NOTES TO ON WAR BY CARL VON CLAUSEWITZ AND NUCLEAR WEAPONS

INTRODUCTORY COMMENT: As a B-52 Electronic Warfare Officer in the former Strategic Air Command, U. S. Air Force, I remember the first time I saw a nuclear bomb: A B28FI with a 1.1 Mt warhead. (Nuclear Weapons Databook, Vo1. 1: U.S. Nuclear Forces and Capabilities. Ballinger, 1984, p. 42). My first thoughts were “This is it? This is all there is to it?” I can say without doubt that this remains the most anti-climatic experience I’ve had as an individual. Yet even then I knew that the “wimpy” visual belied a truly awesome and frightening possibility: If ordered by national command authorities, we would fly and drop this thing; which would destroy the assigned target…


As I developed professionally, the answer to those questions grew ever more complex and meanings more shaded. But its basis remains: What is war? What is the meaning of war in the nuclear age? The answer begins with Carl von Clausewitz, On War.  Ed. and Trans. by Michael Howard and Peter Paret.  Princeton University Press, 1976.

On War by Carl von Clausewitz

It’s important to note that only Book One of “On War” is the only book that Clausewitz considered as complete. Peter Paret considers Books Three (On Strategy in General) and Eight (On War Plans) as the most beneficial and integrated with respect to Book One.


1.0 BOOK ONE: ON THE NATURE OF WAR

Chapter One: What is War?


Definition. War is nothing but a duel on a larger scale. Countless duels go to make up war, but a picture of it as a whole can be formed by imagining a pair of wrestlers. Each tries through physical force to compel the other to do his will; his immediate aim is to throw his opponent in order to make him incapable of further resistance.

War is thus an act of force to compel our enemy to do our will.[italics in original] (On War, Book One, Chapter One, § 2, p. 75)

COMMENT:  Clausewitz does not believe in international law and custom as a means to limit war:


Attached to force as certain self-imposed, imperceptible limitations hardly worth mentioning, known as international law and custom, but they scarcely weaken it. Force—that is physical force, for moral force has no existence save as expressed in the state and the law—is thus the means of war; to impose our will on the enemy is its object. To secure that object we must render the enemy powerless; and that, in theory, is the true aim of warfare. That aim takes the place of the object, discarding it as something not actually part of war itself. (Book One, Chapter One, § 2, p. 75)


The Maximum Use of Force. COMMENT:  Interesting comment particularly apropos to those who dismiss Clausewitz in favor of the (apparent) bloodless wars advocated by Sun Tzu as the epitome of military art.


Kind-hearted people might of course there was some ingenious way to disarm of defeat and enemy without too much bloodshed, and might imagine this is the true goal of the art of war.    Pleasant as it sounds, it is a fallacy that must be exposed:  war is such a dangerous business that the mistakes which come from kindness are the very worst.  (Book One, Chapter One, § 3, p. 75)
Extremes.  COMMENT:  Clausewitz’ concept of each side driving the other to extremes.  From the 20^th century forward, the development of nuclear weapons thus their possible and/or probable use,  forces us to grapple with the theoretical concept of extremes.
 
If one side uses force without compunction, undeterred by bloodshed it involves, while the other side refrains, the first will gain the upper hand.  That side will force the other to follow suit; each will drive its opponent toward extremes, and the only limiting factors are the counterpoises inherent in war.  (Book One, Chapter One, § 3, pp. 75-76)
 
Incompatibility of Moderation in Theory of War.   COMMENT:  Clausewitz does not contend that moderation does not exist in war.  These are the forces that give rise to the war, and likewise “circumscribe and moderate it.”  Rather he says that these forces cannot be part of the theory of war—because these forces exist before the fighting starts.
 
If wars between civilized nations are far less cruel and destructive than wars between savages, the reason lies in the social conditions of the states themselves and in their relationships to one another. … To introduce the principle of moderation into the theory of war itself would always lead to logical absurdity. (Book One, Chapter One, § 3, p. 76)


COMMENT:   Given the horrific destructive global wars of the 20th century, one can surely debate the culturally-affected opening sentence of the paragraph above. However, it is clear of what Clausewitz is referring to—social conditions affect the methods of war. What he did not predict is the effect of technology on wars as a destroyer of worlds.


Two different motives make men fight one another: hostile feelings and hostile intentions. Our definition is based on the latter, since it is the universal element. … Savage peoples are ruled by passion, civilized peoples by the mind. The difference, however, lies not in the respective natures of savagery and civilization, but in their attendant circumstances, institutions, and so forth … Even the most civilized of peoples, in short, can be fired with passionate hatred for each other. (Book One, Chapter One, § 3, p. 76)


COMMENT:  The Nazi experience speaks for itself on this point.

Consequently, it would be an obvious fallacy to imagine war between civilized peoples as resulting merely from a rational act on the part of their governments and to conceive of war as gradually ridding itself of passion, so that in the end one would never really need to use the physical impact of the fighting forces—comparative figures of their strength would be enough. That would be a kind of war by algebra. (Book One, Chapter One, § 3, p. 76)


Theorists were already beginning to think along such lines when the recent wars taught them a lesson. If war is an act of force, the emotions cannot fail to be involved. War may not spring from them, but they will still affect it to some degree, and the extent to which they do so will depend not on the level of civilization but on how important the conflicting interests are an on how long their conflicts lasts. (Book One, Chapter One, § 3, p. 76)


First Case of Interaction and First Extreme.


The invention of gunpowder and the constant improvement of firearms are enough in themselves to show that the advance of civilization has done nothing practical to alter or deflect the impulse to destroy the enemy, which is central to the very idea of war.


The thesis, then, must be repeated: war is an act of force, and there is no logical limit to the application of that force. Each side, therefore, compels an opponent to follow suit; a reciprocal action is started which must lead, in theory, to extremes. This is the first case of interaction and the first “extreme” [italics in original] we meet with. (Book One, Chapter One, § 3, pp. 76-77)


Aim is to Disarm the Enemy: Second Case of Interaction and Second Extreme.


The worst of all conditions in which a belligerent can find himself is to be utterly defenseless. Consequently, if you are to force the enemy, by making war on him, to do your bidding, you must either make him literally defenseless or at least put him in a position that makes this danger probable. If follows, then, that to overcome the enemy, or disarm him … must always be the aim of warfare. (Book One, Chapter One, § 4, pp. 77)


War [says Clausewitz is not between a living force and a lifeless mass – total non resistance is not war] but always the collision of two living forces.  The ultimate aim of waging war, as formulated here, must be taken as applying to both sides.  Once again, there is interaction.  So long as I have not overthrown my opponent I am bound to fear he may overthrow me.  Thus I am not in control:  he dictates to me as much as I dictate to him.  This is the second case of interaction and it leads to the second “extreme.”  (Italics in original)  (Book One, Chapter One, § 4,  pp. 77).

Maximum Exertion of Strength. Third Extreme.

If you want to overcome your enemy you must match your effort against his power of resistance, which can be expressed as the product of two inseparable factors, viz. the total means at his disposal and the strength of his will … Assuming you arrive in this way at a reasonably accurate estimate of the enemy’s power of resistance, you can adjust your own efforts accordingly; that is, you can either increase them until they surpass the enemy’s or, if this is beyond your means, you can make your efforts as great as possible. But the enemy will do the same; competition will again result and, in pure theory, it must again force you both to extremes. This is the third case of interaction and the third “extreme.” (Italics in original) (Book One, Chapter One, § 5, p. 77).


COMMENT:   The idea of total war approaches Clausewitz’s concept of extremes in war.  As the entry for “total war [sic]”in the Oxford Companion to Military History states:  “total war is one in which the whole population and all the resources of the combatants are committed to complete victory and thus become legitimate military targets.” (The Oxford Companion to Military History.  Richard Holmes, ed. (Oxford University Press, 2001), p. 915.)
 
Next Entry to Follow:   Modifications in Practice [from abstract extremes].

Aims and Lessons of War

The Aim of War is to Achieve Political Objectives



Marshal of the Soviet Union Boris Shaposhnikov captured the essence of war in military-political terms:

"[A] war must begin with the defeat of the strongest and most dangerous enemy, and it must not be diverted by successes over a weak one by leaving the stronger to hang over one’s neck... It must be not forgotten that for the resolution of a war, it is important to have not only military successes, but also obtain political success, that is, win a victory over a politically important enemy ... Otherwise, only after an extended period accompanied even by military successes, will we be forced to return to the same fight against the main enemy against which we initially were only on the defensive."  (David M. Glantz, The Military Strategy of the Soviet Union:  A History, (Portland, OR:  Frank Cass, 1992), p. 42.)

Lessons of the Cold War


George Kennan in discussing American foreign policy and democracy notes that we made two big boo-boos dugint the cold war. (1) to attribute to the “Soviet leadership aims and intentions it did not really have; in jumping to conclusion that the Soviet leaders were just like Hitler and his associates…” with the same aspirations, timetable, and who could only be dealt with in the same manner as Hitler was. (2) The second postwar mistake was to embrace the nuclear weapon “the mainstay of our military posture, and the faith we placed in it to assure our military and political ascendancy in this postwar era.”  (George F. Kennan,  At a Century’s Ending.  Reflections 1982-1995 (New York:  W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1996), p. 130.)

It is from these two great mistakes that there has flowed, as I see it, the extreme militarization not only of our thought but of our lives that has become the mark of this postwar age. And this is a militarization that has had profound effects not just on our foreign policies but also on our own society… And this habit—the habit of pouring so great a part of our gross national product year after year into sterile and socially negative forms of production—has now risen to the status of what I have ventured to call a genuine national addiction. We could not now break ourselves of the habit without the serious of withdrawal symptoms. Millions of people, is addition to those other millions who are in uniform, have become accustomed to deriving their livelihood from the military-industrial complex. Thousands of firms have become dependent on it, not to mention labor unions and communities. It is the main source of our highly destabilizing budgetary deficit. An elaborate and most unhealthy bond has been created between those who manufacture and sell the armaments and those in Washington who buy them. We have created immense vested interests in the maintenance of a huge armed establishment in time of peace and in the export of great quantities of arms to other peoples—great vested interests, in other words, in the Cold War. We have made ourselves dependent on this invidious national practice; so much so that it may fairly be said that if we did not have the Russians and their alleged iniquities to serve as a rationalization for it, we would have to invent some adversary to take their place—which would be hard to do. [My highlight]

Kennan notes that the problem is made worse by the unnecessary wastefulness of it all, the lack of coherent relationship between the way Congress figures out civilian and military costs.

It sometimes seems to me that those of us not involved in this great military-industrial enterprise are in danger of becoming, in the figurative sense, a nation of camp followers, like the pathetic civilian stragglers who trailed along behind the European armies of earlier centuries in the hopes of picking up remnants from the relative abundance of the military resources of food and clothing which the armies disposed.

And because of these requirements we need to keep demonizing our opponent and giving him qualities which make them 10 feet tall in order to justify the military-industrial requirements which become self-generating.

Some Thoughts on Future War

North Korea clearly has chosen to pursue nuclear-based security to prevent itself from being coerced politically and militarily by the United States, and gain political respect and legitimacy as a regional power. The nuclear option is insurance against defeat and/or humiliation at the hands of the United States, South Korea, or anyone else. It is worth pondering that as the force structure and technological capabilities that the United States displayed in recent wars are beyond the capacity of any nation in the foreseeable future, the only recourse available to a developing power is the cheaper and more accessible nuclear/ballistic missile option.

Paradoxically, America's search for a conventional combat capability in order to preclude nuclear war has proven so successful, that others seek to counter this capability through nuclear forces. Iraq could have drastically altered the outcome of the war, politically in particular, had they used SCUD attacks earlier and with more powerful warheads. Iraq's missile force structure was both logical and affordable; its poor execution and lack of punch is what rendered it ineffective. We cannot use this lack of combat effectiveness as a planning factor, for other nations may prove better capable of effective employment.

For example, during the Falklands War, Argentina successfully used their very limited number of Exocet missiles to cause considerable damage to the British Nave. Despite recent failures, North Korea's missiles are bound to perform better after failures are studied and corrected. Massive strikes, properly timed and combining alternate conventional, chemical, and/or nuclear warheads can create widespread damage, both in military terms and more importantly in political terms which will dictate the war's tempo and determine what outcome will follow. Strategically, a nation equipped with a missile force which is facing a far better armed and more capable opponent will seek to retain a retaliatory capability, with a secure reserve force which will guarantee unacceptable pain, or cause sufficient doubt as to intentions and capabilities upon the enemy, thus allowing for the maximum room for political maneuver. Our future adversaries will combine mobile missiles for offensive operations, dispersing them in depth, using active deception measures for protection and ensuring its operational capacity. This is the face of future war.

A key doctrinal question that we must answer in future war is what will air superiority do for us against an opponent who combines a nuclear missile force with moderate war aims? Another question we must address is how will we be able to deal with a strategic fait-accompli, such as the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait, before being able to deploy our assets? We must focus on building missile targeting and guidance capabilities, and defenses against missiles rather than stressing the role which airpower played in the Gulf and in Iraq/Afghanistan. In this area space forces can be most useful, providing real-time target updates, reconnaissance, and course correction/guidance to anti-ballistic missiles or offensive weapons.

Warfare is Darwinistic by nature; survival of the fittest is what it is all about. In future war, an opponent may alternately seek to withstand initial blows through dispersion of forces/maskirovka, and selectively attack high value targets with weapons of mass destruction or launch early preemptive attacks against our base/staging areas. On the other hand, it may engage in more subtle operations designed to wear us down politically as was done in Vietnam. In many respects, Maoist protracted guerrilla war strategy is most apropos for this type of future warfare by deception, using missile forces for political effects through military coercion: the enemy attacks, we retreat; the enemy encamps, we harass; the enemy tires, we attack; the enemy flees, we pursue. What will superior technology/air superiority do for us?

Victory in war does not guarantee future success. Airpower has matured and we can take pride in its merits, but these merits cannot blind us to its limitations vis a vis the changing complexion of war. As our defense budget decreases along with our military-industrial capabilities, is an air campaign the answer to future warfare against a nuclear missile armed adversary? We must address these issues now; tomorrow they will be upon us.

Policy Towards North Korea

North Korea is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma: but perhaps there is a key… to view its future direction. That key is contained in Marxist dogma. In Anti-Dühring, in discussing the Franco-German war of 1870-1871, Engels made the following observation: [T]his war [the Franco-German War] compelled all continental powers to introduce in a stricter form the Prussian Landwehr system [militia in addition to regular army], and with it a military burden which must bring them to ruin within a few years. The army has become the main purpose of the state, and an end in itself; the peoples are there only to provide soldiers and feed them. But this militarism also bears within it the seed of its own destruction. Competition among the individual state forces them, on the one hand, to spend more money each year on the army, navy, artillery, etc., thus more and more hastening their financial collapse; and, on the other hand, to resort to universal compulsory military service more and more extensively, thus in the long run making the whole people familiar with the use of arms, and therefore enabling them at a given moment to make their will prevail against the warlords in command. And this moment will arrive as soon as the mass of the people—town and country workers and peasants—will have a will. At this point the armies of the princes become transformed into armies of the people; the machine refuses to work and militarism collapses by the dialectics on its own evolution. (Marx-Engels, Collected Works (International Publishers 1987), Vol. 25, p. 158). North Korea’s Songun or “military first” policy has become the main purpose of the state, an end in itself. The Korean Workers Party no longer controls the military but is controlled by it—violating Mao’s dictum. “Political power grows from the barrel of a gun. And the party must control the gun.” Now the gun controls the party and everything else. However, North Korea’s effort to compete militarily against South Korea, the United States and pretty much everyone else… has in fact caused its financial collapse. Moreover, the complete militarization of the population clearly make the people familiar with the use of arms, enabling them to turn against the regime—as soon as the mass of the people will have a will. Our policies should be to do everything possible to enable the Korean people to have a will… To will a self is to become a self (Nietzche). The North Korean people are intelligent, hard-working and their lives being made unnecessarily difficult by a group of militarists whose only aim is ultimately to protect their own status—at the expense of the people. People are people; and as Abraham Lincoln said: You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time. This is the information age. Our policy objective and task is to inform the North Korean people through any and all means available of the reality of the world at large and how their own government is fooling them. The Korean people will free themselves. Gonzalo I. Vergara, Lt. Col., USAF (Ret.).

North Korean Missile

In 2006 , the North Koreans detonated a nuclear weapon to demonstrate that they were not going to suffer "the miserable fate of Iraq." This refers to the United States complete superiority in conventional weapons and Iraq's inability to confront the US. The North Koreans believe that if Iraq had in fact had nuclear weapons, the US would not have attacked.

This is not a new strategic assessment. In 1993 the Indian Defense Minister stated that the lesson from the Gulf War is that the only way to confront the US or its proxies is to have nuclear weapons-. The result was the reactivation of India's nuclear weapons program, culminating in the detonation of 3 devices in 1998; or 24 years after the first Indian fission test on May 18, 1974.The latest North Korean action follows the total ruin of America's nuclear non-proliferation policy -- in the sands of Libya.

Gaddafi gave up his nuclear weapons program in exchange for reconciliation with the West. Yet he was attacked by American's proxies--the British and even the… pfffff French. If Gaddafi had nuclear weapons-- he would never have been attacked. Hence the North Koreans are saying in effect: "We have nuclear weapons and the delivery systems for them. We will not suffer the same miserable fate of Saddam Hussein and Moammar Gaddafi. Moreover, we have the ability to produce nuclear-armed missiles which we can sell -- for the right price."

The North Koreans are not going to give up their weapons in exchange for some rice and kimchii and our promises of "good will" … This is the legacy of our policy in Libya. And don't think for a moment that the Iranians are not thinking along the same lines.

The disastrous failure of American foreign policy in this area is inexcusable and must be attributed directly to the Obama administration. The Obama administration needs to reformulate what our national security priorities really are in this area; and the means by which to advance same: How are we going to prevent other regimes and/or organizations (re al-qaeda) from acquiring North Korean missiles w/nuclear weapons? The North Koreans have these systems--and we can't do anything about it. What we have to do is ensure that no one else will have access to these weapons. and what means we will use to enforce our policy.

Losses

In bombers named for girls, we burned
The cities we had learned about in school —
Till our lives wore out; our bodies lay among
The people we had killed and never seen.
When we lasted long enough they gave us medals;
When we died they said , 'Our casualties were low.'

By: Randall Jarrell

Open Letter to President Obama Urging a Call for Indian Troops to Afghanistan

Dear President Obama:

I've been reading Bob Woodward's book "Obama's Wars" in conjunction with Robert S. McNamara's 1995 memoir, In Retrospect. As a retired military officer, I can say with
certainty that the military hasn't learned the lessons of Vietnam..."More troops" and "More troops" is not the answer to every problem; and our diplomatic initiatives are tepid and ineffective at best.

I believe that the end state in Afghanistan requires a bit of Nixon-Kissinger diplomacy to wake the Pakistanis up. We cannot solve the problems there if Pakistan is both our ally and enemy. Consequently, it is time to give the Pakistanis electro-shock therapy and scare the hell out of them by invoking their worst nightmare.

Since Pakistan appears unable and/or unwilling to curtail Al Qaeda/Taliban military activities within its territory which are directed at American/NATO troops in Aghanistan, I urge you to request for the introduction of Indian troops into Afghanistan to ensure that no more attacks are carried from Pakistan into Afghanistan. An Indian Western Theater of Operations ought to be created composed of at least 240,000 Indian troops (the number of troops that US Army Chief of Staff General Eric Shinseki told the US Senate in 2002 that would be required to stabilize Iraq and the number of troops Admiral Mullen would love to have there) whose mission is to stabilize Afghanistan through a two-front strategy against Pakistan. I believe that India would be open to provide this kind of military assistance to the United States and NATO forces if India was asked.

India is the only regional power with the military forces capable of doing this. The anvil of India & Kashmir to the east of Pakistan against the hammer of an Indian Western Theater Army presents Pakistan with a two-front strategic problem--which Pakistan is wholly incapable of dealing with with. In a nutshell, Pakistan's worst nightmare.

The United States clearly has the capacity to provide the Indians with the logistics support necessary to move and sustain such a force. Consequently, it must do so. India is poised politically and militarily to bring stability into this region which Pakistan has been unable and/or unwilling to do so.

If Pakistan is unable to curtail outside activities within its borders, then India can ensure that there will be no interference from these forces in Afghanistan. As the world’s largest democracy and an economy that is of increasing importance to the United States, India’s power is central to the calculus of stability in the region.

India has supported President Karzai in the past, and will bear the brunt of a resurgent Islam if the Taliban triumphs in Afghanistan. Such result will lead to serious instability in the region particularly given Pakistan’s own instability in the face of Islamic fundamentalism.

Moreover, unlike the United States, the Pakistanis know that India will not leave the region. Consequently, for Pakistan, the die is cast: Either get your house in order or India with the support of the United States will do it for you.

In 1971, Nixon and Kissinger used China against the Soviet Union and China used the United States against the Soviet Union. Likewise, in 2011 the United States should use India against Pakistan and India will use the US against Pakistan.

It is time to ante up the stakes in the region and a robust diplomatic effort combined with ongoing military operations inside Afghanistan will make the Pakistanis realize that a stable Afghanistan under Hamid Karzai under American tutalege is better that an Afghanistan that is home of 300,000 Indian troops--who do not like the Pakistanis and their extremist allies.

President Obama: Give 'em hell!


Gonzalo I. Vergara, Lt. Col., USAF (Ret.)
Lincoln Hills, California