Zraver,
Thanks for your argument that ST provides better advice to rulers, and in re-reading it, I saw that ST does offer a lot.
However, I think you have VC wrong.
Quote:
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Originally Posted by zraver
Read em again Shek, "war is a continuation of politics by other means" is VC's out in dealing with the politcal aspect of going to war.
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VC was quite misinterpreted by the German Army in the early 20th century, with their interpretation that once war started, then the politicians handed off the battle to the generals completely, and then re-engaged once it was time for peace. I may be wrong, but I think this is the interpretation that you are implying. I offer the following passage from Paret's essay "The Genesis of
On War" that precedes the translation as evidence that there can be no dichotomy between politics and war.
Quote:
The appropriate relationship between politics and war occupied Clausewitz throughout his life, but even his earliest manuscripts and letters show his awareness of their interaction.
The ease with which this link - always acknowledged in the abstract - can be forgotten in specific cases, and Clausewitz's insistence that it must never be overlooked, are illustrated by his polite rejection toward the end of his life of a strategic problem set by the chief of the Prussian General Staff, in which every military detail of the opposing sides was spelled out, but no mention made of their political purpose. To a friend who had sent him the problem for comment, Clausewitz replied that it was not possible to draft a sensible plan of operations without indicating the political condition of the states involved, and their relationship to each other: "War is not an independent phenomenom, but the continuation of politics by different means. Consequently, the main lines of every strategic plan are largely political in nature, and their political character increases the more the plan applies to the entire campaign and to the whole state. A war plan results directly from the political conditions of the two warring states, as well as from their relations to third powers. A plan of campaign results from the war plan, and frequently - if there is only one theater of operations - may even be identical with it. But the political element even enters the separate components of a campaign; rarely will it be without influence on such major episodes of warfare as a battle, etc. According to this point of view, there can be no question of a purely military evaluation of a great strategic issue, nor of a purely military scheme to solve it.
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