossible, it only made sense to make use of the advantages of the attacker. The falseness of the cult of the offensive is therefore very significant for evaluating the Schlieffen Plan; as we recognize that the defensive remained the superior form of war, the idea of attacking from fear of being attacked becomes an absurdity. Further, a clear appreciation of the strategic balance makes clear that there was no serious danger of the Entente winning a war of aggression against Germany. Germany’s strength was such that by availing itself of the advantages of the defender it was well positioned to utterly deny its enemies any success, even should the Russians prove extremely successful in their modernization. As such, the falseness of the first cult weakens the already flawed case of the second.

The Ends and the General Staff

In all this there is still missing the fact that war does not fall upon nations like an errant thunderbolt on the divinely disfavored. Outside of general political aims that might motivate war, there is an immediate political cause, a crisis that frames it. For instance, WWI’s immediate cause was the assassination of the Hapsburg heir by Serbian-backed separatists. The crisis expanded and drew in Germany as it was obliged to defend Austria-Hungary from Russia (which sought to protect Serbia). This course of events logically called for a German counter-offensive against Russia to protect Austria-Hungary as it in turn sought to invade Serbia. Instead, Germany invaded Belgium, something which Chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg struggled to explain even to the Reichstag. The infamously strict mobilization timeline of the Schlieffen Plan meant that Germany was obliged to attack France, regardless of what was actually at issue in the crisis.

States typically draft a series of war plans for various contingencies specifically to avoid this kind of absurdity and embarrassment. It would have been equally strange had the crisis that brought war occurred in the West and the only up-to-date plan had forced a strike against Russia. But German planning was captured by a fixation on total victory (“absolute destruction” as Isabel Hull’s book on Imperial German military culture is titled). Considering the strength of the alliance opposing Germany, total victory was a tall order, and justified otherwise absurd gambles. For this reason, Aufmarsch Ost, the plan for a war directed against Russia alone had been allowed to become outdated. The strengthening of the Entente had made a war against only Russia inconceivable and directing the first blow of the war east could not promise the total victory the General Staff sought.

From this point of view, abandoning Aufmarsch Ost had a clear logic: the Schlieffen Plan was the only war plan that could offer a chance of total victory. The French Army was more modern than the Russian army and faster to mobilize. If total victory on both fronts was the objective, using the advantages of speedy mobilization to gain victory over the French gave the Germans good odds in a stand-up fight against the Russians. Poor infrastructure in the East and the strategic depth of Russia also ruled out a rapid decision in the East. Paris was simply closer than Moscow and the loss of East Prussia preferable to risking the Ruhr. More importantly, by the time the Russians would be defeated, the Western Front, being so narrow, would be densely manned and Belgium fully mobilized. The Schlieffen Plan would not be possible in such circumstances. There was no clear way of achieving total victory in the West if it was not sought within the opening days of war.

Problems with the Premise

The Invisible Rubicon

The first problem was that by aiming at total victory and relying on superior mobilization speed the General Staff seriously limited the room of diplomacy to maneuver. The machine could not be spun up, held ready while negotiations occurred, and then wound down if matters were settled. Instead, when the winding up started, if there was no settlement immediately forthcoming, there was a choice between war and helplessness (the invalidation of the only operational plan). The short window for negotiations, like the Doomsday Machine from the movie Dr. Strangelove, had no value because the other side was completely unaware of it. The failure to determine what “victory” might actually mean and the failure to subordinate the planning of the General Staff to statecraft meant that German actions appeared to other states as entirely erratic, incomprehensible, or even maniacally aggressive. This not only made it more difficult to resolve a crisis, but reduced the possibility of a negotiated settlement in war, as we will later discuss.

False Urgency

The July Crisis was not the first crisis to occur between the alliance blocs. Others had been defused when the choice was made to prefer dissatisfaction to war. What was different this time was that the Schlieffen Plan was nearing its expiration date. The whole strategy relied on a tactical action that only stood a chance of success if executed very early (namely overrunning Belgian fortifications before they could be fully manned). At the same time, Russian modernization meant the window to win on one front before turning to the other was shrinking year-by-year. The attitude of the German General Staff was that war was preferable to giving up the Schlieffen Plan based on the premise that total victory was the only kind.

They did not believe they had the political authority to aim at a lower objective and there was no institution authorized to provide their war plans with anything more concrete to aim at. If a clearer metric for success had been provided, the Schlieffen Plan would have lost much of its appeal, as its risks would no longer appear as tolerable by necessity. Of course, political authority would have the right to choose such a risky course, but German designs on France and Russia were too vague to provide the conviction necessary for such a gamble. The General Staff, in its effort to fulfill its self-conception of being outside of politics, did not consider the question of what kind of peace the politicians might be satisfied with and instead sought the absolute destruction of the enemy axiomatically, such that they might be rendered helpless.

Magnitude Against Likelihood

Another element is that increasing the odds of total victory may mean reducing the odds of “ordinary victory” and often means increasing the odds of disaster. Germany did not meet total disaster in 1914, but it did meet a major one. It found itself in an attritional struggle with an alliance vastly superior in men and materiel. Its masterstroke had faltered and there was no plan for what next. At the same time, Germany faced a near total blockade.

Some of these factors were inevitable characteristics of a war with the Entente. Many, however, are a product of the prioritization of total victory axiomatically. If German aims were aligned with the Septemberprogramm and Germany was therefore willing to accept the risks of such vast ambitions, then the Schlieffen Plan was justified. However, if lesser objectives could be sufficient, then achieving ordinary victories (even if primarily defensively) could be enough to avoid disaster and gain some kind of victory. While war originates from political conditions, it naturally affects them by its initiation and so it is typically easier to avoid a war than to end one. Nevertheless, the strategic situation in this case made the possibility of a limited war likelier than one might think.

The July Crisis resulting in only a “small war” seems unimaginable in retrospect—yet there was considerable hope placed in this idea. German industry certainly hoped it would not get beyond that, as did the British. The fact that it was not localized is usually attributed to the alliance structure. Russia supported Serbia, and so Germany supported Austria-Hungary against Russia, which in turn brought about French and British involvement. This is not untrue, but an overly mechanistic framing. Alliances do not function like clockwork. The Russians had to choose to back the Serbians even at the cost of a European war, the French and British had to choose to stand behind the Russian gamble, and, of course, the Germans had to continue to back the Austrians as a war seemed likely.

From this, we can see that there were a number of likely “off-ramps” for the crisis, either before war broke out, or shortly after. The Germans could have pressured the Austrians to compromise and accept an international conference to settle the fate of Serbia. Or else the Russians might have been pressured by the French and British not to start a war with Germany or itself refrained out of fear that public opinion in its allies would not permit their participation in a war over Serbia.

Once war broke out, there were still a number of options for limiting the scale of the conflict. If Austria-Hungary had managed to swiftly invade Serbia and present Russia a fait accompli before it managed to mobilize for war, the war may have remained localized. Likewise, had the Germans not attacked in the West, they would have likely inflicted serious losses on the Russians, considering their organizational superiority and the availability of forces that otherwise would have been allocated to the Schlieffen Plan. Following this battle, there would likely be an opportunity to make peace if the Germans were inclined to offer moderate terms; the Russians would be in grave danger and their allies would be unable to do more than conduct fruitless attacks into German fortifications.

The nature of the Schlieffen Plan foreclosed these opportunities. As mentioned, it artificially limited the scope for negotiation, and its narrow definition of victory created a false sense of impending doom for Germany. The violation of Belgian sovereignty stirred up international outrage and the attack towards Paris inflamed the French people for a mortal struggle. The Entente could see good odds of inflicting a serious defeat upon the Germans, and neither side wished their sunk costs to be for naught. The Schlieffen Plan, in its failure to actually knock the French out of the war, united the Entente rather than divide it, as other courses of action might have done. The French were capable of occupying the bulk of Germany’s strength while Russia could just about manage the limited German forces that were assisting Austria-Hungary. In its failure to think on the political level, the German General Staff failed to make use of Germany’s central position between the members of the Entente to create political problems for the alliance that would make a favorable peace more likely.

A Means Without an End

If we are not to take the perspective of the German General Staff in approaching the question from a purely military standpoint, it is necessary to look at the political-strategic questions. That is to say, when asking whether Germany should have struck East or West in 1914, we should ask: what does Germany hope to gain by this? In Clausewitz’s terms, what is the political purpose from which military action was to derive its goal? For, as he writes, “it is impossible to conceive of a means without an end.”

and I have written a two part series exploring why Germany was incapable of functioning on the strategic level and answering these questions on its own. In short, a constellation of factors undermined civil-military relations in the German Empire. The Kaiser had succeeded in centralizing power and creating a personalist system, but this in turn meant he was responsible for coordinating political and military bodies in an overall grand strategy. The Kaiser’s capriciousness and indolence were thus a fatal problem in themselves but perhaps worse than that was the polycratic system this produced. In practice, ministers could do as they wished, regardless of the policy of the chancellor, so long as they had the confidence of the Kaiser. Each man had his own worldview and his own understanding of what was in Germany’s interest, which was not subordinated to any comprehensive strategy.

This provides us with a fundamental challenge for evaluating courses of action: there is no clear definition of victory. If the Kaiser had called a council of the heads of the army, navy, foreign ministry, etc. to determine Germany’s aims—minimum and maximum—there would be a clear metric by which we could judge prospective campaign plans. Therefore, we are left with something of a trilemma, do we judge:

1. By the fixation of the General Staff on “absolute destruction”

2. By the vague and various goals of expanding German power and gaining its “place in the sun” or

3. By Germany’s actual national interest (as much as such a thing exists)?

Defining Victory for the Purposes of Our Investigation

As Chief of the General Staff from 1857-1888, Helmuth von Moltke the Elder justified an axiomatic focus on total victory on the grounds that politicians reserved the right to revise the aims of a war up or down. As such, war plans ought to aim at the total defeat of the enemy on the basis that if the politicians desire to extract more concessions from the enemy, expanding the margin of victory ad hoc to accommodate these new objectives would be difficult, costly, and risky.2 Perceptive readers may have noticed that while Moltke is giving lip service to the primacy of policy, he’s actually rejecting the idea that military operations should give any consideration to the immediate goals expressed by politicians, and they should instead seek total victory axiomatically.

Aside from directly contradicting Clausewitz (whom Moltke popularized), Moltke’s reasoning is extremely tenuous: if the politicians begin the war seeking a lesser objective and choose to then seek a higher one, they could simply be informed of the limitations and difficulties involved in increasing the scope of the war at the outset, and choose what level of risk they were willing to tolerate in the name of the greater success. That it would have been wiser to begin with the greater objective in mind may be true, but it is no justification for ignoring the decisions of political authorities. It is here we see the direct contradiction of “right to be wrong” civilians authorities ought to possess.3 In fear of civilians creating complications by revising their aims higher, Moltke advocates for a usurpation of their right to define the extent of the campaign. Thus, whether the aim of the war is the conquest of a portion of the enemy’s frontier or the utter overthrow of his government, Moltke’s position is that this should have no impact on the plan of campaign.

That the objective Moltke prescribed was, in fact, a logical illusion (to use a term of Clausewitz’s), and that this objective remained the orthodoxy of the General Staff, means that our first definition of victory is unworkable. The remaining options could both be fashioned into political purposes, but this would be a post hoc endeavor. Nevertheless, for the sake of our analysis of the merits of various war plans, we must determine a political purpose that we may judge them for succeeding or failing to obtain, as the Germans ought to have. The second definition is little help, as there was no firm understanding of what attaining Germany’s “place in the sun” constituted, whether this meant more colonies, more prestige, or outright hegemony over continental Europe. The idea of Germany’s objective strategic interest is only marginally less nebulous. Contemporary judgments of Germany’s strategic interests were colored by the prevalence of Social Darwinism, a worldview that could imagine only two outcomes: victory or civilizational annihilation.

If we wish not to get bogged down in a pedantic discussion of what victory would constitute, we could roughly set German ambitions as those laid out in the Septemberprogramm, though this was developed only after the start of the war. Of course, the nature of war as a political tool means that it is not necessary to achieve all of these goals for the result of a war to be considered a victory, as circumstances may make accepting less than complete success preferable to a continuation of the war.

What might be desired in war is naturally a separate question as to what costs are acceptable to attain them. Thus, the objective strategic situation must also be considered and the question asked whether the German position was as dire as its leading men believed. As mentioned earlier, the contemporary assessment of the strategic situation was greatly influenced by the school of Social Darwinism. There was therefore a form of fatalism among the German elite in the sense that it appeared to them that Germany faced a choice between war or a slow decline into dissolution. As difficult as it might be to believe, it was this phantasm that caused German decision-makers to accept far higher risks than they otherwise might have done. The axiomatic focus of the General Staff on total victory, born of parochialism and flawed theory, was overlooked in part because it was congruent with this vision of the future. We must therefore say, not only with the benefit of hindsight, but merely with an understanding of the weakness of social Darwinism as a theory, that the objective strategic situation was not dire for Germany.

For all the Germans complained about the encircling alliance as a “ring of steel” about them, it did nothing to arrest their commercial, industrial, and scientific rise. Nevertheless, that it faced an alliance of three great powers with only Austria-Hungary (and nominally Italy) for support was a less-than-ideal strategic situation for the German Empire. From this, we may derive that the minimum criteria for victory would be the dismantling of the Entente (which had been the objective of German diplomacy in previous crises). However, it does not follow that this objective is itself reason to desire a war, but would serve as a political purpose from which we could judge the success of war plans.

Three Concepts of Plans:

In pre-war German thinking, there were three notable concepts on which a war plan might be based, which are:

Through Belgium

This is the historical Schlieffen Plan, seeking to use the violation of Belgium neutrality to gain the room to maneuver and gain the flank of the French, thereby mitigating the effects of modern firepower. It presented the greatest chance at a “total victory” in the sense that if it succeeded, the French army would be defeated in series, and then encircled against the border. This would prevent the density of forces on the Western Front from creating a stalemate and then allow the victorious army to then strike east. The downside of this concept is that success relies on going through Belgium (and the Netherlands, in Schlieffen’s original concept) to reach the French left wing, which is an extreme feat of maneuver for an army that must literally march the distance. As such, this plan must be judged to be unlikely to succeed, as it requires a superhuman feat from the German right wing to be followed by an extreme margin of victory over the French, such that these exhausted men are capable of encircling them.

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There are also a number of direct flaws with this plan. It severely limits diplomatic room to resolve a crisis, which is not true for other options. Further, the violation of Belgian sovereignty not only brings that nation into opposition, but provides political and emotional impetus for British involvement, as its government might otherwise struggle to make good on its commitments to the Entente. The extreme concentration on the right wing is naturally vulnerable to encirclement should the French successfully counterattack. The same concentration could also only be achieved by severely weakening Germany’s defenses in the East, which came with a serious risk that the Russians might well advance to Berlin before the French were defeated. Further, the attempt to completely defeat the French would naturally have a reciprocal effect in intensifying the emotions involved in the struggle. Particularly, if (as actually occurred) there is no justification for invading France in the reason for war, the pursuit of total victory will feed the perception that Germany is acting irresponsibly and unpredictably and so make a negotiated peace harder to obtain. The price of this erratic behavior is something addressed in a previous post.

Counterattack in Lorraine

The French were obliged to attack given their separation from the Russians and the vulnerability of Russia to a combined Central Powers offensive if the French remained on the defensive. This gave the Germans an opportunity to attempt to encircle the French attack by attacking its flanks and achieve a grand encirclement in Lorraine, a kind of “defensive Schlieffen Plan.” Schlieffen is considered this idea in his war games, though he came to doubt that the French would actually attack. Ironically, this approach would be a much more direct parallel to Schlieffen’s idyllic battle of Cannae, promising a double envelopment compared to the mere “super Leuthen” flank attack of the actual Schlieffen Plan. It also offers the chance at a total victory if the French are annihilated by the counterattack. But the destruction of the French is unlikely to be complete due to the difficulty in maneuvering in such a small area with such great masses of troops. The most likely outcome is a kind of ordinary victory in the West, and the consequences of failure or less-than-satisfactory success are by no means as dire as the Schlieffen Plan, as it does not require the same concentration or marching vast distances.

Strike East

Alternatively, the Germans could stand firm in the west and conduct a methodical campaign to force the Russians out of the war. This option was considered in numerous war games and maintained as a deployment plan (Aufmarsch Ost) until 1913. This approach would likely preclude an absolute victory as it would entail forgoing attempting to annihilate the French and instead aim for a favorable negotiated settlement. This aim is more limited, but also more likely to be successful (after WWI, German military historian Hans Delbrück would argue that this was the wiser plan). The example of the Russo-Japanese war demonstrated the vulnerability of the Tsarist regime to domestic unrest provoked by military defeat. Even if no did not occur, the Central Powers would still have a sufficient superiority in force to methodically overwhelm the Russians while holding the narrow Franco-German border.

These latter alternatives have the advantages of: not limiting the window for negotiations in a crisis, not violating the neutrality of Belgium, not relying on superhuman feats of marching, not leaving one front dangerously undermanned, not becoming obsolete as the Russians modernized, and not preventing the possibility of a limited war.

The Case for Aufmarsch Ost

The Schlieffen Plan aimed to destroy the French army and so allow a reallocation of forces to subsequently destroy the Russian army; it aimed at total victory, the highest reward. Relative to the Schlieffen Plan, a focus on Russia would be a lower-risk and lower-reward option. An attack east would mean conceding the chance for a total victory against the French, as this hinged upon leveraging Germany’s faster mobilization. However, Aufmarsch Ost had three factors in its favor over the Schlieffen Plan:

1. The overall inferior condition of the Russian army to the French

2. The room for maneuver that decreased the chances of stalemate

3. Suitability for encirclement

The first point speaks for itself. The second relates to the fact that while the expanse of Russia made a knock-out blow impossible, it also made a stalemate far less likely as, unlike in the West, firepower could not be strongly concentrated along the front, nor could reinforcements be swiftly moved from one area to another. For the third point, a brief glance at the territory of the Central Powers in the east shows Russian Poland to be a salient, encompassed by East Prussia in the North and Austrian Galicia to the South. As such, even should the Austrians fail to do more than hold their positions, a German offensive would be able to gain the flank of Russian forces in Poland, offering relatively easy access to the opportunity for annihilating them. Contrast this with the Schlieffen Plan, which required penetrating Belgium and nearing or encircling Paris before beginning its march back towards the border in its encircling movement.

The Eastern Front had more difficult topography and worse infrastructure, but, as Clausewitz tells us, war is not the action of a living force upon a dead mass, and so the superior infrastructure of the Western Front may have made it easier to employ great masses of forces, but this was true for both sides. Superiority in training and leadership could more easily make themselves felt in the difficult terrain of the East, whereas in the West (with a much smaller superiority in these factors) it was much easier to ensure a frontal confrontation of mass against mass that limited the effects of these advantages.

As wrote in his piece on the topic,

“The plan would also have hinged on strong cooperation with Austria-Hungary, which in 1914, was practically nonexistent.”

Yet, it is crucial to note that the lack of cooperation between the Central Powers was limited primarily because the Germans did not want to tell their ally exactly how few forces it planned to leave in the east. The Younger Moltke had begun correspondence with his Austrian counterpart, but had been unwilling to engage in real joint planning specifically because of anticipated objections to leaving the Austro-Hungarians to face the Russians essentially alone until France was defeated.4 This, naturally, would not be a problem in the event that Germany was intending to open the war with an offensive to the east, and so deeper planning would therefore have been possible. Had the German General Staff been more inclined to view the strategic situation with the inclusion of its political aspects, it may have appreciated the value of Aufmarsch Ost in strengthening their own alliance while weakening that of the Entente.

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The Schlieffen Plan must therefore be seen as the more riskier of the two options, being justified by its potential for knocking out France as well as Russia. It was premised on soundly defeating a force similar in quality, rather than a starkly inferior one; maneuvering through a short, fortified and densely manned front, rather than a sparsely defended one; and requiring a deep penetration and doubling back through hostile territory for encirclement, rather than taking advantage of a natural salient and an ally in the theater. While attacking east would have been less risky, the General Staff preferred an attack west for the reason that it could offer total victory.

The Contingency of History

The civil-military relations of the German empire prevented the axiomatic focus on total victory from being questioned. It was this, more than any systemic factors, that produced the European conflagration. A war over influence in the Balkans, even between the alliance blocs, might not have gone to extremes. However, a German offensive at Paris ensured that it could do nothing else. The high risk-high reward approach closed off the possibility of a negotiated settlement that an extended crisis might have brought. While Russia may have been willing to risk war over Serbia, France and Britain had no great interest in the country’s fate. Pressure from the Western powers against the Russians may have brought a resolution favorable to Austria-Hungary and Germany without war. Alternatively, given time, a compromise might have emerged that, while unfavorable to German interests, was nevertheless considered preferable to war.

The isolation of the General Staff meant that responsible political authority could not make the decision as to how long to give to negotiations, to weigh the benefits of avoiding war against the benefits of greater odds of victory. Likewise, there was no competent authority to weigh the odds of victory against the magnitude of victory sought. A political decision had been made in selecting a war plan aimed at total victory, one that could not be examined because it was emphatically declared to be apolitical.

Lest we conclude that this was the inevitable product of the structure of the German Empire, it must be remembered that, at any time, the Kaiser could have instituted any number of measures to ensure coordination between the army and the other apparatus of government. The Chief of the General Staff could also have, perhaps by reading Clausewitz more closely, understood the need for war plans to have a clear understanding of the political purpose behind them, and initiated cooperation with the Chancellor. Likewise, any Chancellor might have attempted to institute some kind of genuine strategic planning. However, it was not a coincidence that these things did not occur. The prestige of the General Staff made “intrusion” on its business difficult. Perhaps more significantly, Wilhelm II’s personalist system ensured that the men in the positions of highest responsibility were there because of favor, favor which could be lost if one seemed too ambitious.

There is, therefore, a clear explanation as to why decisions were made (or just as importantly, not made) that ensured the Schlieffen Plan retained its primacy, even as there was the continual opportunity to choose an alternative course. The shape of the conflict that erupted in 1914 was determined by choices which, influenced as they were by structural forces, nevertheless could have been radically different, and so produced a radically different situation. The grim vision of the future promised by Social Darwinism proved a self-fulfilling prophecy. One cannot help but recall Bismarck’s assessment of preventative war as “suicide for fear of death.” Had Imperial Germany found a means to subordinate its war planning to the conventional principles of statecraft (such as merely accepting the plain meaning of Clausewitz’s writings) it is unlikely to have produced the European conflagration that ultimately destroyed it.

The school of Realism holds that power is the basis of all alliances, but this cannot explain the persistent incongruence of alliances with national interest so narrowly defined. In reality, states routinely align themselves in suboptimal ways from the perspective of pure power politics. Considerations of power and security of course play an important role, but these are often defined in subjective terms. Whether a state considers another to be a threat is based not just on considerations of strength, but of intentions.

The relevance of intentions may seem a straightforward contention, but whether the intentions of other states can be known is a matter of serious debate. After all, since there’s no central authority to enforce commitments, whatever papers sovereign entities may sign, they cannot bind their own hands. It follows from the lack of world government that the international system is one of anarchy and so every state must be wary of treachery. This leads to what is known as the “Security Dilemma.” Each state seeks strength to secure its existence which compels other states in turn to increase their own strength. Strength sought for defensive purposes is indistinguishable from that sought for aggression. No matter how peace-loving a state may insist on being, the truth of this will be impossible to rely upon. For states, trust is therefore a luxury that cannot be afforded; the stakes are existential.

From the inscrutability of intentions is derived the idea that all that is relevant is power, capabilities. It is against this that we pose the idea that intentions are in fact legible and essential to understanding the nature of alliances. We argue that the Realist view is a course for disaster because the basis of an alliance is fidelity—it requires that both parties trust in the benevolent intentions of the other to be effective. Each participant forgoes advantages in the moment (or endures hardship and danger) with the understanding that the other side will do the same. This bears the appearance of a transactional relationship—but only the appearance. Unlike a contract between individuals, an alliance has no real binding power in itself. There is no authority above states to bind them to their commitments. Thus, an alliance may exist only as a function of trust. In reality, states do not primarily consider the distribution of power in the international system when choosing alliance partners. Attempts at applying the Realist paradigm will therefore prove counterproductive, as historical cases demonstrate.

The Epoch of Power Politics

To begin, it is necessary to concede that at one time the world described by the Security Dilemma once existed. One of the seminal Realist texts, Niccolo Machiavelli's treatise, The Prince, addressed the world of politics in the Italian city-states, which was characterized by the ruthless pursuit and use of power as the only means of security. Clausewitz noted that while Frederick the Great as a young man wrote “The Anti-Machiavel,” repudiating those principles of statecraft, he made use of them to great effect. Clausewitz cites Voltaire, “[Frederick] spit on it to repel the others.” In both Renaissance Italy and Europe of the 18th century the business of state was a largely personal affair for the proverbial prince. War was much more the sport of kings than the struggle between peoples it would later become. In this situation, alliances were weak, driven by pure power politics. Coalition partners feared one another very nearly as much as their mutual enemy.

But politics did not remain the sport of princes and so the distribution of power was no longer the sole consideration. With the French Revolution and the birth of the nation state, the People took a greater interest and stake in matters of war and peace. No longer were wars fought by small armies largely divorced from popular sentiment. It is this growth in the role of the People that allowed Napoleonic France to dominate so much of Europe. It was reforms in the social as well as military realm that allowed the other European powers to finally overcome France’s armies by fostering the emotional attachment of the people to the state and so to the business of politics.

It is here that a critique of Clausewitz by historian Gerhard Ritter is useful.1 Ritter argues that Clausewitz did not anticipate how the engagement of the people would come to constrain the rational decision-making of the state. With the energies of the people engaged in a war, it was no longer politically possible for the state to conclude peace as it wished. War could generate political forces so powerful that the state—rather than serving as a moderating, rationalizing force—would be consumed by the irrational demand for “total victory.”2 Thus, war was no longer subordinated to politics, but effectively brought politics to serve its own interests.

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In his political writings, Clausewitz was concerned with “the People” primarily as a means of increasing the military power of the state. In his view, state policy needed to ensure the energies of the people were invested in the fate of the state (rather than ambivalent as they had been in 1806). While he did not anticipate the development of ideological war directly, Clausewitz’s (secondary) trinity of army, people, and state offers a framework for understanding it. The engagement of the people (corresponding to passion in the primary trinity), strengthens the army, but limits the autonomy of the state (corresponding with the force of reason). It must be remembered that Clausewitz’s famous declaration that “war is merely the continuation of policy with the addition of other means” was only part of his conclusion. War is also “a duel on a larger scale” and has a tendency towards extremity due to this violent nature. Clausewitz expected the rationality of the state to shape the elemental violence that the involvement of the people produced. He did not address the manner in which the popular drive for greater exertions towards victory might deprive the state of its reason, but the aim of On War was to grapple with war as a phenomenon, not to prophesy its development.

The People and Alliances

Ritter wrote in the context of explaining how the carnage of the First World War could be out of all proportion to the political objects nominally in dispute. However, the same principle—that the involvement of the people limits the freedom of action of a state—applies in the case of alliances. States can be constrained by the views of the people. Further, states can influence the views of the people so as to constrain themselves. If a state declares it will or will not do something, failure to fulfill that pledge will have political costs. Like a great ship, public opinion will not turn on a dime. It is notable that the constant shifting of alliances is used as a characteristic of the destruction of truth in George Orwell’s 1984. This—while normal in an era of government that did not involve the people—is presented as the sign of a totally unfree society, for no free people would tolerate the frequent inversion of ally and enemy.

In practice, even unfree societies cannot fully ignore popular sentiment. Nationalism is a force which military realities dictate that states must make use of. The propaganda needed to engage nationalist energies instills expectations for victory. When the struggle is framed in the absolute moral and existential terms that are necessary to call forth self-sacrifice, states cannot abandon or moderate that struggle without the risk of an insurrection on the same terms by which they justified the war. A state may well be powerful enough to endure the displeasure of the people, but war stresses societies in a myriad of ways, such that the breaking point is perilously hard to judge. Thus, even unfree societies must reckon to a lesser or greater extent with the views of the public.

The dangers that would come with “betraying” the cause by making peace gives the continuation of war a logic beyond the policy objectives over which it is fought. A state might have a clear idea under what circumstances it would be prepared to make peace when starting a war. In the actual moment, it is likely to find that making the concessions that would be logical from the view of state interest look like political suicide. We might expect democracies to be especially subject to this kind of pressure as elections directly expose decisionmakers to popular opinion. While we do not deny this greater exposure, democracy also lowers the stakes: a greater chance of losing an election is more easily borne than the consequences of failure in an authoritarian system. As well, for the authoritarians, it is not merely the people they must fear, but other elites who either genuinely believe in the continuation of the struggle or are willing to opportunistically champion popular sentiments.

This is to say that the role of the people in modern politics (and consequently war) has changed such that alliances are no longer able to function under the logic of “pure” power politics. To engage in war will engage the public in the outcome and limit the political possibility of maneuvering, even were it otherwise desirable. Alliances, being attached to the concept of war, engage the people in a similar manner (or must to have any effect) and so bind governments. It is this reciprocal tying of hands in the knot of public(and elite) opinion that brings an alliance into existence in our era, when the participation of the people in the life of the state is no longer avoidable.

Of course, until the hour comes and war is unleashed there is little opportunity to demonstrate true faithfulness. Nevertheless, states seek to both perceive and demonstrate their commitment to their policy. States look for signals of intent to judge the reliability of partners. That alliances function this way is understood or at least intuited by most statesmen and so the signaling of intentions is possible. The idea of “costly signaling” is a concept from game theory, in which states may demonstrate their seriousness by taking actions that ensure they cannot renege without negative consequences.3 The signaling is “costly” because certain courses of action can no longer be chosen without enduring a cost. By voluntarily blocking off certain courses, a state signals that it does not intend to use them—if it did, why would it raise the costs of doing so?

There are a number of ways to accomplish this using popular opinion. To threaten war, it is necessary to drum up the passions of the people for such an enterprise, sentiments that do not vanish with the resolution of a crisis. Likewise, peaceable intentions can be demonstrated by actions that establish expectations of continued peace (though hostile feelings are easier to produce than dissipate). By invoking the public in these ways, states may signal their intentions to one another, thereby breaking the Realist paradigm of unknowable intentions precluding deep alliances.

Tirpitz’s Self-defeating Effort

The case of the Anglo-German naval arms race that preceded WWI is trotted out by Realists as evidence that states will conflict, regardless of intentions. As you might have come to expect, a close look at the case of Imperial Germany is a strong argument against the Realist interpretation. In fact, the strategy of the Risikoflotte (“risk fleet,” so named because it would increase the costs for Britain to fight a war with Germany) can be seen as a clear warning against attempting to apply Realist principles and pursuing pure power politics in ignorance of what they signal to other states. Grand Admiral Tirpitz believed that strength was the most critical factor in gaining an alliance with Britain—if the German navy was strong enough, the British could not defend against it without compromising the defense of her empire. The strategy was based on the Machiavellian principle that “it is safer to be feared than loved.” For Tirpitz, how a buildup in naval strength might be perceived was irrelevant; the new disposition of power would force the British to seek accommodation with Germany. Tirpitz convinced many (including the Kaiser) that the fact that Germany could never match the Royal Navy was unimportant—what mattered was shifting the balance, making the prospect of a conflict unaffordable to the British and so making accommodation (if not alliance) attractive.

Tirpitz’s logic was firmly Realist, but not realistic. The massive expansion of the German navy, transparently directed against Britain, could not help but involve popular sentiment in the targeted country. Realists portray this as a tragic inevitability—states cannot understand or trust the intentions of one another and so conflict, even if neither desire to. What this misses is that the Risikoflotte strategy was entirely voluntary; there was no pressing need for Germany to become a naval power. It is in this context that Tirpitz’s strategy appears not merely fantastical, but actively counter-productive: he was creating the circumstances for a war with Britain that would threaten its very existence. The decision to engage in an arms race could only be interpreted by the British as evidence of hostile intent rather than understood as the cack-handed attempt at diplomacy that it was. What British government could consent to an understanding with a Germany that had readied itself for mortal struggle against them?

Not only was Germany’s naval build-up clear evidence of malintent, but it clearly limited the ability of Germany to pursue a credible alliance. A public (and elite circles) prepared for war and sold naval supremacy as the key to national security could not easily be persuaded amity and alliance were the new rule of the day. In threatening war with England, Tirpitz was drifting Germany towards disaster in hopes that the British would blink. Naturally, no country enjoys being threatened, but more than that, the British could not know for certain whether Germany’s course could be altered by a diplomatic agreement—popular sentiment would not turn on a dime. With the Germans unwilling to provide any credible commitments, the British naturally saw no alternative to preparing for a collision. Compounding the absurdity was the fact that the Germans were unwilling to commit to actually abandoning the effort to challenge the British at sea. Part of this may be attributed to the loss of control that comes with the involvement of popular opinion in state affairs, but Tirpitz and the Kaiser were not willing to outright accept British dominance at sea even in exchange for an understanding.

To the British, in the face of incoherent signals, make partnerships with states that were more comprehensible. The United States was able to take advantage of British preoccupation to extract concessions, the same being true of France and Russia. The distinction was the nature of the threats. They were limited, often implicit, and paired with offers of a settlement that did not threaten British vital interests. By contrast, Tirpitz’s plan was a blunderbuss aimed directly at British dominance in the North Sea, the one thing that could actually constitute an existential threat by enabling a foreign army to land on Great Britain. The British could not give in to the Germans so as to focus their attention elsewhere. It was therefore natural to oppose force with force and rely on British superiority to achieve a positive result rather than the purported reasonability of the Germans.

The Deadly Price of Incoherence

What made German foreign policy truly self-defeating was that it was continually strengthening the Entente. The very prospect of war deepened the ties of the Entente both in institutional terms (as staffs, officers, and politicians communicated on the prospect of a coalition war) as well as psychologically. The psychological element should not be understated. If people are accustomed to regarding one state as friend and another foe, that disposition is not easily changed—ordinarily an inversion requires a major change in circumstances, something not possible through mere statecraft. The Germans, lamenting the “ring of steel” of the encircling alliance, could not recognize that the decision of France, England, and Russia to trust and accommodate one another was only possible because of the sword of Damocles they themselves had hung and could not help but to continually jostle.

The configuration of alliances was not merely a reflection of the balance of power, but a product of perceived intent as well. Each time the Germans tried to break the alliance by threat of war they not only proved its necessity, but brought it more firmly into being. The demonstrations of power and complex machinations of the Moroccan crises may not have been doomed to fail, but were certainly inferior to a simple and direct policy of detente and conciliation. The powers of the Entente had many conflicting interests; Tsarist autocracy was considered barbaric by the French and British publics. If Germany had the virtues of quietude and patience, contradictions within the alliance would have flared in time. This, of course, was Bismarck’s policy after 1871: appearing as a “satisfied” power. A country that signals reasonableness and consistency is difficult to maintain an alliance against and is attractive as an alliance partner.

The strategy of Bismarck relied on a certain distance between the people and the alliance structure. After the Revolutions of 1848, European powers were sufficiently wary of public participation in politics that this distance existed. But even before the end of Bismarck’s tenure, the influence of the people began to seriously constrain policy; Bismarck had hoped to avoid embittering France in the Franco-Prussian War, but bowed to military advice and popular opinion in annexing Alsace-Lorraine. This trend continued, such that by the turn of the 20th century, there was no possibility of a policy of a “free hand,” of shifting alliances to maintain balance. Maintaining a balance of power required taking into account the views of the masses, at home and abroad.

Wilhelmine Germany’s failure to comprehend the nature of alliances enforced its own isolation. Britain had considerable conflicting interests with the other Great Powers (certainly more immediate conflicts than with Germany), yet it was willing to come to an understanding with those states. The United Kingdom was able to “pay off” the United States, France, and Russia by settling a variety of territorial disputes on terms that were mutually acceptable. The UK was willing to concede its interests in these cases because it believed they would lead to a lasting understanding with the parties involved. It was not a mere settlement of the particular questions, but one with a view of a general understanding. This spirit of amity was possible because of a sense of consistent policy on both sides—both believed the agreement would be understood in the spirit in which it was meant.

Lack of this consistency is precisely what prevented a lasting understanding with Germany. Did Germany merely wish to join the “imperialist family” by administering more colonies? Or did it wish to end British naval dominance for its own sake? The first was acceptable to the British—German colonies in themselves were no threat. The second possibility was a mortal threat and so had to be decisive in the absence of signaling to the contrary. Germany’s conviction that it could rely on power to secure an alliance caused it to act in a way other states could perceive only as norm-breaking aggression because it neglected to consider what signals its actions sent.

Germany was perceived as threatening to gain hegemony over Europe, not based purely on material factors, but rather because of Germany’s repeated insistence that the balance of power was unacceptable. It was this fear of Germany entering a war against France with unlimited aims that drove British commitment to the Entente. German preponderance on land was at its peak just after unification and it is telling that British entanglement in continental alliances did not come about until well after—only when German actions signaled ambitions towards domination. Faced with a choice between abandoning a naval buildup to signal positive intent to the British and accepting Britain as an enemy, Imperial Germany refused to choose. It built a fleet at great expense that could not challenge the Royal Navy and—rather than pressure the British towards alliance—it did nothing but entrench their commitment to the Entente. A strategy of doing nothing would have been more effective. At the very least it would have been cheaper and given greater odds that an unforeseen incident could weaken the Entente. Peace atrophies an alliance, tension strengthens it.

It is human nature to seek patterns, even when there are none. States are therefore not judged only on their strength, capabilities, or declared disposition, but on the story their actions seem to tell. The straightforward way of addressing this is signaling, both costly and otherwise. States expect one another to act with awareness for how their behavior will be perceived. Dismissing matters of perception as unimportant compared to considerations of power means ignoring the signals that are sent by that behavior. Signaling occurs whether or not you believe in it. States will modify their priorities to protect themselves from erratic or incomprehensible behavior, especially when it’s oriented towards amassing power. The Realist or “restrainer” paradigm of focusing solely on power is thus a course for blundering into a collision.

“Thus, of Prussia’s famous battle-ready force of 220,000 men, only half were actually present and ready for the most decisive conflict in which they would ever have to fight.”

Yet, commenting on the 1812, he criticized the Russians for winning “almost despite themselves” because they were too eager to seek battle. That different situations call for different approaches is one of the many seemingly-banal observations of Clausewitz. In fact, his refusal to identify a strictly superior form of war is in contrast to the writings of many contemporaries. Later theorists (and even Clausewitz himself as misinterpreted) gave prescriptivist advice that was inevitably limited in its applicability.

In treating theory as a guiding image rather than a formula, Clausewitz developed a theory that could claim validity for all time. By examining the opposed examples of Napoleon’s victory over Prussia and his failed invasion of Russia, we may gain a clearer view of what a universally applicable theory entails. This post will take this apparent contradiction as a point from which to demonstrate the meaning of Clausewitz’s commitment to developing a universal applicable theory of war.

Despite being a bitter foe of Napoleon, Clausewitz nevertheless acknowledged him as the “god of war.” Napoleon’s exceptional qualities made him an important case in developing theory, for a theory that makes exceptions for genius is of no real use. To be a true theory of war, it needed to encompass god and mortal alike. This was true analytically, but also pragmatically; as Clausewitz learned personally, sometimes you were on the wrong side of a “god of war” and required a theory that could do you some good.

The Role of Theory

Clausewitz saw the role of theory to be something held in mind so as to better understand and judge reality. It does not tell you the answer (as a calculator might) but helps you work it out (an abacus may be an apt analogy). Theory defined as a series of dictates was precisely what Clausewitz opposed in the works of Antoine Jomini. A theory of war was not to be a manual, but a guide in how to think about the hard problems encountered (in person or by proxy through history) and how to learn from them.

Clausewitz identified the concentration of effort and mass for decisive battle as the natural tendency of war. That this was the natural tendency in theory was a reference point for practice, not a dictate. The typical path of least resistance in an environment where “even the simplest thing is difficult” is important to identify even when not followed. It is only by understanding the tendency of war that various courses of action can be evaluated relative to it. For instance, are you resisting the natural course? If so, why? How much more friction can you expect as a consequence? What are you getting in exchange for bearing this cost? In this manner theory provides a standpoint from which to judge the actual unique circumstances that arise. A prescriptive theory cannot account for the infinite variations of reality and so will fall short.

1806: The Humiliation of Prussia

In brief, the course of the 1806 campaign was that the Prussians met the French at Saalfeld and were initially defeated. The Prussians therefore decided to retreat before meeting Napoleon himself in battle. However, poor command organization and irresolution ended up dividing and delaying the Prussian forces. Thus, the rearguard ended up meeting the French main body under Napoleon which was able to overwhelm it at Jena.

The battle itself was not especially punishing, but the relentless pursuit of the French cavalry yielded many prisoners and prevented the reconstitution of the army. On the same day, the Prussian main body had encountered a French corps under Marshal Davout at Auerstedt, but failed to overcome it in a series of piecemeal attacks that cost it the lives of its commanders. The Prussians were demoralized enough that an attack from the outnumbered French was enough to force the main body into disorder. The arrival of fleeing forces from Jena spread a general panic and prevented any chance of recovery. From there, the campaign was a matter of pursuit and capitulation—within weeks the French were parading through the streets of Berlin. This humiliating defeat gave Clausewitz impetus to seek an understanding of the nature of war. How could the vaunted Prussian army, envy of the world in the days of Frederick the Great (still within living memory), be so summarily dispatched?

It was clear to virtually all military thinkers of the time that war had changed. To many, Napoleon was utilizing a higher, more perfect form of war than had been previously known. Clausewitz instead recognized that Napoleon was not refining war, but recognizing that changes in social conditions had enabled fighting with more energy and violence than had been possible in the cabinet wars of the 18th century. This had proven significant because the limitations of the 18th century made maneuver and logistics central to skilled generalship. Battles were important, but much that was won or lost in a battle could be subsequently lost or won outside it.

The removal of these restrictions drastically increased the importance of battle as it was able to produce results that could not be compensated for actions outside of it. Skilled generalship was therefore no longer a matter of outmaneuvering the enemy or protecting your supply lines while threatening his, but of bringing maximum force to the point of battle. Initiative, coordination, and aggression become the key traits of an officer. Thus, more expansively, the task of the officer is to recognize changes to the character of war and so understand what is required in practice. Neither history nor experience can anticipate these developments—it falls to the judgment of the individual to recognize them.

This framing shows clearly the mistakes of the Prussians. Operating in the old paradigm, they sought to make good with maneuver what they had lost in the opening battle of the campaign. They had divided their forces under the assumption the French would be unable or unwilling to aggressively pursue their retreat. At the same time, when they engaged the French, they showed caution entirely congruent with a cabinet army but fatally out of place when facing a Napoleonic force. On numerous occasions, the French made serious blunders that went unpunished because the Prussians failed to take the initiative and capitalize on them.

Nowhere is this more clear than in the failure of the Prussian main body to overcome the single corps it faced at Auerstedt. While outnumbering the French, the Prussian attacked piecemeal, becoming demoralized under French fire. The morale of the Prussians was substantially more brittle on account of their relative lack of nationalism—the state and therefore the army were not objects of any great affection by those subject to them. While this would require social reforms to remedy, Auerstedt had nevertheless been an opportunity for the Prussians. They had a French corps outnumbered more than two-to-one and merely needed to bring that force to bear to inflict a serious defeat. A Prussian victory would have positioned the main body to receive the retreating forces from Jena, allowing another confrontation with Napoleon on at least equal terms. Timidity and irresolution therefore played as big a part in the disaster as did the deeper defects.

In part, this must be ascribed to the advanced age of Prussian leadership. The senior commanders at both Jena and Auerstedt were over seventy. Not only did this ensure continuity with older forms of war, but men of such an age were unlikely to have the energy to campaign aggressively—by contrast, Napoleon and his marshals were three or four decades younger. The Prussian leaders did not lack physical courage, as their valiant deaths attest, but exposing oneself to danger is not the same quality that is needed for decisive and energetic action over an extended period of time.

The Prussian strategy deserves further criticism because by that point Bonaparte’s character was well known. There was no justification to have any illusions as to what the consequences of defeat would be. Prussia’s status amongst the great powers—if not its very existence as an independent state—would be determined by the confrontation. Leaving troops in Silesian fortresses or Polish garrisons (through which Prussia’s available forces were reduced by half) meant narrowing the odds of victory in pursuit of things that could be no substitute for victory and no comfort in defeat.

Central to Clausewitz’s conclusion is the danger of half-measures and irresolution. The wrong approach is dangerous, but counter-intuitively less dangerous than a compromise course. A clever strategy is not worth as much as resolute and clear-eyed execution of a simple and natural course. In this respect the Elder Moltke was a true discipline of Clausewitz—willing to devise and forcefully execute a plan, but to alter it as facts and information changed. The ideal was courage and flexibility, but in a pinch courage would do. The famous marshal Blücher allegedly could not read a map, but his unquenchable hatred for the French made him a greater threat to Bonaparte than more erudite but less impetuous opponents. The sentiment is captured well in Admiral Nelson’s instruction that “No captain can do very wrong if he places his ship alongside that of the enemy.” In most circumstances, merely getting your full strength to grips with the enemy is sufficient to protect against crushing defeat and give the chance of extreme success (and is sufficiently difficult in itself).

In practical terms, the Prussians should have decided from the outset whether they were going to meet the French in battle or whether they would delay until their Russian allies could conduct a joint campaign. If the former, there was no justification for failing to concentrate all forces in the relevant theater. What proved so fatal was wavering between the approaches. In any case, it was necessary to bring all force to bear and to avoid frittering strength away on sideshows when Napoleon was at the gates.

After the defeat at Saalfeld it was too late to try and wait for the Russians. A battle with Bonaparte was needed—even a defeat could gain enough space to be able to effect a retreat. The French would have had a much harder time inflicting such a comprehensive defeat had the Prussians been actively seeking a major battle rather than attempting to execute a convoluted retreat. A clean fight is much less trying on the morale of soldiers than arduous delay. Thus, the Prussian strategy failed to take a natural course and so placed greater strains upon its soldiers, enabling the French to ultimately defeat them much more easily than they otherwise could have.

1812: Twilight of the God of War

The broad strokes of Napoleon’s invasion of Russia need no introduction. However, before Moscow burned and winter forced the Grande Armée into its deadly retreat, there were two major confrontations: one at Smolensk and another before Moscow at Borodino. While the French won both, they nevertheless were ultimately defeated and destroyed almost entirely.

To oppose force against force is simple, natural, and easier to achieve in a high-friction environment like war. All else being equal, (or even less than equal) seeking battle with all available force is therefore the best option because it avoids unnecessary friction. In essence, the default approach is to arrive at the point of decision with as much strength as possible, prepared to exploit opportunities and the difficulties experienced by the enemy. It is the exception that riskier and more complex strategies are justified.

From this, we might conclude (by pulling at the same thread as Clausewitz) that the Russian (Fabian) strategy is on the whole more difficult, and so requires special justification. The most common justification is regular means no longer offer a good chance at victory. The Russians had little chance of defeating the Grande Armée through a direct confrontation of mass against mass. Instead, the Russian strategy took advantage of geography, logistics, and was willing to endure great suffering and risks to do so. That Bonaparte needed a swift victory meant that a strategy of denying battle was effective. A smaller country or one nearer to the French homeland would not have been able to take the same course, nor would one without a government willing to accept such devastation.

Clausewitz characteristically notes that while avoiding battle was the first part of the Russian strategy (the retreat to Moscow), seeking it was the second. The near-total destruction of the French was effected specifically because the Russians acted aggressively once the French were weakened. When the need for a more difficult approach passed, the Russians returned to the simple formula of seeking battle. The situation had reversed: unable to face the Russians directly, Napoleon was forced to undertake the arduous and deadly task of avoiding battle (this being especially costly due to being in enemy territory).

The result of the campaign should not obscure the fact that the strategy was a hazardous and arduous one. Refusing to give battle required great courage and resolution on the part of the political and military leadership. Permitting the occupation and destruction of one’s country is difficult to endure both for a people, for the pride of an army, and for the responsible government. Indeed, as Clausewitz notes, the Russians had not initially intended to retreat all the way to Moscow nor to rely on attrition to defeat the French. Originally, the aim was just to campaign from the interior, where the French would be in unfriendly country. The strategy of attrition only truly emerged as it became apparent how unequally the French were suffering outside of battle. It is to this Clausewitz was referring in the back-handed compliment that: “The highest wisdom could never have devised a better strategy than the one the Russians followed unintentionally.”

Indeed, Clausewitz was so far from being a dogmatist of decisive battle he was later stereotyped that he declared Napoleon’s decision to attack Smolensk rather than force its evacuation by maneuver to be his greatest mistake in the invasion. Bonaparte’s bias towards battle, that had served him so well in the past, here betrayed him, as he needlessly dashed his dwindling army into a battle that geography dictated could not be decisive.

The failure of the Russians to commit from the outset to avoiding battle was a nevertheless a hazardous mistake. Giving battle was an opportunity for the French to seek the decision that was their sole means of survival. The Russians were fortunate that such a decision did not in fact come about. Instead, while demoralizing to the Russians at the time, the results of both battles were to their benefit: they could endure the losses far better than the French. But the risk of a general engagement was unnecessary. So long as the Tsar’s nerve held and he refused to come to terms with Napoleon, the invasion was bound to fail. Had the Napoleon managed to inflict a serious defeat on the Russians, it may have shaken the Tsar’s resolve enough to make peace. As such, while the results of Smolensk and Borodino were to the advantage of the Russians, they represented opportunities for the French to change the course of events—opportunities it would have been wiser to deny.

“...in every battle the French are victorious; in each they are allowed to achieve the impossible; but—when we come to the final reckoning, the French army has ceased to exist, and except for failing to capture Bonaparte and his general staff, the campaign was the most complete success.”

In 1806, the Prussians had failed to seek battle while they had force sufficient for a chance at victory. In wavering between alternatives, they had also failed to commit to avoiding battle until joined by the Russians. Unprepared to fight but unable to avoid battle, the disaster at Jena-Auerstedt cannot be considered a surprising outcome or ascribed to mere misfortune. Clausewitz’s critique of Prussia in 1806 was therefore not based on an axiomatic focus on decisive battle, nor did it contradict with his praise for Russia’s strategy in 1812. His critique of Russia—despite appearances to the contrary—is in fact based on the same principles: just as the Prussians ought to have committed to meeting Napoleon with their full force, the Russians ought to have prevented Napoleon from meeting them with his strength. Both cases illustrate the manner in which good strategy requires taking into account the natural tendencies of war, so as to understand where they may be exploited and where they must be resisted.

Ammunition consumption has been a major constraint for both sides in the Russia-Ukraine War and Western difficulties in scaling production have been widespread. As well, discussions of a war over Taiwan have brought the questions of stockpiles and industry to the fore. Prominent voices have argued that the United States should engage in industrial policy and boost its manufacturing output specifically for the purpose of preparing for a war with China.

In light of this, I’d like to take a look at the arguments for the importance of stockpiles and strength of industry in deciding the outcome of a war through the lens of a variety of historical cases (and of course, the writings of the regrettably-deceased Carl von Clausewitz). In my analysis, I arrive at the conclusion that while these factors have been neglected, there is a great danger in overcorrection. That is to say: preparing for protracted war is important, but overemphasizing the importance of stockpiles and industry in deciding a conflict comes at the expense of neglecting the transformative power of battle.

Moral Courage and A Note on the Schlieffen Plan

If you are ill-prepared for a lengthy war or know yourself to be inferior in the things that count for one, it is strategically sound to focus your preparations towards forcing and winning a decisive battle at the outset. If that strategy fails, you will be less prepared for an attritional war than you might have been, but taking your best shot at victory is the most justifiable of risks, regardless of the outcome. This is what Clausewitz refers to as “moral courage,” the resolve to take the hazardous road that offers the best chance at success and assume responsibility for failure rather than to take the momentarily safer course of inaction. When the strategic picture is unfavorable, nothing except a bold gamble can remedy the situation.

The Schlieffen Plan justified itself in these terms, as a massive gamble on Germany’s best card. The Germans did not consider a long war impossible, but believed that one would be disastrous considering the naval and economic advantage of the Entente. As such, German preparations were directed towards winning quickly, so that Entente superiority in those areas could not be brought to bear, in the same way that French naval superiority had been irrelevant in the Franco-Prussian war.

The main problem was that this gamble was based on the unexamined assumption that Germany required a total victory over the Entente. The war plan was developed with no specific political aims in mind and sought total victory axiomatically, assuming the enormous risk involved without political justification. The logic was that of military necessity, dominating any political considerations as a result of Germany’s particularly dysfunctional system of civil-military relations. I do not intend to discuss alternatives to the Schlieffen Plan here in depth, (that will be its own post) but considering my harsh assessments of this famous attempt to seek a decision, I felt it necessary to briefly note why it was only superficially suited to the strategic situation.

Generalizing From Ukraine?

Intense operations will naturally consume large quantities of munitions, and the war in Ukraine is a stark reminder of this fact. However, it would be a mistake to view the character of the war in Ukraine as the inevitable shape of modern war. Wars can also be won or lost rapidly, and there are reasons to believe such a rapid decision is likely in a war over Taiwan.

The character that the war exhibits is a product of the societies that wage it, including their limitations, and so the character of the war in Ukraine cannot be generalized to potential wars between countries without those conditions and limitations. Stockpiles and industrial capacity are particularly relevant in a situation like the war in Ukraine, in which neither side has the mix of systems and expertise needed to achieve a breakthrough. The armed forces of both Ukraine and Russia have faced corruption, economic weakness, and haphazard procurement and so have been forced to wage war with the attendant limitations.

A war between the US and Russia, for example, would be radically different in shape. US doctrine and force structure are designed towards securing air dominance and using airpower to support maneuver warfare so as to force the rapid collapse of the enemy. In this vision of war, munition use is high, but not protracted in a manner analogous to the war in Ukraine. How long you can supply your artillery at a certain rate of ammo consumption becomes irrelevant if your front line collapses because a corps sized element was encircled and overrun on day three. Certainly, it would be disastrous to run out of weapons, but unless this occurs, depth of ammunition stockpiles is unlikely to be decisive; the measure will be in the ability to actually destroy enemy forces. This form of war may well be outdated, but this point cannot be asserted by deriving the character of modern war directly from the Russo-Ukrainian War as neither state possesses comparable capabilities to the United States for enabling a rapid decision (despite a Russian attempt in 2022).

It bears repeating that there is not a strict dichotomy between trying to win rapidly and preparing for a protracted war, but scarce resources mean there is a trade-off. Time and money devoted to preparing for attritional war cannot be put towards winning the initial phase. This is not a case for an absolutist preference for quality over quantity—that’s a recipe for an undersized and brittle force. The tyranny of the operational level of war is something that has been increasingly noted as a hazard (and something I’ve frequently written on), but there is a danger of overcorrection in reducing war to a comparison of overall strength.

Questions of supply chains and relative strengths of industry are important, but battle remains the core of war through which dramatic transformations in circumstances are possible, even when not actively sought. There is a temptation to view battles as the mere realization of existing power relations, itself an overcorrection from the pop-history designation of every notable battle as a “turning point.” The former characterization is more often accurate, but fails to give proper weight to the role of chance, creating a false sense of inevitability. This touches on Clausewitz’s views on the importance of battle which will be elaborated on in the following section.

Clausewitz on Battle

A lesson Clausewitz drew from the Napoleonic Wars was the ability of a battle to cause a radical transformation in the scene. This principle (like many in On War) seems obvious, but is, in fact, in tension with the idea of war as a test of overall state strength. That both things are true but in conflict is itself the point. Circumstances and strategy will determine towards which tendency a conflict leans.

Clausewitz is often associated with the idea of decisive battle because his writing focused on the Napoleonic Wars. These upended Europe in virtually every sense and so Clausewitz viewed the understanding of them—particularly in comparison to historical practice—as key to understanding war in essence, not merely war as it was in his own time (I wrote about this more extensively in the post, “The Spirit of the Age: Clausewitz on Limited and Absolute War”). The emphasis on decisive battle in his writing is therefore both an artifact of his time (contemporary methods take disproportionate space given that it was the clearest example of practice available) and because of the main case used to derive and test principles.

Before the Napoleonic Wars, decisive battles were rare because the difficulty and expense involved in raising armies disincentivized them. Even the famous victories of Frederick the Great still did not involve the destruction of the defeated army. European states had geared themselves for waging these “cabinet wars” and so were unprepared for a Revolutionary France willing and able to risk so much to seek victory in a decisive battle. Systems of magazines and fortifications, so critical to the waging of cabinet wars, can contribute little if your army has been annihilated, as Prussia learned in 1806. Clausewitz therefore was looking directly at why the military thinkers of Europe had not anticipated this development in warfare and pointing out the mistaken theories underpinning it. That is to say, he sought to determine why decisive battle had returned despite the previous canon of military literature dismissing it.

The answer he found was the conflation of the character of war with its nature. The former being a product of the times and the latter being common throughout all time. Clausewitz argued that previous thinkers had elevated traits of contemporary war to universal principles without first testing them against the historical record. These thinkers (influenced by enlightenment concepts) viewed the practice of war as something akin to a science—forward moving and perfectible. By contrast, while there are better and worse ways to fight a war, Clausewitz viewed the optimal methods as contingent on the context. The methods of Napoleon and the Revolutionary armies did not reveal an advance in ways of war per se (though they made use of many). Rather, they recognized that changed circumstances enabled a type of war that was not previously possible and successfully exploited this change to bring superior force to bear.

Clausewitz, therefore, did not suggest that battle is intrinsically decisive (as he is often stereotyped). In fact, much of his strategic thought was developed around an examination of Napoleon’s failed invasion of Russia, in which the Russian strategy was explicitly to avoid such a battle. Clausewitz distinguished himself from his contemporaries by recognizing the equivalent validity of a strategy of exhaustion. This view of the changing character of war, as “more than a true chameleon”, is key to Clausewitz’s enduring applicability.

War’s variation in shape is not merely a product of advances in practice and technology, but more dramatically altered by both the shape of society and the immediate political situation. How a war can be fought is contingent on these circumstances, and so it would be a mistake to look at even a very recent conflict in an attempt to predict the character of a future conflict under markedly different circumstances.

The Fall of France: Mass and Defeat in Detail

A reason to be cautious about anticipating attrition as the shape of future war is the danger of a “defeat in detail.” By failing to match mass against mass, your enemy has the chance to utterly destroy a part of your force. This offers the chance not only to shift the balance of force, but to subsequently overwhelm other elements caught off-guard by the initial defeat. In this way, one force may defeat another of comparable or even superior strength without the bloody cost typical of the clash of mass meeting mass. Prioritizing preparations for attritional struggle may allow your enemy to gain the seemingly small advantages that cascade into a defeat in detail.

As mentioned, for Clausewitz, the defeat of Prussia in the war of the Fourth Coalition was the template, but the more contemporary archetype is the Fall of France in WW2. French command and control was oriented towards a lengthy war of attrition and proved unable to react quickly enough to the German breakthrough at Sedan. Counterattacks were therefore only undertaken on the local level and without coordination. Despite German vulnerability, they were able to defeat the piecemeal commitment of superior forces and ultimately collapse Allied defenses.

The initial German breakthrough was made possible by local air superiority, enabled by the same principle. This was achieved despite an overall superiority by the Allies in aircraft (even when counting only modern planes) because the Allies kept many planes in reserve, anticipating a long war. By the time they realized the significance of the German concentration, the Germans had been able to move forward anti-aircraft guns and it was too late to destroy the bridgeheads over the Meuse (despite the desperate kamikaze-like efforts of a stricken bomber).

The case of France in 1940 gives a clear example of why a defeat in detail has been so feared. French strategy was premised on winning a lengthy war—the initial battle was assumed to be no more conclusive than the Battle of Frontiers had been in 1914. The exact error of the French is unlikely to be replicated, but the nature of the mistake remains a universal peril. Dismissing the likelihood of an early decision and preparing for a “later” that never comes is the reciprocal mistake of assuming an early decision is inevitable (which can be identified with the “Cult of the Offensive” that preceded WWI).

The Pacific: Tyranny of Geography

The frequent point of comparison for a war over Taiwan is the Pacific theater of the Second World War. Imperial Japan won early victories, but was unable to match American industrial might, and so found the balance of power swing inexorably against it. Japan fell into the (Mahan-ian) trap of preparing for a decisive battle that never came. Superior American industry meant the losses of Pearl Harbor were replaced relatively quickly, whereas Japanese capital ships were practically irreplaceable. The argument for preparing for a war of attrition over Taiwan is that any war between China and the US would place the US in the position of the Imperial Japanese by virtue of its inferior manufacturing base. For a number of reasons, I believe this comparison is inapt.

The first difference is the compression of space by technology. A hundred miles is still a hundred miles, but the speed and range of modern aviation means that the distance doesn’t mean quite what it did in 1942. After Pearl Harbor, the Japanese had a major advantage, but could not seriously consider striking the American homeland. However, in a 21st century Pacific war, geography provides far less room to recover. Strategic depth has become harder to come by as the range of weapons increases. This is particularly the case for the Chinese. If the opening phase of the war delivers a sharp check, there will be no opportunity for industry to weigh in. Shipbuilding capacity and industrial might can only weigh in if there is room to regenerate. Geography favors the Americans in this regard as the theater of war is sufficiently far from the West Coast as to allow this space (and shipbuilding on the East Coast is practically untouchable).

Chinese shipbuilding—however strong it may be—will therefore be unable to replicate the strategic effect of American industry in WW2 for the simple reason that it will be subject to attack. Modern anti-shipping strikes are a far cry from the torpedo bombers of the Second World War. The area from which these attacks can be launched has been greatly increased, eliminating the need for air superiority over the target. Now, an aircraft must merely get a missile within range. Even the most sophisticated missile defenses would be unable to reliably protect vessels under construction.

In order for China to make use of its shipyards in a war, it would have to push American forces so far back that the question of Taiwan would by then be settled. In such a case, even if American shipbuilding capacity was superior to China’s, it is deeply doubtful whether the political will would exist to undertake a campaign to liberate Taiwan in the way the United States was committed to the liberation of the Philippines in 1941. Attitudes around war have changed radically since, especially since such a war would carry with it the risk of nuclear escalation. At the very least, the uncertainty involved means it would be unwise to plan on the assumption that there will be room to regenerate from defeat. Indeed, were the US so committed to sovereignty of Taiwan that it was willing to conduct an island-hopping campaign in order to achieve it, the comparative strength of industry at the start of the war would have limited relevance. As mentioned, the United States still enjoys the benefits of distance from China, and so would be able to expand its industrial capacity during wartime, almost regardless of the results of the initial battle.

Further, the changing nature of economic strength makes the comparison with Imperial Japan questionable. Japan’s economy was weaker than the United States by every metric. When comparing the United States to China, the US is inferior in manufacturing output, but overall a larger economy (or at least similarly sized when accounting for PPP). The ability of a service economy to pivot in wartime remains untested, but it remains a markedly different situation than the simple (and dramatic) inferiority of the Japanese economy.

Sheer manufacturing output also cannot tell the whole story. Part of the popular perception of factory output in WW2 is tied up with the myth of the “elite” German panzers that the Allies simply smothered the Germans in a wave of cheap steel. While it is true that “quantity has a quality all of its own,” this implies a trade-off when there was none. Nazi production methods were simply inferior to those of the Allies. Thus, it would be a mistake to draw parallels with the artisan production of systems like the F-35 and German artisan production. The former produces an unparalleled platform in the quantities needed for peacetime, whereas the latter was simply slower.

The famous case exhibiting the importance of technological superiority is the First Gulf War. Anticipated to be a bloody clash against Saddam Hussein’s battle-hardened and fairly modern forces, the technological superiority of the coalition produced a rout. This is, of course, an extreme case of disparity, (though it must be noted that it was not considered as such at the time), but nevertheless illustrates that comparing tonnage has sharp limitations and that manufacturing output is not in-itself a sufficient measure. Overemphasis on strength of industry risks obscuring the potentially decisive nature of qualitative differences.

Political Objects and the Character of War

The political circumstances of a war with China increase the likelihood of an early decision. China’s aim in such a war would be to invade and annex Taiwan. To do so, China must establish air and sea superiority, and must do so with sufficient naval assets available to cross the strait and sustain a ground campaign. It must further be capable of protecting the shipping needed for the duration of this campaign and, further still, to sustain an occupation force. The course of the opening days (or hours) of a war may thus be decisive, even if deficiencies in American stockpile depth give the Chinese the advantage after that period.

If the Chinese can only overcome the Americans by exhaustion, this will be a Pyrrhic victory, as it will be insufficient to enable an invasion of Taiwan. To illustrate, in this scenario, let’s say you’re China and your superiority in stockpiles and manufacturing have allowed you to suppress Taiwanese air defense and push American forces out of range. Great, now you can cross the strait and start the ground phase of the campaign. Not so fast—even though the Americans were eventually forced to withdraw as munitions ran scarce, in the opening phase of the war they were able to sink or damage much of your shipping. Even if you gave as good as you got, you’re the one that has to pull off an amphibious invasion. Even with your strong ship-building industry, it will be at least some months before enough shipping can be repaired and replaced to support an invasion.

On its face, that’s not all too bad. A delay will give you more time to conduct an air offensive over Taiwan to ease the ground campaign. Your superior industry means you’ll be ready sooner than the Americans can recover. However, that also gives the Taiwanese the opportunity to take basic steps that would prevent a short war, such as mobilization, training, and fortifying landing points. There are limits to how much airpower can interdict these things, particularly while conserving munitions for other phases.

The delay also prevents the exploitation of any political chaos that the sudden onset of war might have engendered in Taiwan. Worse still, while the Americans cannot regenerate as fast as you can, they have the easier task of merely interdicting the crossing of the strait, which you must now seek to accomplish without strategic surprise. Even if the United States cannot match Chinese industry over the course of the war, it has sufficient strategic depth so as to maintain a reserve to contest an attempted amphibious landing.

This scenario—even if it ends with ultimate victory—is not a good one for China. A lengthy war brings with it massive economic consequences and an inestimable political price. Russia’s fate after its 2022 invasion of Ukraine is a cautionary tale. Years of attritional war and indefinite economic isolation are a steep penalty, not merely from the perspective of power politics, but from the standpoint of regime survival. A long war, by its nature, means more uncertainty, and therefore greater chance for catastrophe. For this reason, a strategy of exhaustion is unlikely to be appealing to Chinese planners.

These considerations suggest that a war over Taiwan will tend towards an initial decisive battle in which China will seek to destroy enough American forces to gain space for an invasion of Taiwan, while the US seeks to destroy enough Chinese shipping to preclude an invasion. Crucially, neither can refuse battle without conceding the issue of Taiwan. For China, the Americans must be too weak to interdict an amphibious attack on Taiwan and so must be attacked. For the Americans, the Chinese cannot be allowed to gain sufficient security to cross the Strait and so must be attacked. Neither power can afford to hold back in the initial confrontation and rely upon superior strength of industry to gain the advantage. For the Chinese, the danger is too great that the Americans may inflict losses that prevent a landing on Taiwan; for the Americans the risk is too great that an initial Chinese advantage will provide enough space to make such a landing. The outcome of the war hinges on China’s ability to gain the security needed to conduct an amphibious invasion, a task which becomes harder as the war lengthens (even with superior industry).

Practical Implications

So far, we have acknowledged the contradictions that the nature of war gives rise to, and examined towards which tendency a future war might lean, but theory must ultimately have some concrete implications for practice to justify itself. The likelihood of decisive battle comes with many direct implications. In the case of a war over Taiwan, investments in networking, training, and avionics will prove more important than comparative strength of industry. If America gains the edge in the air, it will have the opportunity to destroy the Chinese capabilities needed for an invasion of Taiwan.

Stockpiles and regeneration can only prove telling if the victor of the initial battle cannot capitalize on that victory. The character of modern war makes recovery from failure difficult. Systems are interdependent, which means that victories and defeats are likely to compound. The range of modern weapons and the complexity in manufacturing reduce the relative importance of strategic depth and raw manufacturing capacity. Fifth (or sixth) generation aircraft cannot simply be regenerated once air superiority is lost.

Preparation should therefore be oriented towards gaining an advantage and pressing it home rather than for an attritional war. Superiority in technology, systems, and training is the correct priority over depth of stockpiles or manufacturing output. In the event that the initial battle is truly indecisive, deficiencies in the defense industrial base are far more easily overcome than the consequences of a decisive defeat. It is far preferable to have empty stockpiles at the end of the first week of war but with China’s amphibious capabilities a smoking ruin than to be provisioned for a long war with PLANMC troops ashore in Taiwan.

Eschewing a strategy of attrition is not an excuse to neglect stockpiles. Ammo consumption in a war that is quickly decided will be nevertheless extremely high and current stockpiles are almost certainly insufficient. Even after a decisive victory, hostilities can be expected to continue for some time. Even if the ultimate outcome of the conflict is no longer in question, and munition shortages will have a cost that can be measured in lives.

Reorienting the American economy towards manufacturing in order to compete with China to prepare for a war of attrition resembles “suicide for fear of death.” The kind of top-down economic central-planning required to reshape the American economy would come with an enormous cost in terms of prosperity. This would require massive spending (to be financed by taxes or further borrowing) for the purpose of transferring capital away from America’s areas of competitive advantage. Before we can even consider whether the costs involved are in themselves worse than anything the United States might suffer from failing to defend Taiwan, its political feasibility must be considered. The chaos of the “liberation day” tariffs gives a preview for how this kind of intervention is likely to be received and provides compelling evidence that such a reorientation is not politically possible, even were it desirable.

Industry and particularly shipbuilding are nevertheless areas that are relevant no matter the character of war. While an early decision might prevent China from leveraging its superior strength of industry to out-regenerate its way to victory, superior industry makes it easier for China to outgun the Americans in that initial fight. A short-war strategy is a poor remedy to losing an arms race. As such, more moderate investments in capacity (particularly in shipbuilding) can be justified even if a total reorientation is out of the question. Of particular utility are low-cost methods such as “friend-shoring” (utilizing the industrial capacity of allied nations) and repealing the Jones Act to make domestic shipbuilding more appealing. Recognizing the tendency of a war over Taiwan towards an early decision thus does not mean neglecting questions of industry and especially procurement.

War, as Clausewitz tells us, involves the interplay of national strength and chance. Industry thus does not itself win battles, but is far from irrelevant in determining their outcome. The contradictions of war mean that overemphasizing one part of its nature is a continuous hazard to those who study it. The only protection is a careful consideration of the interaction of the factors that lend war its character in each specific case and to resist the temptation to generalize from recent experience.

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For those unfamiliar, seppuku (or harakiri) refers to ritual suicide by disembowelment, as practiced by the Samurai class. To prevent capture or other dishonor, seppuku was a means by which a samurai could preserve his warrior’s honor.

Pete Hegeseth has pledged to restore the warrior ethos to America’s military. The warrior ethos traditionally demands self-destruction as compensation for failure. The Japanese example is the most well-known, but it was also expected for honorable Romans to fall upon their own swords rather than suffer disgrace. If Hegseth wants to preserve his own honor and adhere to the warrior ethos, then there is a clear course of action open to him.

Taking the idea of restoring the “warrior ethos” to its logical extreme is humorous, but it drives at a real point (no pun intended). Everyone in that Signal chat knew that it was an inappropriate medium to discuss operations. “Don’t have a group chat for talking about ongoing operations” is advice that goes alongside “don’t add or subtract from the population” as an obligatory statement exclusively for the benefit of morons. That a group of individuals in senior leadership positions took part in this is humiliating for each of them.

It’s true that everyone makes mistakes, but that’s why not everyone is entrusted with our national security. Carelessness disqualifies you from the responsibility. Mere professionalism—let alone “warrior ethos”—demands that those involved recognize their own unsuitability and atone.

However, I don’t believe it would be accurate to characterize this as carelessness. This is not a good-faith mistake. You can’t plead ignorance when it comes to understanding what’s wrong with using an unsecured platform to share operational details. You especially can’t do this if you’re the Secretary of Defense or the National Security Advisor. More likely than sheer stupidity is that the chat is a product of arrogance. Its members feel that the usual rules governing the handling of sensitive information simply do not apply to them. They know they’re not permitted to use Signal to discuss these matters, but they just didn’t care.

You may have noticed that I have so far not mentioned the adding of a journalist to this chat. That mistake is only relevant because it exposed the willful negligence of the members of the chat. Security protocols around sensitive information exist to prevent a situation where you can fat-finger a random civilian into the loop. The exposure was a consequence of treating sensitive information carelessly.

While the cover-up is not worse than the crime, it is more dishonorable. Rather than admitting fault, each of the principals involved have repeatedly lied by giving conflicting explanations for the breach of security. They have been shameless in their attempts to evade responsibility.

To fail—and to fail gravely—is to be human. But honor, whether it is professional or a warrior ethos, demands self-sacrifice. By sacrificing yourself in recompense for a mistake it is proof of dedication, to the cause, the nation, and the profession above your own personal interests.

It is this test that each of the principals fail by choosing not to fall on their own swords. In warrior terms, it is cowardice; in professional terms, betrayal of the profession. Warriors that will not admit responsibility for failure and atone are faithless. Officers that dissemble when disgraced harm the profession for the sake of personal gain. When failure and cowardice meet, the transgressor is typically made an example of to maintain the honor of the group.

In our genteel age, the traditions of the warrior ethos do not have quite the bite they once did. Hegseth and the “cult of the operator” bemoan this while ignoring that a return to tradition would call for him to spill his lifeblood (if not his entrails) for this kind of failure. But modern states do not rely on a warrior caste, as the Germanic tribes did. Instead, recalling Rome at its height, they rely on professional soldiers. Fortunately for Hegseth, a professional military means a less gory method of self-destruction is available for the dishonored: resignation.

This goes for all the people involved, but especially for those that have made pretensions to warrior status. JD Vance, for example, purports to be a warrior and so ought to also fall on his proverbial sword and resign. DNI Gabbard, as an officer, is also obligated to resign in atonement.

If they fail to fulfill their duty to resign, they must be treated harshly in order to preserve the professional dignity of the armed forces—there must be consequences for dishonor. If people aren’t drummed out when they disgrace themselves, it creates a culture of impunity and ends any sense of respect associated with the institution. Consequences for dishonor (or lack thereof) set a precedent.

I have no faith whatsoever that there will be any accountability. Virtually all of these people are so lacking in expertise that shamelessness is their primary qualification for their appointments. But it’s still worth drawing the contrast between what traditional martial ethos demands of these people (who claim to want to “restore” it) and their actual conduct. They have shredded their own honor and stained that of our nation and armed forces. Yet they cannot find it within themselves to fall on their swords, in either the traditional or modern sense. It is rank cowardice from men who purport themselves to be warriors. Part of the warrior’s bargain is taking the consequences of failure on the chin. Professionals too are required to meet standards

Hegseth and co. want the status of warriors, the honor that comes with being a military professional, but none of the duties. It’s on all of us—but especially professionals—to reject claims to privilege without duty. Shamelessness cannot be an antidote to disgrace, and there can be no honor that comes without responsibility.

Morally speaking, there is no question that humanitarian interest in the well-being of the 40 million people who live in Ukraine demands a great effort from the rest of the world to aid them in their resistance to Russian aggression. Aggression and crimes against peace were the charge on which we justly hanged many Nazis at Nuremberg. For the sake of the security and freedom for all humanity, there is a moral imperative to punish acts of aggression by ensuring their failure wherever possible. The very recent abrogation of this principle by the United States is deeply consequential and will have to be addressed in a separate post.

In this piece, however, I want to elaborate on the strategic arguments for strongly materially supporting Ukraine. It is often claimed to justify Western aid that Russian occupation of Ukraine would itself be a grave threat to Europe. The argument goes: if Russia is able to annex Ukraine (or part of it) it will next attempt an invasion of Poland or the Baltic states. This line of reasoning is subsequently attacked by those who oppose arming Ukraine on the grounds that if Russia is so weak that it can be defeated by a Western-backed Ukraine, then it is too weak to pose a threat to Europe.

I agree with the assessment that Russia poses little threat to Europe, but there is still a strong strategic argument for arming Ukraine. In this post, I’ll explain why conquering Ukraine would not enable further Russian aggression and why allowing Ukraine to be defeated would nevertheless be extremely costly to both Europe and the United States.

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The Death of Conquest

In an era of nationalism, nuclear weapons, and post-industrial economies, conquest is not a profitable prospect. Nationalism means peoples will engage in bitter and protracted struggles to secure their independence. Overcoming this force, even for the strongest states, requires an uncommon level of expenditure, sacrifice, and political will. Nuclear weapons mean that great powers cannot conquer one another, whether for strength or security. The nature of post-industrial economies further devalues conquest—you can’t invade your way to your own Apple or Pfizer. Territory has little utility in itself. The natural resources it holds can be valuable, but compared to the cost and risk involved in war they rate poorly. Adding citizens to your nation by conquest was powerful historically, but the proliferation of nationalism means facing murderous hostility from any conquered populace.

Putin therefore mimics the imperialism of centuries past without understanding why that world order could not endure. He also fails to understand that colonial empires were driven to expansion by ideological reasoning and incorrect understanding of markets. Looting other places doesn’t get you wealthy compared to industrialization. It is telling that it was German industrial might that drove fears of dominating Europe—this at a time when the British and French empires spanned the globe and the German empire was little more than a small sausage factory in Tanganyika.

But the ingredients for a prosperous society and strong state are not accessible to Putin’s Russia. Achieving these things would require destroying the political system on which he has built his regime. Putin of course is unwilling to admit his own role in keeping Russia weak and impoverished and so alternative explanations are sought. The idea that conquering territory and victorious war strengthens the nation has a clear appeal that makes the blemish of its falseness easy to ignore.

The invasion of Ukraine was therefore a wasteful blunder from the start. It was born of paranoia and mistaken conceptions of geopolitics that took root in the minds of Russian leadership and has been fulfilled in the years of fruitless attritional struggle Russia has now found itself in. Even in the most successful of circumstances, there was nothing Russia could have gained that would have compensated for the long term economic harms brought about by sanctions and the instability. Russia would have been in a much stronger position to harm the West—on whatever level—had it chosen not to undertake this scheme.

Whatever bad intentions the Russians hold towards the West, the occupation of Ukraine can therefore do little to further them. If the country desires an ultimate confrontation for hegemony over Eastern Europe, Ukraine will not serve as a springboard. The burden of occupying a defeated Ukraine would be enormous, particularly in terms of personnel. Too much should not be made of Ukraine as an opportunity to gain experience in modern war. Important developments have occurred, particularly in regards to drones and electronic warfare, but the character of the war in Ukraine is vastly different from one involving NATO-standard forces. While Ukraine has received NATO equipment and training, it should go without saying that piecemeal supplies and adaptation under fire are severe limitations. Russian experience in fighting Leopard 2s or operating drones does not compensate for its lack of modern fighter aircraft or endemic corruption. Therefore, even if Russia managed to fully defeat Ukraine, the endeavor has already been so costly as to make another war of conquest practically untenable.

That being said, it was unlikely and unwise for Russia to attempt a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, but it did so nonetheless. When dealing with an autocracy, it is unwise to trust in prudence or sound judgment. Systems are idiosyncratic and individuals all the more so. Further weakening Russia is therefore clearly beneficial for Europe, even if war is unlikely. Some will find protecting against this contingency worthwhile even at these long odds, whereas others may judge the risk too remote to be worth guarding against. However, there is another reason to weaken Russia, even if war is unlikely: signaling.

Signaling (in)competence

The fundamental question is whether the West can act strategically. If it (further) bungles the war in Ukraine, the signs of incompetence will be read clearly at home and abroad. Revanchist powers will more seriously consider action. The fact that the Russians have blundered into a war beyond their capacity with no strategic recourse to Western action makes Western failures all the more impactful. If the West cannot handle the simple task of providing materiel to Ukraine—something costless in blood and negligible in terms of treasure—why should it be expected to rise to greater challenges? Why should the public trust the government to meet the manifold challenges of policy when it cannot put two and two together? Why should adversaries constrain themselves for fear of Western action? In words often misattributed to Talleyrand, “Worse than a crime, it is a mistake.”

The great blunder the Russians made in attacking Ukraine increases the danger. Had the Russians been more successful, there would have been no clear opportunity and the actions of the West would be judged under the self-evident limitations of the situation. To fail to reverse the Russian invasion is something that could be endured. Liberating territory without braving direct war between nuclear powers is no easy task. Even if the Russian invasion had been entirely successful and the whole of Ukraine occupied, a concerted effort at containment would have been sufficient to prevent strategic disaster. An isolated and contained Russia would have found its occupation an ulcer, bleeding it at the same time sanctions choked it.

From a humanitarian and moral perspective this would be absolutely disastrous. The atrocities of Russian occupation are well documented and no doubt would increase in scale and intensity. But strategically, Ukraine itself is of no great importance. It is in the reaction or lack thereof from the West that its strategic importance comes. The international order that the West has spent decades promoting explicitly places aggression amongst the highest crimes. How a state or bloc reacts to aggression is therefore some of the strongest signaling possible. Abandoning Ukraine sends signals of cowardice, incompetence, and dishonesty, all signals that come with a high price.

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Dissonance and the Domestic

Enemy action can rarely cause a collapse of morale. Pearl Harbor and 9/11 lead to a groundswell of support for action by Americans. However, the perception of fecklessness is morally corrosive. The US Army virtually collapsed from poor morale in Vietnam. The rot spread from the head down. An ambiguous and often absurd approach to prosecuting the war left the average soldier—many of them conscripts—with a sense their leaders could not be trusted to act competently. Quickly, the concern shifted to staying alive rather than winning the war. Another instance of loss of confidence were the mutinies in the French Army during WWI. After years of sacrifice and attrition when called on for yet more, many men refused. Self-preservation of course played a role, but were it naturally overpowering, few wars would ever be fought. Rather, the instinct comes to dominate when there is a lack of confidence that sacrifices are being used wisely. Dolce et decorum est is not an “old lie” if you win something worthwhile by it. If you don’t think your sacrifice is part of a good strategy, you justly feel scammed.

A half-hearted defense of Ukraine sends a message to the public of nihilistic governance. The support appears disingenuous because state actions are incongruent with their commitments. This threatens the liberal world order writ-large as its leaders apparently fail to make a genuine attempt to uphold it. America (or rather the current administration) has openly abandoned the idea of maintaining the current order and is therefore destined to provoke a crisis of public confidence. Europe, meanwhile, may find itself sleepwalking into a similar outcome. To maintain public confidence in both the idea of liberal governance and in institutions like the EU, there must be a clear vision as well as actions congruent with that vision.

For example, German Chancellor Scholz’s declaration of a “zeitenwende” (“turning point”) in German policy was followed by a massive authorization in defense spending. But these funds were mostly unspent. Certainly providing lethal aid to Ukraine in substantial quantities is a change from the previous policy of closeness with Russia (particularly from Scholz’s party). However, it does not nearly match the rhetorical commitment. More importantly, it does not match the logic of the facts as presented. If Ukraine is fighting for Europe’s freedom, why were arms supplies slow-rolled? Why was there a hullabaloo about supplying main-battle tanks? Why has it taken so long to scale up artillery shell production? This inconsistency comes across to the public not just as incompetence, but as double-dealing. The result is that retrenchment is viewed as more appealing by the public and abandoning the attempt to maintain any kind of international system will seem justified, even as this runs directly counter to actual national interest.

The Death of Deterrence

Public opinion is idiosyncratic to the point that even manifest foreign policy failures may have only ambiguous domestic political effects. However, the effects of incompetence on deterrence are much more clear. If you’re Xi Jinping contemplating whether it’s possible to seize Taiwan without ending up in a nightmarish war of attrition with the United States that could escalate to a nuclear conflict, you’re likely to look to recent examples of American behavior. If America can’t scrounge up the political will (let alone artillery shells) to punish the Russians for returning war to Europe, how’s it going to find the will to fight and die over an island most Americans can’t find on a map? Likewise, if Europeans cannot arm Ukraine why should anyone believe they have it in them to die for Tallinn?

Of course, incompetent handling of one situation is not necessarily predictive of another. The nature of democracy means radical shifts in priorities are always possible. Assuming that the West is strategically moribund because of a failure to handle the war in Ukraine would be far from a safe bet. But there is no certainty in international relations and so signals are scrutinized. Errors of judgment are inevitable, but signals make certain kinds of errors more likely. Deterrence means reducing the chances somebody makes an error in favor of war. Sending signals of ineptitude and weakness makes it more likely deterrence fails. Adversaries have no better yardstick by which to assess intentions than actions. The West has explicit and implicit commitments to support Ukraine. Failure to do so provides a compelling argument for the West’s incapacity. If Western powers wish for their adversaries and their publics to not come to this conclusion, they must back Ukraine in line with their commitments. If not for the sake of Ukraine, then to maintain deterrence in their own interests.

Feldman takes the case of Hugo Stinnes (1870-1924), a titan of German industry and representative of the interests of the financial and industrial elite. Having been born into possession of Ruhr Valley coal mines, Stinnes expanded into international coal ventures, entered the shipping industry, and collaborated with August Thyssen to form the largest power company in Europe. From this towering position, he rubbed shoulders with the political elite of German society, including the Kaiser and his entourage and was therefore among those positioned to attempt to shape state policy towards his own interests.

The Interests of Business

What is significant in this study is that Feldman shows that Stinnes—typical of German business leaders—far from desiring a war, completely failed to prepare for one. “In the years before the war, Stinnes moved into commercial shipping by founding Midgard Lines; his firm had agencies throughout Europe and the Middle East, as well as in the United States and Latin America.” Likewise, he possessed extensive coal mining interests in Wales, Normandy, and Belgium. “The fact was that Stinnes was anxious to make money wherever he could, be it in the Balkans or in Brazil. He took a similar view of business with France, and he was busily buying into French enterprises and ore fields in Longwy and Normandy shortly before the war, apparently without much concern about the testy relations between Germany and France.” This is not the behavior of a man who believed war was in his interest.

Stinnes certainly sought to benefit from German imperialism, appealing to the German government to defend his ability to compete with French interests in Anatolia for instance. However, his interests were specifically commercial, a matter of self-interest rather than imperial aggrandizement. His interest abroad was aimed at gaining market access, not necessarily territorial acquisition. This made Stinnes relatively moderate, far from those who believed Germany needed a colonial empire to fulfill its destiny.

To the consternation of the more aggressively-minded Pan-Germans, he maintained that “the world would now be ruled by economic interest, by the great entrepreneurs and the banks.” His typically chauvinistic view was that the superior qualities of German business would ensure its swift economic dominance of Europe. “Let things develop quietly for three or four years and Germany will be the uncontested economic ruler of Europe.” As such, he viewed the recent confrontation over French interests in Morocco as bad form—overt clashes roused national pride and so ruined opportunities for German business to simply outcompete the interests of other nations. Much has been made of the sense of malaise in Europe before the First World war and the decadence of the “Fin de siecle” particularly the sense in Germany that it was in decline. Yet this is not at all the trend we see from Stinnes. Stinnes viewed German aggrandizement by war as absurd.

From the standpoint of industry, Germany’s rise was continuing apace. This perspective, supported in retrospect by economic historians, spoke against the strategic wisdom of a war. Unsurprisingly, the conviction of the Kaiser that Germany must become a “world power or perish” was a flawed concept—significantly: big business knew it. For the industrialists, German power rested upon them and the fate of nations would be determined by the strength of their industries rather than crude measures of armies and fleets. Who owned a piece of territory on a map was less important than who owned the companies that exploited it.

The Sword of Damocles

The prospect of war was therefore certainly a cause for concern, but efforts at mitigating risk were limited. If business better judged the costs of a war, it underrated its likelihood. Feldman details an attempt by Stinnes to protect his merchant vessels in case of war by seeking neutral ports or else arranging the sale of his ships—potentially to his English subsidiary. However, this was soon dropped as it was made clear to him that Prize Law left no room for this kind of maneuvering. If war came, there was nothing Stinnes could do to avoid the loss of his merchant fleet to the Royal Navy.

Interestingly, in case of war with the Entente over Morocco, Stinnes provided instructions to his merchant captains to seek refuge in St. Petersburg. As late as 1911, Stinnes apparently assumed that war with England would not necessarily mean war with Russia. While not entirely impossible, such a scenario ran counter to the existing power blocs and demonstrated a degree of unreality and wishful thinking to Stinnes’s attitude towards war. Far from desiring it, he (and the class he represented) could scarcely imagine it well enough to seriously prepare for it. Emblematic of the optimism of business, Feldman writes, “Stinnes’s firms… were reporting confidently that there would be peace in the Balkans for a decade following the Second Balkan War.” Further demonstrating this lack of anticipation, Stinnes declined to enter the arms manufacturing industry. Competing with Krupp was considered too risky—hardly the assessment one would make if preparing for war.

The Swing Right

What is confusing about the story of Stinnes is his behavior during the war. While seemingly unable to seriously imagine war before it came, he became a staunch annexationist once it did. Stinnes was a backer of militarists like Erich von Ludendorff and utterly convinced of Germany’s eventual victory. It is not hard to see why one might conclude from this behavior that Stinnes had desired war. What’s more, after the war and towards the end of his life, he became involved in financially supporting far-right causes including the NSDAP and the Beer Hall Putsch. He was far from the only industrialist to tread this path. These actions make it hard to believe in the innocence of industry as a whole in the decision of Germany to go to war in 1914. Nevertheless, in the reams of documents that exist documenting Stinnes’s views before the war, there is no evidence to suggest these attitudes were pre-existing.

The explanation for this apparent reversal is that his views changed as the situation did. On the other hand, we should not be all that surprised that the First World War was sufficient to produce a radical shift in the worldview of those who experienced it. This may not seem remarkable, but it is at odds with a materialist explanation for the First World War. For Stinnes, the world of open trade and industrial competition had vanished in the violence of 1914. While he would have liked the old world to be restored, the universal acrimony made that impossible. Stinnes believed (ultimately correctly) that the nationalist forces the war had strengthened would prevent a return to a liberal trade order. As such, the only option available was that Germany seize the territories needed to ensure its economic strength.

Feldman argues this adaptation to circumstances also explains the ability of Stinnes and other German industrialists to try to ask the victorious Entente not levy high war reparations on the defeated Germany without inconsistency. This, of course, also matched their self-interest, but it aligned with a larger world-view that the interests of business were best suited by a system that enabled trans-national commerce. War and the annexations were arrived at only as a substitute. The world of rational progress that Stinnes and his colleagues had operated in had proved illusory and the dream of a peaceful rise had vanished. The four years of privation, barbarity, patriotism, and propaganda created believers in a new age of struggle. Industry’s drive to German domination of Europe was a product of the war, not a cause of it.

The Responsibility of Industry

If we accept Feldman’s argument that Stinnes is representative of German industry as a class, there is still reason that it must shoulder some blame for the coming of war. Stinnes’s support for Bethmann-Hollweg aligned him with the national liberal bloc and away from more bellicose factions within German politics. Yet, Bethmann still represented a fatally flawed status quo. The chancellor had no intention or capacity to remedy the polycratic dysfunction the Empire’s constitution had bequeathed it. What’s more, while not seeking war, the school of foreign policy Bethmann pursued deliberately courted it. Industry leaders, focusing on the short term, passively accepted an irresponsible system of government. The disastrous reality of a war between the power blocs was unimaginable to them and so they not only failed to prepare for it but could do nothing to avert it. They failed to recognize that the system of government they supported was gravely imperiling the system on which they had founded their prosperity.

Far from architects of the European conflagration, German business upheld the rudderless status quo, trusting that it could continue indefinitely. The trends of the present were mistaken for the march of history, the looming disaster unnoticed in the face of the tumult of the moment. Emblematic of this, into July of 1914 Stinnes continued to be more concerned about preparing for a strike than for war. One might think picketing workers rated a higher threat to his interests in Wales than a blockade by the Royal Navy! Capital in the German empire, far from the engine of a self-aggrandizing war, was literally banking on a long period of peace—Feldman notes the Reichsbank resorted to threatening legal action in an effort to force banks to increase their cash reserves. Long term planning, whether for war or recession, did not come naturally to German business.

The Case of Stinnes

The story of Hugo Stinnes is important not just because of what it tells us about the causes of WWI but as a caution against sweeping materialist narratives. While German industrialists sought to benefit through annexations when war came, that ambition emerged from the shattering of their pre-war worldview. War led to the contemplation of annexations, not the reverse. Stinnes had not believed war would benefit Germany’s material interests or his own. As he maintained before 1914, peace was in Germany’s interest—it is hardly possible to understand his continued investments in Wales, Normandy, and St. Petersburg if this conviction was less than genuine. But even if his material interests had aligned with war, other considerations may well have overcome them. Not having to bury your sons is an interest that cannot be easily valued. Stinnes wrote to his wife in 1913, expressing his hope for a decade of peace “one would hope even longer because of our boys.”

German business did not press the country to war in 1914, though it quickly adopted an annexationist platform and went on to support the far-right in the Weimar period. It was therefore not entirely unjustified when the industrialists felt that politics had come to ruin all that they had been poised to gain for Germany by commerce—even if they could not accept that it was their own nation that was responsible.

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What keeps Clausewitz relevant, despite the innumerable developments in military practice since the posthumous publication of On War, is that it remains the only enduring work to attempt to provide a theory of war as a social phenomenon. Like other writers, Clausewitz sought to provide practical advice in his work. This contributes to the impression that his work is dated. The practical advice and examples used are grounded in the recent experience of the Napoleonic Wars and the then-well-studied “cabinet wars” of the 18th century. Therefore when On War turns to subjects such as fortresses or marching, its enduring relevance is hard to see. In some places, it is true that the advice is too specific to have general applicability. However, the reason Clausewitz so often turns to concrete examples of war in his time is in an effort to test and demonstrate the applicability and usefulness of the theoretical parts of his work. In his view, for a theory to be useful, it had to match reality. In light of this, Clausewitz had no small amount of derision for much of what passed for military theory in his time.

“For in these matters everyone thinks that whatever comes into his head when he takes up a pen is quite good enough to be said and printed, and holds it to be as far beyond doubt as that two and two make four. If [the critic] would give himself the trouble, as I have done, to think over the subject for years and years and always compare his conclusions with the actual history of war, he would certainly be more cautious with his criticism.”

For Clausewitz, the test of any theory of war was whether it fit the record of history. While he died with his work unfinished, he nevertheless outlined a theory that matches the record of history, without resorting to exceptions.

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The Historical Test

In pursuit of the common thread of war throughout time, Clausewitz managed to never lose sight of the great changes the conduct of war undergoes. “War is, therefore, not only a veritable chameleon, because in each concrete case it changes somewhat its character.” Clausewitz had witnessed first-hand a revolution in the conduct of war. The Napoleonic Wars shattered the 18th century’s canon of works on tactics and strategy. Clausewitz understood clearly that any effort to define war based on the characteristics of war of his time would inevitably become outdated and so sought the nature of war, to find what was true in the past, present, and for all time.

Clausewitz’s theory tells us that wars of the past were not fought differently because of inferior methods, but because different methods were more suitable to the socio-political circumstances of the time. Rather than seeing a one-way track towards larger wars, Clausewitz recognizes that war may change to be either more or less extreme, dependent on the political circumstances.

This historical methodology reveals that what is often considered characteristic of “new war” such as hybrid and proxy warfare are in fact forms of war that long predate the periods they are most popularly associated with.. How should we characterize the French bankrolling of the Protestant League during the Thirty Years’ War other than as a proxy war? We see the same in Thucydides’s History of the Peloponnesian War (5th Century BC), where the Persians indirectly aided the Spartan alliance to weaken Athens. Whether it is with triremes in the Aegean or ATACMS in Ukraine, confronting rivals through a proxy would be far from unfamiliar to Clausewitz.

Civil wars and non-state actors are also far from modern innovations. Clausewitz lacked no shortage of civil strife from which to derive his understanding of war. The French Revolution was followed by the war in the Vendée that ended in bloody repression. From Alexander’s generals, to Caesar and Pompey, to the German Peasants’ war, there was no shortage of non-state actors in the canon of military tradition at the time Clausewitz wrote. Even the existence of religious fanatics causing trouble for states would scarcely be unfamiliar to man born less than a century and a half after the Wars of Religion ended.

As we can see, Clausewitz was not without diverse examples when he made the claim that while methods and means may change, war at its most fundamental remains the same.

“The need of combat very soon led men to special inventions to turn the advantage in it in their own favor. In consequence of these, combat has undergone very many changes; but in whatever way it is conducted its conception remains unaltered, and combat constitutes war… That arms and equipment are not an essential part of the concept of combat is clear, because mere wrestling is also combat.”

This is important because methods and means must be evaluated and an understanding of the nature of war is the only firm foundation from which to do so. From an understanding of war on this conceptual level, one can analyze proposed methods and means based off of both experience and historical example. Through this, the skilled adherent can avoid being on the wrong side of a revolution in military affairs, as Prussia experienced when its army, trained in the fashion of Frederick the Great, was crushed at Jena by France.

What Drives Change?

“What is more natural than that the war of the French Revolution had its own way of doing things? And what theory could have included that peculiar method?” Clausewitz writes. Clausewitz did not anticipate tanks or drones—nor did he imagine the carnage of the world wars. But On War was written with the understanding that the changes in the practice of war could not be anticipated. To be useful, in light of this lack of clairvoyance, Clausewitz sought both the essential nature of war and the factors that determine its form. By understanding war in the abstract, a theory can therefore provide a framework to judge how developments will affect how it is fought in practice.

It is from this that the “strange trinity” of the forces that constitute war comes. Whether it is conducted through mere wrestling, with mechanized divisions, or through hybrid means, . There is 1. Passion, hate, and enmity 2. “The play of probabilities and chance” 3. Intelligence, and the “character of a political tool.” These factors of society, which Clausewitz corresponds to people, army, and state in his own time, shape the practice of war in every era. It was the degree of engagement of the people, for example, that differentiated the genteel cabinet wars of the 18th century, and the new modes represented by Napoleon in his own time.

On Modern War

The genius of Clausewitz is that we may hang the wars of the more recent past on this framework without contradiction. The paradoxical trinity can explain the wars of Fredrick the Great as well as the World Wars. Clausewitz’s continued usefulness may best be seen in his ability to explain America’s ill-fated wars in Afghanistan and Vietnam. “If our opponent is to do our will,” writes Clausewitz, “we must put him in a position more disadvantageous to him than the sacrifice that we demand. The disadvantages of his position should naturally, however, not be transitory, or, at least, should not appear so, or our opponent would wait for a more favorable moment and refuse to yield.” This observation may equally be applied to Napoleon’s march on Moscow and to the American strategy in Afghanistan. In both cases, a misjudgment as to what position the enemy needed to be placed into led to defeat. Clausewitz passes his own test of applicability to historical examples without inconsistency.

Clausewitz provides us with the framework for understanding how great powers like the United States can be defeated by manifestly weaker foes. Central to his work is the idea that war in the abstract does not exist in reality. In “purely military” terms, the United States had enough force available to do whatever it wanted to Vietnam or Afghanistan. But, as Clausewitz argues, war is not separated from all other aspects of human intercourse. For a state to invariably employ its maximum force, “An effort of will would be required disproportionate to the object in view and impossible to call forth.” The purely military logic of using maximum force is necessarily modified by the interests of the government and the passion (or dispassion) of the populace. The “strange trinity” proves a useful lens through which to view wars that have taken shapes unimaginable to Clausewitz.

In On War, Clausewitz asks what the wars of the past and present had in common so as to find the essential characteristics that constitute the nature of war that will hold true in the future, no matter the revolutionary changes its form undergoes. By understanding its nature, we can better anticipate how various factors will impact its form. For this reason, the core of his work endures in a way that few works in military history have. Arguments that his work is outdated on the basis of changes in the form of war or the means employed miss the mark. To abandon Clausewitz, one must argue that the nature of war has changed or else is other than as he described it. For this reason, if no other, Clausewitz is worth your time.

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“Prussian field marshals do not mutiny.”

-Field Marshal Erich von Manstein, when asked to join the plot against Hitler. 

At the time this was said, this amounted to a lie. The Beer Hall Putsch that Hitler was imprisoned for was, after all, co-led by Field Marshal Ludendorff. Nor was that the first time the officer corps had mutinied; in 1920, officers carried out the Kapp Putsch and the Reichswehr refused to act against them. As Hans von Seekt said, “Reichswehr do not fire on Reichswehr.” 

We can therefore consider Manstein less-than-honest when he appealed to the honor and loyalty of the Prussian officer to refuse opposing Hitler. The officer corps offered its fealty (even debasement) to right wing dictators and the coups that swept them to power. Only a few extended true loyalty to the Weimar Republic. Fewer still could muster the courage to oppose Hitler, even when it was clear his policies would lead Germany to ruin. 

Claus von Stauffenberg, who placed the bomb that nearly killed Hitler, (made famous by his portrayal by Tom Cruise in the film “Valkyrie”) was motivated not primarily by moral outrage at Nazi policies, but by the belief that the war was lost and a negotiated settlement was Germany’s only hope. There were, of course, many motivated to resist by conscience, but it easy to overstate the humanitarian concerns of the German officer corps. In this way, the July 20th Plot can be used as an alibi for the German officer corps, contributing to the “clean Wehrmacht” myth. 

With that background and disclaimer, we may move on to the main purpose of this post: using the plan of Operation Valkyrie to look at the strategic logic behind coups. By using this case and comparing it to the attempt to overturn the US 2020 election, we may identify common threads to coups and more clearly understand the strategic motivations that dictate their component actions. 

Anatomy of a Coup

1. Destabilization 

“Crown jurist of the Third Reich,” Carl Schmitt, identified the concept of a “state of exception,” similar to a state of emergency. This is a situation in which the sovereign is justified in acting extra-legally because of its urgency. Schmitt identifies the “sovereign” as whatever group of individual acts in the crisis. A crisis of this kind is needed to execute a coup because public opinion is biased towards the status quo. For radical change like a coup to be accepted, the option of preserving the status quo must be removed. 

It is in this state of chaos that the coup plotters aim to act, “restoring” order and using the urgency of the crisis to justify abandoning all processes and precedent. In a crisis, after all, there is no time for votes in the legislature, let alone decisions by courts or by election. 

The destabilization does not need to be instigated by the coup plotters. Indeed, the coup that brought Hitler to power was prompted by the Reichstag Fire, an incident caused by a Dutch communist. All that is needed is an excuse, which can be manufactured. The Reichstag Fire, after all, was not a true crisis; one man set fire to a government building. Nevertheless, the incident was dramatic enough to provide cover for Hitler to claim that a communist revolt was in progress and convince President Hindenburg to suspend civil liberties. 

Some kind of dramatic incident helps the odds of a coup, but the “state of emergency” can be declared on an entirely fabricated basis. Elections are a common target for this approach. Irregularities are rarely obvious and so claims of rigging are difficult to disprove. An election means inherent uncertainty as the locus of legitimate power. Coup plotters may therefore use an election and alleged irregularities as a strong pretext with which to “restore order,” seizing power in the name of democracy. Nascent democracies that fall into dictatorship often go by this route.

This was the method attempted by the Trump campaign in 2020. By broadcasting false accusations of rigging and finding lawyers willing to launch spurious lawsuits, the campaign sought to sow doubt. Likewise, the fake elector scheme was designed not to supplant the legitimate electors, but to make them contested. These elements were coordinated with the aim of creating sufficient uncertainty that a seizure of power by undemocratic means would be accepted as a restoration of order. As we will later discuss, this effort failed. 

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In the case of the July 20th Plot, the means of destabilization was the assassination of Hitler. The method was a suitcase bomb in a conference room that failed to achieve its intended effects because it was coincidentally moved behind the leg of a table, mostly shielding Hitler from the blast. Decapitating the autocratic regime would have thrown Germany into chaos. The status quo would be irreversibly broken, and while other actors such as the SS would have sought to consolidate power, the vacuum offered the necessary opportunity for the plotters to make a claim to be the legitimate sovereign. 

The basic prerequisite of a coup then, is that existing order be disrupted, even if this disruption is manufactured or merely perceived. There must be some kind of crisis that de-legitimizes the old regime and demonstrates that order must be restored. To borrow Schmitt’s terms, there must be a state of exception so that it is—for a moment—unclear who the sovereign is. In this emergency, the plotters aim to step forth and prove their status as sovereign by guaranteeing order. It is this step that will occupy our next section. 

2. Seizure

The saying goes that “possession is nine-tenths of the law.” For states, the same holds true. This is to say that by seizing the state apparatus the coup plotters seek to inaugurate themselves as the new status quo and gain at least quasi-legal status. By becoming the status quo, they may avail themselves of the advantages of the bias in that direction. Opposition would have to create a new destabilization in order to perform a counter-coup. For this reason, the opposition will resist the seizure, seeking to prolong the chaos while to organize against the coup. If neither side can swiftly overcome the other and both sides fail to seize the state, the product is civil war.

Returning to Carl Schmitt, his theory is that whichever force steps forth to act in the state of emergency shows itself to be the true sovereign, as it is capable of acting when all the trappings of law are suspended. Few people today would accept this theory. The idea of “popular sovereignty,” that all legitimate power can only come from the consent of the governed, has no real ideological challengers. Yet, Schmitt’s theory provides some practical insight for those of us that do not share his dictatorial sympathies. The proto-liberal theorist, Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), identified the fundamental role of the state as maintaining security and avoiding the anarchic state of nature, which he describes as a war of “all against all.” The state must therefore be a “Leviathan,” a great force able to crush civil conflict, to deter the violence of private individuals. Schmitt’s state of exception is a situation in which it is unclear who controls the Leviathan. There is no power ready to prevent civil war and private violence threatens to become ubiquitous.

Despite widespread belief in the principle of popular sovereignty, it is clear that many people prioritize the establishment of a Leviathan over whether it is done democratically. This preference is understandable, as the alternative is civil war or even a failed state, where things approach the idea of the war of all against all. When staring into that abyss, many people (both members of the public and figures in power), will prefer the devil-you-know and accept whatever sovereign has presented itself. This is, of course, by no means a guarantee of passivity. When facing domination by political enemies, there are many that will prefer a leap in the dark. If a coup is merely in progress or has failed to firmly establish itself, dislodging the plotters may not seem difficult. As such, the immediate aim of the coup plotters is to gain control over the security apparatus so that opposition can be dealt with as criminals rather than on the battlefield. 

It is for this reason that coup plotters have the immediate goal of legitimation; they must establish themselves as the continuation of the Leviathan and convince the apparatus of state to follow their directives. A cloak of legality or consensus is valuable. In this stage, support from trusted institutions, elder statesmen are valuable. Likewise,  the approval of rump-legislatures is useful, even if they do not have the formal power to do so or if the measure is passed at gunpoint. Plotters may also seek support from the media and encourage their supporters to hold rallies and marches to signal popular consensus. 

The July 20th plotters intended to use the German reserve army to seize power on the home-front. “Operation Valkyrie,” which the coup attempt is often called, was in fact a pre-existing operation designed for quelling an uprising on the home front. The plotters modified the existing operation to act as a coup. By using an existing plan and issuing orders from legitimate authorities, the coup plotters aimed to avoid the appearance of a coup. 

They intended to blame the assassination on members of the Nazi party and claim that it, along with the SS, was attempting to usurp power. This pretext was necessary to carry along those that were unwilling to commit an act of rebellion. The lie that the other side has attempted a coup is a common device of coup plotters. It allows them to present themselves not as Jacobins destroying the old regime, but as responsible leadership restoring law and order. The July 20th Plot failed before it began because, in failing to kill Hitler, there was no vacuum to fill. Within hours, Hitler was able to issue orders to crush the conspiracy. 

The strategy of presenting a coup as a counter-coup was also employed in 2020 in the “fake elector” scheme. As has been extensively shown in documents released as part of the Special Counsel investigation, the conspirators knew they did not have the votes to win the election and that the “alternative” slates of electors they appointed were illegitimate and unconstitutional. As aforementioned, they sought to create a crisis by casting aspersions on the legitimacy of the election, making baseless claims of widespread fraud. 

The John Eastman memos lay out the theory: The Vice President (or Senate Pro Tempore Grassley if Pence recused himself), counting the votes as required by the Constitution, would reject the votes from the swing states Trump had lost, citing the competing slates of electors. Trump would then be declared the winner of the election on the basis that he had the most electoral votes of the remaining states. If this failed, the Vice President would refer the matter to the house, where the matter would be voted on by state delegation, of which Republicans controlled a majority.

In one of the most blatant hallmarks of a coup, Eastman insists that the VP must do this without asking permission, in other words, a fait accompli. This was, as explicitly as one can write it, the seizure component. From this, possession of the state would be in the hands of the conspirators. The other side would then have the burden of attempting to overturn the order while the conspirators can declare the matter closed. As the conspirators were currently in government, the seizure phase was very simple. A self-coup requires only acquiescence from the administrative state, whereas an ordinary coup requires the changing of allegiance. As the coup attempt never reached this point, it is unclear how much success it might have had in this regard. The Kapp Putsch succeeded in forcing the government to flee, but ultimately faltered in the face of a general strike and non-compliance from the civil service. One would hope Americans would not allow democracy to be subverted by chicanery, but the alternative would have looked distinctly like a leap into the abyss. 

The fake electors plot was unsuccessful primarily because it relied on the support of Vice President Mike Pence, who was ultimately unpersuaded to reject the electoral votes needed or to recuse himself. Long before January 6th, the coup plan was effectively dead in the water. Yet, January 6th offered a chance to revive it. If Pence was unpersuaded by the legal arguments or the allegations that the election was “stolen,” a mob of militia might coerce or convince him. If not, a mob told to “fight” could disrupt certification. 

The role of the riot is clear in statements made to Mike Pence. The riot created a disruption which would provide a pretext for denying certification of the electoral votes. The plan to use the fake electors to overturn the election was to be revived from the brink. The legal challenges to the results had gone nowhere. More importantly, Mike Pence was not convinced of its legality (or, less charitably, plausibility). The aims of the rioters were to:

1. pressure Pence into refusing to certify

2. delay the proceedings to allow Pence to be pressured

3. as they said, “hang Mike Pence.” 

While there was little practical chance of the third aim, there is a clear logic to the battlecry: if the “meddlesome VP” was gotten rid of, someone more compliant could be appointed. And of course, the threat contributed to the aim of intimidating Pence into compliance—or at least providing him a reason to delay the proceedings more credible than the “kraken” lawsuits. If the certification could not be done safely, that gave a clear pretext to delay it, even if Pence was unconvinced to actively participate in the coup.

This reading of events is further supported by the views of contemporaries. Mike Pence refused to be whisked away by Secret Service agents for fear that he would not be allowed to return to the Capitol if he intended to certify the electoral votes. Even without his agreement, the riot could serve as an excuse to delay certification. The Trump White House could have ordered the secret service to prevent him from returning to the Capitol, ostensibly for his own security. 

Then-President Trump also realized the potential of the riot. Mere minutes before the Senate chamber was evacuated he tweeted:

States want to correct their votes, which they now know were based on irregularities and fraud, plus corrupt process never received legislative approval. All Mike Pence has to do is send them back to the States, AND WE WIN. Do it Mike, this is a time for extreme courage!

The connection is clear: Trump hoped the violence of the riot would pressure Pence into going along with the coup. 

Further evidence is that after rioters breached the Capitol he tweeted: 

The States want to redo their votes. They found out they voted on a FRAUD. Legislatures never approved. Let them do it. BE STRONG!

Congressional leadership also understood the danger. Both Nancy Pelosi and Mitch McConnell moved to quickly reoccupy the building and ensure certification occurred as soon as possible. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark Milley, feared the riot would be Trump’s “Reichstag fire.” He, like the other figures mentioned, clearly saw its potential to be used as the destabilization that precedes and justifies a coup. 

The aim of the conspirators was to use the chaos of the riot as an excuse to revive and execute the coup as devised by Eastman. The theory relied on Pence refusing certification or recusing so someone could do so in his stead. The insurrection aimed at creating the disruption that the allegations of vote rigging had failed to produce. The hope of the rioters, as established in their prosecutions, was to disrupt the counting of votes in the hope that the outcome could be changed. As demonstrated by the choices and logic of those on scene, there was a serious danger that the conspirators would successfully use the chaos as a pretext for throwing out the votes of the states with slates of fake electors.

The Present, The Future

I wish to make unequivocally clear that describing Jan. 6 as a coup attempt is not mere partisan hyperbole or hysteria. In fact, the coup attempt had begun with the presentation of the Eastman memos to Pence. It had been stillborne because of Pence’s resistance, but the chaos of the riot revived it. There was a new excuse to deny certification and a new chance to further pressure Pence. The riot was not merely a riot, just as the Reichstag fire was not merely a fire, nor was the attempt to kill Hitler merely an assassination attempt. They were each the first “destabilization” phase of a coup attempt. By entering a state of crisis and emergency, the coup plotters seek the Schmittian “state of exception” where they may present themselves as the sovereign. 

Hitler succeeded in using the Reichstag Fire as a pretext for abolishing civil rights in Germany because Hindenburg acquiesced. A self-coup often requires little more than compliance from legal or quasi-legal authority. In the state of exception, matters of constitutional interpretation do not have time to be debated.

The sole point that prevented the Jan. 6th coup from proceeding, throwing America into a constitutional crisis at best and civil strife at worst was the refusal of Mike Pence to go along with the plot. While Pence ultimately refused, that outcome was by no means certain. Numerous accounts, including that of former VP Dan Quayle, relate that Pence asked repeatedly whether there was any way he could decline to certify without—in his own mind—violating the constitution. Likewise, on Jan. 6, if Pence had been taken and not permitted to return to the Capitol, there would have been immense pressure on him not to certify. As such, we cannot say how likely the “fake elector” scheme was to succeed. Suffice to say, there are no clear mechanisms for reversing course if Pence had adhered to the strategy Eastman proposed. 

As the election nears, therefore, we ought to look carefully for attempts to create the destabilization needed to justify an illegal seizure of power. Alleging fraud can be a means of presenting the conspirators as the guardians of order, rather than a destabilizing force. An election creates inherent uncertainty as to where legitimate authority lies until a winner takes power. In this case, we may take some comfort that the threat is no longer a “self-coup,” and is therefore much more difficult to accomplish. Unfortunately, that is not enough to rest easy. A coup does not need to succeed to cause tremendous damage or to open the floodgates of civil strife. It is for this reason I have chosen to write on the subject, despite this newsletter not being focused on domestic politics. Therefore, let Principiis obsta (“resist beginnings!”) be our guide, and—as with a cancer—let us identify and excise a coup plot early, before a mob nears our Capitol or fake electors are appointed. 

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Using data from the non-profit watchdog Airwars, argues (in this piece) that American airstrikes are more deadly than Russian airstrikes for civilians (on a per strike basis). This claim piqued my interest considering Russian use of terror bombing in both Syria and Ukraine. This prompted me to take a closer look at the methodology he used but especially at that of Airwars and how the organization tallies the dead. I don’t wish for this post to be seen as an attempt to dunk on or otherwise disparage or Airwars. This post is purely a catalog of my own investigation and thoughts on the matter that I hope will spark further discussion about the way casualties are counted. 

Airwars places incidents that cause civilian casualties in one of five categories: confirmed, fair, weak, contested, and discounted. In its headline estimate of civilian deaths, it combines both the “fair” and “confirmed” incidents to reach the total. This is also the number uses for a lower bound of casualties. “Confirmed” means a belligerent has accepted responsibility for the casualties. uses Airwars’s statistics of Russian strikes in Syria and US-led strikes in Syria and Iraq as his initial point of comparison. Since Russia has acknowledged no civilian deaths in Syria, there are no confirmed deaths attributed in that category. 

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Therefore, it is most useful to determine what Airwars considers a “fair” incident. Their description is “Where, in the view of Airwars, there is a reasonable level of public reporting of an alleged civilian casualty incident from two or more credible sources (often coupled with biographical, photographic or video evidence).” This seems a reasonable standard, but it does not distinguish between the credibility of the incident and the credibility of the attribution. It is much easier to determine that people were killed than to say who killed them. 

A major limitation with using Airwars as a metric is that it does not judge proportionality. A strike that kills a hundred IS fighters and ten civilians would be undoubtedly proportionate under the laws of war. However, Airwars does not differentiate such a strike from one in which the inverse ratio is true (ten civilians are killed for one combatant). Nor does Airwars distinguish attacks that directly target civilians rather than harming them through collateral damage. The result is that civilian casualties caused by callousness or criminality are treated the same as though caused through adherence to the laws of war. 

Taking an incident at random from those graded fair and attributed to the US coalition, one incident is described as the following: “‘Two unidentified men’ were reported killed in a Coalition ground operation in Al-Mananiya, east of Raqqa, on August 16th…. It is unclear at this point whether the men were civilians or belligerents.” This seems an insufficient standard by which to establish a lower bound for civilian casualties. These could be civilians. However, absent other evidence (given that these men were affirmatively targeted under the rules of engagement of the coalition) it is not justified to rate these deaths as “fair” civilian casualties. At most, they are of unknown status and (as Airwars notes) disputed by the coalition. 

Let us look at another incident with the same rating, this time chosen randomly from the Russian attributed incidents in Syria:

At least two people were killed, an elderly man and an 18-year-old boy, and between three and five people were seriously injured, including a woman, a male child and a female child, when alleged Russian bombs hit a disused water station, near the villages of Urri and Ain Shib, west of Idlib, around midnight on August 22nd 2023. All of the victims were living in the water station after having been displaced and SY-24 reported they were all from the same family.

This incident, in which clear noncombatants are killed is given the same rating as an ambiguous case. Any system of grading reported casualties will have limitations, but it is clear that the range of cases within the “fair” rating mean that it cannot serve as a lower bound estimate.

In this incident, for example, some sources accuse the coalition of bombarding a hospital with white phosphorus, killing anywhere from 12-250 civilians; these allegations are flatly denied by the coalition. Furthermore, Airwars appears to count child soldiers as civilians. The page even includes the following quote: Asked to clarify the status of child soldiers according to the laws of war, Dapo Akande, Professor of Public International Law at the University of Oxford, told Airwars: “With regard to child soldiers, the fact that they are children will not change the law regarding whether they can be targeted. If they are members of an organized armed group or taking direct part in hostilities they can be targeted – even if they are doing this against the wishes of their families (or even against their own wishes).” Yet Airwars classifies this as “fair” and tallies these deaths as civilian casualties caused by coalition action. Elsewhere, IS use of human shields in assaults is also not enough to move deaths into the “contested” category of responsibility. 

The methodological discrepancies do not end there. Airwars is counting Iraqi government artillery strikes to the death toll of the US-led coalition. Militia artillery strikes from the SDF and other Kurdish forces are also ascribed to the US-led coalition. The broad approach Airwars uses to attribute deaths to the coalition as a whole makes it impossible to extrapolate a general lethality of US strikes towards civilians from that data as attempts to. It does not require any research or deep analysis to know that American airstrikes are more precise than Iraqi artillery fire. Mashing the two sets of data together tells us little that is worthwhile. You might as well say Taylor Swift and I have eleven platinum albums between us. Technically true, but not very enlightening. 

This is a problem that Airwars accounts for by placing attacks that cannot be identified as “contested.” Using only “confirmed” and “fair” incidents therefore omits the many attacks where Russian planes were indistinguishable from their Syrian allies. As the other list is of the “US-led coalition” in its entirety, incidents where a specific country's planes are not identifiable are not marked as contested, but instead added to the total. “Coalition” is specific enough when it comes to the US and its allies, but Airwars has decided to be more granular when it comes to Russia and Syria, leading to many more cases being marked as “contested.” 

The difference in missions is also a significant explanatory factor. According to the US State Department, 90% of Russian air strikes were not targeting IS or Al-Qaeda assets in Syria, but instead moderate anti-regime groups. This is significant because if you look at many of the cases of civilian deaths in coalition strikes, the causes are related to secondary explosions from IS infrastructure located near civilians. For instance, an airstrike in support of Kurdish forces killed civilians as IS combatants had moved to a part of their camp that housed their families.  In Russia’s campaigns against rebels, consisting more of conventional fighting than counter-terror, civilian casualties are more likely the product of targeting policies rather than deliberate co-location by an adversary and secondary explosions. 

We need not infer in this case. There is ample evidence of Russian and Syrian government forces conducting the war crime of “double tap” strike, where a second strike is used to kill first-responders. Likewise, the Russians have demonstrably targeted civilians with incendiary munitions. Russian callousness towards civilians as a matter of organizational culture has clear precedent. The first Battle of Grozny saw as many as 25,000 civilians killed. By contrast, the Battle of Fallujah, notorious as bloody by American standards, saw 800 dead civilians. 

’s use of Kharkiv as a metric for Russian lethality towards civilians is particularly unsuitable.  Russian forces did not enter the city of Kharkiv itself, only the province. Perhaps most importantly, Kharkiv was a place the Russians were resoundingly defeated in relatively short order. This gave Russia little opportunity to conduct strikes that might cause mass casualties; those are uncommon when retreating in panic. Crucially, Russia has never enjoyed the air supremacy in Ukraine that it had in Syria. As such, statistics relating to Kharkiv are a poor indicator of typical Russian behavior (better exemplified by Bucha or the bombing of the theater in Mariupol, or the constant drone and missile terror bombings of Kyiv and other Ukrainian population centers). 

To Kharkiv, contrasts the Airwars statistics for deaths in Libya. However, he treats these statistics as US strikes, when they are in fact a tally of all parties’ actions. They are primarily a record of attacks resulting in civilian casualties by rival Libyan groups as well as the Turkish air force. Statistics relating to Libya from Airwars are simply not useful for a comparison of US lethality towards civilians.

Conclusion

Overall, I do think the Airwars project is doing useful work. It is important to a democratic society that strikes and their effects are monitored. If I could suggest a change to the methodology, it would be to add a “proportionality” metric and a specific flag for attacks suspected of targeting civilians. Raw numbers can tell some of the story, but they omit the information necessary to judge whether coalition practices caused more casualties than were necessary to defeat IS. It is possible, however unlikely, that this was the minimum number of civilian deaths needed to defeat IS. Looking at individual cases, we can see mistakes that lead to civilian casualties. But the aggregates of Airwars do not provide us a standpoint from which to judge the overall effectiveness of the coalition’s practices. 

As well, the broad category of “US-led coalition,” while an understandable limitation, presents a severe problem for using Airwars data to analyze practices. If the SDF is using inaccurate artillery pieces, that will result in high civilian losses regardless of American policy. A watchdog is most useful for critiquing military practices. A total that lumps the death tolls of militias with the USAF is not a useful tool for identifying flawed doctrine or culture. 

The more fundamental issue is that these statistics, even if measured accurately, could never provide a firm basis for the kind of comparison is seeking to make. Wars do not happen in a vacuum against an inert object. The nature of the war and the enemy will determine the civilian death toll frequently to a greater extent than the methods used in strike selection. Sheer incapacity is also a moderating force. Who can say what Russia might do to Ukraine’s cities and civilians if it could achieve air supremacy? The Russians have given us some idea in the course of their terror bombing and in their genocidal rhetoric. On the other hand, the US-led coalition fought against IS, an enemy actively seeking to instrumentalize civilians and exploit the protections they are afforded. The effects of doctrine are inevitably modified by the choices of the enemy. Use of human shields can lead to high civilian casualties even in the face of a fully cautious and moral targeting policy. Likewise, sheer weakness can mean that a policy of targeting civilians in actuality does no harm. 

Thus, Airwars is a bad source to actually compare the lethality of American and Russian airpower for civilians. It lumps the effects of coalition airstrikes with the casualties caused by militias and local security forces. At the same time, it fails to distinguish between deaths caused in proportional strikes, those caused by accident, and those caused by callous or deliberate targeting of civilians. The kind of statistical comparison is attempting is simply impossible from the Airwars dataset. The misinterpretation of this data creates the false impression that Russian practices are superior in humanitarian concern to American ones or produce superior results for civilians. Neither is true, as the citizens of Kyiv, Kharkiv, Bucha, Mariupol, Grozny, and Aleppo can attest.

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“We did, indeed, base ourselves upon the philosophy of war of Clausewitz, but we failed to develop it.”1 – KL von Oertzen, German Military Historian 

Twilight of the (Demi-)Gods 

By the 1870s, Germany was the dominant land power in Europe. It had defeated the preeminent powers on the continent and seemed poised for an era of dominance not seen since Napoleon. However, how quickly Germany’s power was checked and ultimately fell is a cautionary tale about the limits and consequences of the predominance of the military profession. Victories in the war had propelled the Prussian Officer Corps to the status of “demigods” that now held “unquestioned authority and legitimacy” in German politics and society.2 But this status meant they had carte blanche over war planning and became increasingly influential in politics. This produced a civil-military relationship in which, “leaders subordinated political ends to military ends; considerations of war dominated considerations of politics.”3 The German General staff was rapidly departing from Clausewitz's teachings regarding the primacy of policy.  

(This post was co-authored by , click the button below to check out his excellent posts on civil-military relations!)

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By the 1880s, Otto von Bismarck and Helmuth von Moltke, the key architects of German unification both politically and militarily, were nearing the end of their distinguished careers. Now, a younger generation of German nationalists and military officers were chomping at the bit to further expand Germany’s power and formed the engine of what some have called, “a political doomsday machine.”4 The militarists believed preemptive war was the uniform solution to the rising power of Germany’s neighbors. Likewise, success in the wars of unification had led nationalists to dream of a greater Germany “from Berlin to Baghdad.”5 Even in his late career, Bismarck had the experience and gravitas to stymie attempts to initiate a “preventative” war. For instance, in 1887, the senior military leadership cooked up a scheme to convince the Kaiser to declare war on Russia on a whim; they also encouraged Austria-Hungary to do the same. Bismarck stopped it before it became a crisis. But it was a bad omen and showed how the military leadership was increasingly out of control.  

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Bismarck and Moltke had their issues, but they eventually built a strong relationship, leading the Chief of the General Staff to discuss prospective war plans with the Chancellor, something that had not occurred regularly before and a sign of good civil-military relations. Moltke continued to hold his role until 1888 when he retired. His thinking in his late career had evolved beyond the axiomatic focus on total victory.6 The Battle of Sedan was as complete a victory as one could imagine, yet it did not end the Franco-Prussian War. The ensuing experience of the Volkskrieg (“People’s War”) which encompassed fighting a tough insurgency in France had disillusioned him with the idea of a short war. In one of his final speeches in the Reichstag in 1890, he stated of the next war that,  

“If this war breaks out, then its duration and its end will be unforeseeable. The greatest powers of Europe, armed as never before, will be going into battle with each other; not one of them can be crushed so completely in one or two campaigns that it will admit defeat, be compelled to conclude peace under hard terms, and will not come back, even if it is a year later, to renew the struggle. Gentlemen, it may be a war of seven years or thirty years’ duration—and woe to him who sets Europe alight, who rest puts the fuse to the powder keg!”7 

Moltke now conceded the need for diplomacy to find a resolution after the army did what it could. “Total victory” was no longer the objective. Unfortunately, by then, the aged Field Marshal was isolated in his work on operational plans and studies. The General Staff had been educated in his original concepts which had been inculcated in the official histories of the wars of unification. Moltke’s genius, shown in the breadth of his thinking, was never absorbed by the institution.  

German military historian Gerhard Ritter would distinguish Moltke from his successors for his lack of fatalism. While the Elder Moltke often pressed for preventative war, he made the argument from the military point of view, i.e. that war would be more advantageous now rather than later.8 Moltke was not overly disturbed when Bismarck quashed proposals of preventative war. In contrast to his successors, Moltke was confident in his ability to meet the challenges of war whenever it arrived. He did not view the political situation as intractable. If the statesman did not want to utilize an opportunity for an easy victory in a preventative war, that was the business of the statesman. In other words, Moltke accepted Bismarck’s “right to be wrong.” A working relationship was therefore possible with the statesman who described his policy as “the most dangerous road last.”9

In the final years of their careers, both Bismarck and Moltke foresaw the dangers of a Germany where military prerogatives began to overshadow political ones. Bismarck, the architect of Germany’s rise, understood that the state’s survival hinged not just on military prowess but on the balancing of diplomatic relationships and restrained use of force. Moltke, though a staunch advocate of military autonomy, ultimately recognized the futility of unchecked military power in the context of modern warfare. Their eventual departures left a vacuum, filled by more aggressive military leaders, weak chancellors, and a feckless Kaiser. The political flexibility that had defined Germany’s rise came to be disregarded. As the officer corps grew more entrenched in its dominance, the military’s rigid and totalizing mindset contributed to Germany’s plunge into one of the most destructive conflicts in human history.10  

Wilhelm II and Personal Rule 

Following the all-too brief reign of Frederick III, his son Wilhelm II, grandson of the first German Emperor, took power in 1888 (known as the “year of the three emperors.” From the start, the young Wilhelm was determined not to be the reserved figure of his grandfather and still less the liberal reformer that his ill-fated father had wished to be. Instead, Wilhelm believed it was his right and duty to be directly involved in the country's governing.  

This was completely incompatible with Bismarck’s system, which had centralized power upon his own person. With uncharacteristic focus and subtlety, Wilhelm sought to reclaim the power that his grandfather had ceded to the chancellor. This was not to prove especially difficult; Bismarck’s position had always relied upon his indispensability to the emperor. Thus, when Bismarck offered his resignation (as he often did during disputes) Wilhelm merely accepted it. The last great man of the wars of unification had now disappeared from the balance.  

While the German Empire never became a true autocracy, Wilhelm succeeded in creating what historian, and biographer of the Kaiser, John C. Röhl called a “personalist” system.11 The Kaiser had significant power over personnel. Promotions in the officer corps required his assent. Advancement within civil service (from which civilian ministers were appointed) was also dependent on his favor. By exercising this power, Wilhelm was able to ensure the highest levels of the German government were men agreeable to his point of view. Though they were not mere “yes men,” Wilhelm ensured that they were knowingly dependent on his favor for their position. The Kaiser—even to the end of the monarchy—exercised considerable “negative power” (as Röhl termed it.)12 While Wilhelm’s ability to actively make policy was limited, anything he disapproved of was simply not proposed.

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Wilhelm II's reign marked a departure from the more restrained leadership of his predecessors, as he sought to assert direct influence over the German Empire's governance and military affairs. This shift toward a more "personalist" system, where loyalty to the Kaiser outweighed true statesmanship, weakened the effectiveness of German leadership and contributed to its eventual strategic missteps. The rigid adherence to the Schlieffen Plan and the technocratic focus on material advantages, such as firepower and mobility, overshadowed the need for adaptable strategic thinking. These failures in both leadership and military planning set the stage for Germany's disastrous involvement in World War I, where an empire led by personalities rather than policies was ill-prepared for the complexities of modern warfare. Ultimately, Wilhelm's influence and the culture of sycophancy he fostered played a pivotal role in leading Germany down the path of ruin. 

The Military (Club) Cabinet 

Far less mentioned than the General Staff is the military cabinet. While the General Staff was responsible for operations, educating officers, and planning for war, the military cabinet was responsible for personnel decisions, and therefore was decisive in shaping the culture of the officer corps. What’s more, the Flügeladjutanten (aides-de-camp) were almost constantly in the company of the emperor due to Wilhelm’s preference for the company of soldiers.

Good civil-military relations are often a product of productive relationships between civilian leaders and military officials. However, Wilhelm saw himself not as a civilian or as an intermediary, but as a soldier through and through. Thus, the close contact and friendly relations influenced the Kaiser further towards a militaristic view. This is not to say a necessarily aggressive view, but in the sense that Wilhelm held the opinions of soldiers above those of his civilian ministers. These close associates formed something of a clique around the emperor. Wilhelm’s preference for their company and their impact on his views was cause for significant concern. Not only was the military cabinet not accountable to parliament, but it enjoyed far more regular direct access to the monarch than any other institution, including the General Staff, let alone the chancellor or war minister.13 

The military cabinet was thus dangerous in that extraordinary influence could wielded upon German policy by officers with no formal responsibility.14 By contrast, the chiefs of the general staff were generally more circumspect, aware that success or failure would rest on their heads. The Kaiser’s military entourage was free to encourage bellicosity and disparage civilian ministers, which they did regularly. Wilhelm’s power over personnel reinforced these tendencies. The military cabinet was staffed with personal associates who agreed with him. These men would then be responsible for managing the promotion of other officers, creating something of a feedback loop. It was no coincidence that before his appointment to Chief of the General Staff the Younger Moltke (nephew of the elder) had become acquainted with the Kaiser as a Flügeladjutant. Likewise, anyone who openly opposed the overbearing influence of the officers was unlikely to be appointed to the civilian cabinet. Wilhelm’s well-known bias incentivized deference amongst civilians to military views and encouraged officers to opine on matters beyond their expertise.  

While the General Staff represented the officer corps as a profession, the Military Cabinet reinforced the position of officers as a distinct caste, socially superior to their civilian counterparts. Under Schlieffen’s studious influence, the General Staff maintained its focus on areas of its exclusive responsibility. By contrast, the members of the Military Cabinet had no compunctions about opining on areas beyond their formal responsibility.  

The General Staff can therefore be criticized for its isolation, for failing to hold formal consultations on decisions with wide strategic implications. The military cabinet, on the other hand, can be criticized for its continual interference in matters beyond its expertise. This practice typically involved denigrating the views and competence of civilian ministers. 

Schlieffen’s Tenure 

As aforementioned, during Moltke’s late tenure he was occupied with operational studies. This proved deeply consequential as his deputy, protégé, and eventual successor Count Alfred von Waldersee was a shamelessly political general. Waldersee maneuvered to increase the power of the General Staff and reduce its accountability to the war ministry (and ultimately parliament). Waldersee was a strong influence on the young Wilhelm, reinforcing his desires to be harsh towards parliament, even encouraging a military coup if the civilians rejected this firm line.16 However, Waldersee only lasted from 1888-1891 in the office of Chief of the General Staff. His defeat of the emperor in the annual Kaisermanöver (“imperial exercises”) and subsequent critique made his tenure short. The Chief of the General Staff was clearly no less reliant on the Kaiser’s goodwill than his civilian counterparts.  

Waldersee’s downfall brought something of an inversion, as his successor was very much apolitical. The famous Count Alfred von Schlieffen was a firm guardian of the traditions and prestige of the General Staff. Unlike Waldersee, he did not seek political influence or office and was firmly convinced of the need to uphold the privileges of the crown. Unlike Waldersee, (and perhaps influenced by his fate) Schlieffen made sure Wilhelm was victorious in the annual maneuvers, typically by cavalry charge.17 This virtually eliminated any military utility they might have, but Schlieffen considered it necessary to maintain the dignity of the crown. Schlieffen proved even less politically inclined than the Elder Moltke, with no evidence that he so much as suggested preventative war.18  

In contrast to his successors, the Elder Moltke was far more broadly educated. The younger Moltke had a liberal education and was fundamentally humanist in outlook. Moltke ascribed his military career to mere chance, suggesting he might have been a writer otherwise. Succeeding general staff officers were educated in a far more specialized way. None exhibited this more clearly than Count Alfred von Schlieffen. The new Chief of the General Staff took an academic, almost monastic approach to his work and demanded the same from his subordinates. The General Staff was to be independent of outside influence, but also removed from influencing state policy.  The increased influence of the military therefore did not come from the intentions of this Chief of the General Staff.  

But with the fin de siècle and “scientific” theories like social Darwinism, the future seemed much surer than it had ever been. Advances in the physical sciences also gave a greater sense of certainty to the understanding of the world and thus fed the sense of inevitability. This emphasis on the scientific and technical served to elevate military expertise and the judgment of those who held it.  

This was further reinforced by the narrower, increasingly technical education of the officer corps which contributed to a focus on the purely military situation and fed the sense of fatalism. The Elder Moltke had appreciated, if not entirely agreed with, Bismarck’s analogy of statesmanship as wandering towards a set goal through a foggy and uncharted forest. Even the keenest minds and best-founded analysis could not divine the future with sufficient certainty to make great policy decisions on such a basis. Least of all was Bismarck willing to venture into a preventative war, famously decrying it as “suicide for fear of death.”  

Schlieffen, though anything but a political general, therefore nevertheless exerted considerable indirect influence on German policy. The authority to devise operational plans was exclusive to the General Staff as it was considered a purely technical matter. Yet this was clear fiction. Even by 1890s there was discussion of the violation of Belgian neutrality in a war with France as a matter of “military necessity” with little thinking of the political consequences. 

This comes to the core of the problem: (what Ritter calls the conflict between Sword and Scepter “Kriegshandwerk und Staatskunst”) the German empire had no formal authority through which to arbitrate between political and military advantages. Even the informing of political authority of politically significant decisions like the violation of neutral countries was left to informal channels. The decisive factor in civil-military relations was the Kaiser. Under the reign of Wilhelm I, Bismarck’s skill and favor had been able to produce a (mostly) functional model of civil-military relations. However, Wilhelm II considered himself a pure partisan for “his” (as supreme warlord) soldiers. His jealous defense of their rights and authority prevented civilians from imposing policy priorities on operational plans.  

Schlieffen’s emphasis on a clear separation from political questions de facto reinforced the supremacy of military judgment. Given the disposition of the Kaiser, only active efforts on the part of military leadership would have been able to permit policy to influence operations. One historian called Schlieffen “the greatest exponent of 'pure military thinking.”  But this wasn’t limited solely to Schlieffen as the German Army increasingly “concentrated on three focal points: intelligence, mobility, and firepower. All were material based. All appeared susceptible to bureaucratic and technocratic virtues of management and control.”  This focus on material advantages and technocratic management, however, obscured the deeper strategic flaws in the German military’s approach, contributing to the failure to adapt to the evolving nature of modern warfare. 

Schlieffen eventually came up with a plan that would become infamously known as the Schlieffen Plan. It aimed to avoid a prolonged two-front war by defeating France before turning to fight Russia. The plan involved a rapid invasion of France through neutral Belgium and the Netherlands, bypassing French defenses, and destroying the French Army in a grand encirclement.19 Afterward, German forces would shift east to confront Russia, which was expected to mobilize more slowly. Henry Kissinger would remark that his plan was, “as brilliant as it was reckless.”20 The plan hinged on a fundamental belief that the German army would be outnumbered no matter what and would have to use speed and maneuver to win victory. There is still a robust historical debate to the extent that Schlieffen and other German officers trusted the veracity of their plan or if they could even win a great European war. The destruction and taking of documents during World War II has left historians still trying to piece together this perspective.21  

There is substantial evidence that serious doubts existed about the Schlieffen Plan, as the German General Staff's own studies suggested that success was improbable even under ideal conditions, instead depending on “many lucky accidents,” as one historian concluded.22 Schlieffen himself even acknowledged at one point that his plan was “an enterprise for which we are too weak.”23 Schlieffen’s eventual successor, the Younger Moltke, supposedly told Wilhelm that even a war solely against France would be grim: “[It] cannot be won in one decisive battle but will turn into a long and tedious struggle with a country that will not give up before the strength of its entire people has been broken. Our own people too will be utterly exhausted, even if we should be victorious.”24 But if all these doubts were present and in writing in the way some historians present them, why did the German military go ahead with the plan anyways? The two possible explanations are that there were enough officers that both believed in the plan and felt compelled to carry out the duty regardless of the personal beliefs and that civilians quite frankly weren’t able to keep the army from its worst impulses. By the July Crisis, the Germany military was a fully loaded train that couldn’t be stopped even if the conductors (the German officer corps) wanted to.  

The Cult of the Offensive and Wargaming 

German unification had been marked by Bismarck’s careful maneuvering of European power politics ensuring that coalitions would not intervene or serve a check. After Bismarck’s departure, the Franco-Russian Alliance officially signed on 1894 upset that careful balance and created the nightmare strategic scenario for Germany; a war on two fronts. Bismarck had anticipated the repercussions of Germany’s great military victories and, in 1876, made an unsuccessful attempt to prevent a European coalition. He sought a guarantee from Russia to maintain Alsace-Lorraine as part of Germany in exchange for Germany’s unconditional support of Russian policy in the East. But by 1894, Bismarck was out of the picture and lesser men had taken his place who could not prevent the European powers inevitably marshaling against them.  

The German General Staff quickly threw itself into wargames (“kriegsspiel”) attempting to construct a plan that could solve this conundrum. The first wargame had been created in Prussia in 1780 by Johann Christian Ludwig Hellwig and had become an integral part of the German military profession and become a cult like activity.25 A wargame is a simulation that models military operations, strategic planning, or conflict scenarios to explore decision-making processes, test tactics, and evaluate potential outcomes26. Participants engage in a structured environment where they assume roles, make strategic choices, and analyze the consequences of their actions, often using rules, maps, and models to replicate real-world situations. In particular, the general staff centered its wargaming around offensive operations and attacking directly at the enemy to achieve “total victory.” This became particularly pronounced during Schlieffen’s tenure and led to a phenomenon that became known as the “Cult of the Offensive.”  

The “Cult of the Offensive” is a term that rose to prominence in the 1980’s and refers to a military doctrine and mindset prevalent among European military leaders before and during World War I, which emphasized the strategic advantage of offensive operations over defensive ones.27 This belief was rooted in a misreading of Clausewitz that led to the assumption that rapid and aggressive attacks would lead to quick and decisive victories, thereby preventing prolonged and costly wars. The doctrine influenced military planning and led to the development of strategies that prioritized offensive maneuvers, often at the expense of any defensive considerations. It was a strange development that as the offensive became more entrenched, technological developments increasingly made the defense the favorite.  

Proponents of the cult of the offensive, such as Jack Snyder, argue that this occurred in part due to, “the complete absence of civilian control over plans and doctrine, which provided no check on the natural tendency of mature military organizations to institutionalize and dogmatize doctrines that support the organizational goals of prestige, autonomy, and the elimination of novelty and uncertainty.”28 As a result, this offensive doctrine not only shaped the disastrous military strategies of World War I but also highlighted the dangers of unchecked military autonomy and the lack of critical civilian oversight in shaping national defense policies. 

The study of history may be 20/20, but the general staff strategists uncannily predicted the outcomes of their plans long before they unfolded. While conducting a wargame where he was in charge of the French army, Schlieffen managed to defeat his own plan with a railway maneuver that the French general Joseph Joffre would use at the battle of the Marne in the fall of 1914. In another war game centered in the East, Schlieffen used railway mobility to defeat a Russian advance around the Masurian Lakes, which mirrored the maneuver that led to the encirclement of the Russian 2^nd Army at Tannenberg in August 1914. However, the preconceived notions and biases that the participants brought to the simulated environment ensured the general staff would not yield key lessons even though they had practically played out what would happen before it did. This isn’t to say that some were alarmed. General Friedrich Köpke, the quartermaster of the general staff soberly concluded that,  

Even with the most offensive spirit... nothing more can be achieved than a tedious and bloody crawling forward step by step here and there by way of an ordinary attack in siege style in order to slowly win some advantages…There are sufficient indications that future warfare will look different from the campaign in 1870–1. We cannot expect rapid and decisive victories.29

In addition to the constant wargames centered on offensive operations, several games were run based on a defensive strategy in the west as an academic exercise. Much to the frustration of offensively inclined officers, the wargames revealed that the French Army would struggle to achieve a decisive breakthrough through Alsace-Lorraine against even a modest defensive force. The outcome suggested that its strategic planning was flawed and needed change. However, in subsequent years, when war games with this scenario were repeated, the German defenders were given fewer troops, Belgian and Dutch forces were arbitrarily added to the attacking side without any reasons besides convenience, and given an advantage in mobility that would have been impossible given the lack of infrastructure and difficulty of the wooded terrain. German critics noticed and accused Schlieffen of applying a double standard, arbitrarily giving the attacker undue advantages when it should have been the opposite.30 This manipulation of war game scenarios not only reflected the German military’s reluctance to confront the flaws in their offensive doctrine but also foreshadowed the strategic miscalculations that would contribute to the deadlock and devastation of World War I.  

At the very least, wargaming showed that the German military was facing a serious strategic problem that would not be solved by brute military force. There isn’t historical evidence to suggest that there was serious consideration to fundamentally change German war planning. This stems from the fact that the militaries of that era were “seeing war more likely than it really is; they increase its likelihood by adopting offensive plans and buying offensive forces. In this way, the perception that war is inevitable becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.”31 A strategic change would have entailed potentially reaching a decision in the East before the west or splitting their forces equally to go on the strategic defense, especially as technology began to favor the defender. However, in a 1912 wargame based on this scenario, it was determined that by around the 45-day mark, the French would capture the fortress city of Metz and be positioned to break through into the German heartland, while no decisive outcome had been achieved on the Eastern Front. It is difficult to determine the extent to which the wargame was influenced by the offensive biases prevalent in many simulations of the time. However, proponents of the Schlieffen Plan could point to the outcome as evidence that a defensive posture offered a slimmer chance of victory than launching an attack. 

In many ways, this reasoning was sound—both Charles XII and Napoleon had seen their armies destroyed deep within Russia centuries earlier. However, the Russo-Japanese War of 1905 suggested that the Russian Bear might not be as formidable as it once appeared. Victory might not have entailed capturing Moscow or St. Petersburg but rather inflicting enough military defeats to force the Russian government to sue for peace or collapse (which coincidentally is what happened) but the German General Staff had embraced the concept of “total victory” even though its chief architect, Moltke the Elder, had dissociated himself from it many years prior. Yet history often proves stranger than fiction, as the events of 1915—when Germany and Austria-Hungary went on the offensive against Russia while staying on the defensive in the West—closely mirrored the elder Moltke’s expectations from the 1890s, when he had resigned himself to a similar outcome in a war against Russia and France.  

If civilians were present to observe these war games or received reports, they certainly would have been alarmed but the general staff had insulated itself from criticism or civilian oversight. The general staff had repeatedly assured the civilian leadership that it could win a war quickly, and why would they doubt them? To that point, Germany had crushed Austria, France, and the other countries around it. This self-confidence was punctuated by General Helmuth von Moltke the Younger, Chief of the General Staff during the height of the July Crisis, who angrily told a fellow officer that the objections of mere civilians should be ignored.32 Despite ample evidence from war games and historical precedent that defensive strategies could have yielded more favorable (albeit less total) outcomes, the German General Staff remained fixated on offensive operations, driven by a combination of institutional inertia, prestige, and the belief in rapid victory. Civilian oversight, which could have tempered these strategic miscalculations, was either absent or dismissed outright, contributing to the catastrophic outcomes of World War I. As the war unfolded, the very scenarios that had been predicted—stalemates, attrition, and drawn-out conflicts—became a reality. Had the German leadership heeded the warnings from their own war games and considered alternatives, the course of history might have been very different. 

The Vibes Based Naval Arms Race 

The Wilhelmine era inaugurated a new importance for the German navy. Prussia’s navy had been a virtual non-entity during the wars of unification. There was a broad consensus that this was unacceptable given Germany’s new position as a great power. Wilhelm in particular, in part due to personal reasons, desired a grand fleet by which Germany could claim its “place in the sun.” To support this, the navalists had no compunction with dabbling in politics, and so created a “naval league,” an organization which quickly swelled in membership. This new policy added a frustrating dimension to German civil-military relations, with a new “naval cabinet” joining the Kaiser’s entourage, further limiting the access of civilians to the “all-highest.”  

The appetite to be a great power undermined a historic German-British relationship. Even as tensions grew, there were still negotiations to reach some sort of détente or even an alliance. The British Secretary of State for the Colonies, Joshua Chamberlain, had at one point even called for a “Teutonic” alliance between Great Britain, Germany, and the United States.33 The German Chancellor Bernhard von Bülow had attempted to get Britain to join the Triple Alliance in exchange for curtailing the naval build up which was rejected out of hand. As Henry Kissinger observed this was because, they “simply did not have enough parallel interest to justify the formal global alliance imperial Germany craved.”34 So, Germany decided to pursue a dual policy towards Great Britain of détente while understanding that they were the primary competitor in Germany’s chase of continental dominance. At the same time, they also competed in an arms race attempting to build a blue water navy at a breakneck pace to challenge the Royal Navy’s control of the North Sea.  

Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz was the architect behind Germany’s naval strategy. A forceful personality with whom even the Kaiser hated to conflict, Tirpitz was not opposed to alignment with Britain. What undermined this process was Tirpitz’s steadfast belief that the only thing that could compel Britain to ally with Germany was sufficient naval strength to challenge it. His basic concept was that a large enough fleet would mean that war with Germany would force Britain to concentrate so much of its fleet that it would be unable to defend its colonies. He called this the Risikoflotte (“risk fleet”) referring to the idea that it would make conflict with Germany too risky for Britain to accept. This goal meant that under no circumstances could the German rate of shipbuilding be reduced. However, this led Germany into a situation where the one concession Britain desired—a reduction in the rate of shipbuilding—was the one that they could not make. Tirpitz’s conviction, ultimately a diplomatic assessment, was simply completely wrong.  As Gerhard Ritter writes,

But the notion held by German navy fanatics that England, the notorious “nation of shopkeepers,” would be deterred from maintaining its supremacy at sea and the security of its islands by financial and technical impediments represented a complete misreading of the character of this proud nation. German diplomats never ceased to warn against this delusion; and when Tirpitz, citing the reports of his naval attaches, belittled British arms zeal as nothing but propaganda... he was merely displaying his limited political outlook.35 

Tirpitz was able to sway the Kaiser to his view.36 What this meant was that meaningful political agreement with Britain was precluded. The British wanted the Germans to reduce the rate of construction so as to ease the financial burden of the arms race. Yet this was precisely the thing that Tirpitz and the Kaiser would not compromise on.  

What’s more is that Great Britain welcomed a détente despite the frustration over previous attempts to reach an alliance. Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey stated to his colleagues that, “so long as Bethmann Hollweg is Chancellor we will cooperate with Germany for the peace of Europe.”37 Bethmann had made a détente a center piece of his foreign policy and yet at the same time, the German Navy was aiming to build a battle fleet of at least sixty modern capital ships including battleships, armored cruisers, and battle cruisers along with overseas bases and infrastructure.38 It was another sign that at the end of the day, the military had more control over the direction of German foreign policy than the civilians.  

Like the chancellor, the German ambassador to London, an extremely talented diplomat, saw a clear opportunity for agreement with the British. However, Admiral Tirpitz, author of Germany’s naval build-up, was determined that only great strength could convince the British of the necessity of alliance. The diplomats accurately reported that the British would perceive such a massive arms program as a challenge and insult. The naval attaché to London would provide his own reports, denigrating the ambassador and accusing the British of bad faith. These, addressed to Tirpitz, inevitably found their way to the Kaiser (it was “his” navy, after all) who left marginal notes approving of this bellicosity.39 The Kaiser was also utterly intransigent when it came to reducing the rate of construction as “legally authorized” under the naval bills, despite the fact that abandoning the effort to challenge the British at sea was a prerequisite to any agreement.40 

Bethmann dared not propose the material concessions the British would have required for a naval pact and so negotiations simply faded away. Bethmann blamed this on German public opinion, however as, Ritter reflected,  

Whether he was right in this contention remains doubtful... but such an agreement almost certainly would have brought a veto from the Kaiser and his naval advisers. Indeed, Bethmann could not even have put forward such an agreement without risking instant dismissal. There was a limit beyond which civilian authority could not go in Wilhelminian Germany—and that limit would have here been transgressed.41   

This kind of ambivalence and strategic incoherence was the routine product of a system that lacked formal mechanisms for coordinating grand strategy.  

German land power had cornered France to make an alliance with Russia. The Naval arms race would do the same to Britain. The Franco-Japanese Treaty of 1907 at least made a British alliance with France that much more formal even though it was technically informal. German military and civilian officials were under no illusion of this. In December of 1912, Great Britain had said as much when they told Germany that they would intervene on behalf of France even if they weren’t a treaty ally. The potential for a British naval blockade made a quick decisive outcome that much more apparent even though most German military officials knew that it was extremely unlikely.

The Younger Moltke and “Preventative War” 

Helmuth von Moltke the Younger is a difficult character to uncover, but one essential to understanding the panoply of forces that produced WWI.42 Moltke died in 1916, providing him little opportunity to defend his tenure. His widow had intended to publish an exculpatory collection of evidence of the chaos of German war planning before 1914. However, by then it was 1919, and the documents were deemed harmful to Germany’s attempt to avoid the blame for the war and so not published. This would prove fateful; the documents would be destroyed in World War II.  

Moltke therefore proved an ideal scapegoat for the “Schlieffen School.” For the Schlieffen School (mostly officers trained by Schlieffen), the Schlieffen Plan was a true recipe for victory bungled by incompetent execution. However, recent scholarship has shown a more nuanced picture.  While Schlieffen did not fully approve of his successor, Moltke was a faithful student of Schlieffen’s concepts. The modifications he made to the plan were not because of a difference in opinion, but of circumstance. Following Schlieffen’s retirement, the French army became more aggressive, necessitating a stronger defense of the Rhine. Likewise, Russian strength and mobilization speed increased, necessitating a greater force allocated to the East. Moltke was also more realistic about the logistical limitations of the all-important right wing of the German offensive. While Schlieffen (allegedly with his dying breath) insisted “keep the right wing strong,” there were simply only so many divisions that could practically advance there. Moltke did his best to adapt the Schlieffen Plan to these changing circumstances, though with mounting fear that the strength of the Entente had placed victory beyond Germany’s strength. 

Despite awareness of the long odds, officers continued to press for preventative war in succeeding European crises.43 The term “preventative war” did not mean “preempting the attack of hostile powers” but rather to initiate a war while the strategic balance was most favorable for Germany. While, as mentioned, they had their doubts about the surety of victory, they believed the odds would only get worse. The Schlieffen Plan had been designed for a one-front war against France (in 1905, the year of Schlieffen’s retirement, Russia was in the throes of revolution). Though adapted in later years, the plan remained tenable only so long as Germany had the chance to defeat France before Russian mobilization was completed. As the Russian army expanded and its rail system modernized, the General Staff saw the Schlieffen Plan nearing its expiration date.  

The General Staff saw no alternative to Schlieffen’s concept because of its axiomatic focus on total victory. The kind of limited victory that the Elder Moltke had settled for in his later war plans had never entered the vocabulary of the General Staff. As such, the General Staff pressed strongly for war (which it believed was inevitable) to break out before the balance of power swung further against Germany. 

The only alternative to this would have been to frankly state the perilous situation in which Germany stood militarily and admit that total military victory was out of reach and German diplomacy would need to be reoriented around this fact. Not only would this course of action been antithetical to the proud traditions of the officer corps, but it would also have been viewed as unacceptably political. What’s more, the Kaiser would have likely viewed such behavior as cowardly if not outright insubordinate. Once again, the Kaiser’s power over personnel decisions meant uncomfortable topics were not broached for fear of instant dismissal.  

It is not entirely unjust to accuse German leaders of cowardice or careerism in avoiding these conversations. However, they—like so many who serve under capricious or incompetent heads of state—justified their silence and continued service under the logic of harm reduction. If they resigned (or clashed with the Kaiser leading to their dismissal) they knew they would be replaced by someone more compliant. The Kaiser’s power over personnel meant they understood clearly that they had no leverage. 

The Chiefs of the General Staff, for all their influence, were incentivized to focus on the areas of their exclusive responsibility. Nevertheless, the younger Moltke was not passive in his efforts for war. He resumed contact with the Austro-Hungarian General Staff, assuring it of German support should Austria choose war in a crisis. As aforementioned, when crises came to Europe (some instigated by the German foreign ministry) he pressed the chancellor and Kaiser for a preventative war. Both, to their credit, while willing to risk war, would not choose it.  

Perhaps most decisively, Moltke and his deputy, Erich von Ludendorff,44 made the decision to hinge the operational plan on an attack on the Belgian city of Liège (hosting a critical rail juncture) before the neutral country could mobilize.45 This modification was made because Moltke desired to avoid violating Dutch neutrality (as Schlieffen had called for). He wisely understood Germany could afford no more enemies and that invading the Netherlands would mean increasing the distance the German right wing would have to cover to gain the French flank, decreasing the odds of success. What’s more, Moltke hoped that Dutch neutrality would allow it to act as a “windpipe” in the event of a long war and a British blockade. However, avoiding Dutch territory complicated German logistics, necessitating the swift seizure of Liège to allow the offensive to meet its strict timetables.  

This was a strictly operational decision, made on technical grounds. As such, neither the chancellor nor the Kaiser were informed of this detail of the plan (operational plans were kept strictly secret, with the prior year’s being systematically burned). However, as perceptive readers may have noticed, the need for a coup de main against a neutral country before it mobilized severely limited German strategic flexibility. There was only one deployment plan for war in the West (and only one at all after 1913). In a crisis, Germany was therefore bound to attack before the Belgians manned Liège’s fortifications. Yet this all-important point-of-no-return was unknown to the Kaiser, chancellor, and foreign minister. The General Staff had effectively stripped the Kaiser and civilian leaders of their “right to be wrong.” 

Thus, the General Staff had drastically increased the likelihood of war in that the point-of-no-return was kept obscured from those who would be responsible for bring Germany to the brink. As would occur in 1914 during the July Crisis, the Kaiser and his minister could not understand why Moltke was pressing so strongly for war. As historian Annika Mombauer puts it, “Only Moltke knew that every hour counted.”46 The General Staff had—intentionally or not—engineered a situation in which political leadership would have to choose war or abandon its only operational plan. While political leadership was reticent to take this step (especially without the details of the plan) contributing to Moltke’s nervous breakdown, the General Staff ultimately got the war it so desired at the next crisis Germany found itself in. If the coup de main on Liège had been devised as a ploy to force political leadership to engage in a preventative war, it had succeeded.  

Ultimately, the predominance of the military over German policy—both foreign and domestic—created an environment in which civilian leaders like Bethmann Hollweg were sidelined, and aggressive military strategies took precedence. This imbalance of prestige, coupled with the narrow, fatalistic worldview of military leaders, contributed to Germany's march toward war, with little room to acknowledge alternative diplomatic or strategic approaches. 

Hurtling towards Armageddon 

Germany's internal governance and foreign policy during the reign of Kaiser Wilhelm II were shaped by a deeply flawed civil-military relationship, marked by an increasing dominance of military perspectives and the suppression of civilian oversight. From the outset of his rule, Wilhelm II sought a hands-on approach to governance, asserting his influence in key appointments, from civil servants to military officers. This created a “personalist” system, as historian John C. Röhl has noted, where the Kaiser exerted significant “negative power,” ensuring that policies or plans he disagreed with were simply never proposed. 

Wilhelm's preference for surrounding himself with individuals who flattered and deferred to him, especially in the military, fostered a decision-making environment detached from practical civilian concerns. The elevation of officers like the younger Helmuth von Moltke, who gained favor as a Flügeladjutant (aide-de-camp) to the Kaiser, exemplified this favoritism. This concentration of power in Wilhelm's hands allowed him to marginalize civilian ministers, further entrenching a militaristic worldview within the government. While the German Empire never became a full autocracy, Wilhelm's central role in key appointments ensured that the lines between military and civilian authority were blurred, with military leaders often steering policy, especially in matters of foreign and defense strategies. 

One of the key military figures who exemplified the shift towards a more militarized approach was Count Alfred von Schlieffen, Chief of the General Staff (1891-1906). Schlieffen's narrow, specialized military education reflected the broader trend of officers becoming less attuned to the broader political, diplomatic, and cultural considerations that had previously informed leaders like the elder Moltke. As historian Herbert Rosinski summarized, “thus in Schlieffen’s hands the all-embracing heritage of the German school of strategy contracted into one central idea of the coordination of the whole act of war, its direction upon the overthrow of the enemy’s power of resistance, its concentration upon that one point even to the total disregard of all distracting side issues.”47 This narrow focus fed a dangerous sense of fatalism, underpinned by social Darwinism and a belief in the inevitability of conflict. Schlieffen, deeply influenced by these ideas, is remembered as the architect of the famous Schlieffen Plan, a war strategy designed to solve the problem of “two front war” through a knock-out blow against France.  

With a fatalistic worldview, the General Staff, led by the Younger Moltke, clung to Schlieffen's plan, despite its limitations, manipulating war games and operational planning to justify their aggressive strategies. Civilian leaders, marginalized by a system that concentrated power in the hands of the Kaiser and military officials, were left with little knowledge or control over the crucial decisions that would lead to war. The plan’s rigid timetable and the secrecy surrounding the operational details—such as the pivotal attack on Liège—bound political leadership to a path of war. As diplomatic alternatives were sidelined, Germany’s military leaders effectively engineered a situation where preventative war seemed the only option. 

The German officer corps and General Staff became fixated on offensive operations, a phenomenon later termed the “Cult of the Offensive.” Despite advances in technology favoring defensive tactics, Germany's military leadership remained committed to strategies that emphasized rapid, aggressive action to avoid prolonged conflict. This mindset became deeply entrenched due to the isolation of the military from meaningful civilian oversight. Historian Jack Snyder's analysis of the period highlights how the lack of civilian control allowed military organizations to prioritize their own goals—prestige, autonomy, and control over strategic decisions—over broader state interests. This rigidity and unwillingness to adapt would contribute to the catastrophic outcomes of World War I. 

The German naval buildup under Admiral Tirpitz, driven by a belief that a powerful fleet would coerce Britain into alliance or deter it from war, ultimately proved a diplomatic miscalculation. While Chancellor Bethmann Hollweg and other German diplomats sought détente and cooperation with Britain, the relentless push for naval expansion alienated the British and precluded any meaningful agreement. Tirpitz’s “risk fleet” concept was based on the flawed assumption that Britain, concerned with its colonies, would avoid conflict with a strong German navy. However, this only fueled an arms race, undermining diplomatic efforts and driving Britain into closer alignment with France. Despite moments of opportunity for peace, the German military’s influence over foreign policy, compounded by the Kaiser’s support for Tirpitz, made compromise impossible. This militarization of foreign policy not only failed to achieve its objectives but also deepened Germany’s isolation, contributing to the eventual breakdown of relations that led to World War I. 

The Kaiser’s reign, characterized by the erosion of civilian oversight and the unchecked rise of military influence, laid the groundwork for Germany’s fateful march toward catastrophe. The rigid focus on offensive military strategies, driven by a narrow and fatalistic worldview, blinded leadership to diplomatic alternatives and the shifting realities of modern warfare. In the absence of meaningful civilian control, Germany’s foreign policy was increasingly shaped by militarism and brinkmanship, with ambitions that outstripped its capacity for restraint or compromise. The naval arms race with Britain, the flawed Schlieffen Plan, and the relentless pursuit of preventative war were all manifestations of a system where the military, driven by prestige and a fear of decline, outmaneuvered civilian voices of caution. In the end, the inability to adapt to balance ambition with pragmatism, would not only bring about the destruction of Germany’s imperial ambitions but also set Europe ablaze in one of the deadliest conflicts in human history. 

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