Synopsis:
Karl von Clausewitz’s prime mover – and central node – in warfare is the political object, which may operate within a fluid context. Further, the context rides on Clausewitz’s trinitarian categorical dynamic within a state – i.e. military forces, country, and will of the enemy. In this way, the political object ought to be synergistic with the trinity for a state to be successful in war.
Excerpts:
“If we ask, first of all, what is the aim toward which the whole war must be directed so as to be the proper means for attaining the political object, we shall find that this is just as variable as are the political object and the particular circumstances of the war.
“In the plan of war, we shall consider more closely what disarming a state means, but we must here distinguish between three general categories which include everything else. They are the military forces, the country and the will of the enemy.
“But the disarming of the enemy – this object of war in the abstract, this final means of attaining the political object, in which all other means are included – does not always occur in practice and is not a necessary condition to peace. Therefore it cannot be set up in theory as a law.
“In wars in which the one side cannot completely disarm the other, the motives to peace will rise and fall on both sides according to the probability of success and the required expenditure of force.
“If we want to overcome the enemy by outlasting him in the struggle, we must content ourselves with small objects, for naturally a great object requires a greater expenditure of forces than a small one. However, the smallest object we can propose is pure resistance, a combat without any positive intention.
*All excerpts have been taken from War, Politics, and Power, Regnery Publishing, Inc.
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