Clausewitz

Years ago now, I wrote a piece called "Clausewitz and the Triangle" that I think holds up pretty well even now. For example, the points about Clausewitz's "culminating point of victory" are neatly reprised in this week's declass al Qaeda letter. This time, it's al Qaeda itself raising the concerns.

The Department of State is slamming Clausewitz because the real target is their chief enemy, the Department of Defense. The point we are meant to take away is that the military are largely fools detached from reality, and we should trust diplomats instead. As usual, they are more interested in the turf war in Washington than in winning the real war elsewhere.

The military, however, includes both Special Forces and traditional forces. Where is the component at State that understands anything other than their mainline orthodoxy? It isn't Clausewitz, but it's orthodoxy all the same. The military tolerates diversity of thought and inquiry, from the National War College to the hiring of contractors to provide independent thinking on sensitive matters like intelligence.

State's opinion is welcome, also, but if they think the military isn't interested in culture and history, they're not paying any attention at all. Half the people I've worked with as a contractor were hired precisely because of their expertise in Arab cultures, or because they were historians. State has to know that, because there is interagency sharing of information and analysis. That makes me think the whole attack is really about trying to win political points, and turf control.

Which, to bring us full circle, is one of the points from "Clausewitz and the Triangle." The political struggles within the US are one of the chief sources of friction we have to face. That goes for intra-executive skirmishes as well as the fights between the executive and the legislature, or the two main political parties.

RE: America is Free

Goldberg, waxing Buckley, nailed that exact point earlier today Dad:

When confronted with the assertion that the Soviet Union and the United States were moral equivalents, William F. Buckley responded that if one man pushes an old lady into an oncoming bus and another man pushes an old lady out of the way of a bus, we should not denounce them both as men who push old ladies around.

Heh, ain't that the truth.

America is Free

Would any reader of this site be watching CBS Evening News? Perhaps unlikely. But a piece ran recently that was worthy of attention.

Natan Sharansky offered a powerful antidote to the hysteria that has overwhelmed any reasonable debate over definitions of torture and treatment of unlawful combatants, in a freeSpeech segment at CBS Evening News.

Mr. Sharansky has, in my opinion, “absolute moral authority” on the subject of torture, what it is and what it is not. This authority rests on his long, personal experience, suffering at the hands of a regime fluent in the many expressions of torture and repression, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR).

Mr. Sharansky makes a point completely lost in the rhetoric of critics of this Administration:

Those who would use abuses at Abu Ghraib or Guantanamo Bay to accuse America of being no different than the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, or Sadaam's regime have lost all sense of moral clarity.

America is different because your citizens can protest without going to prison. America is different because your courts can defend rights and your press can expose injustice. America is different because your Congress can hold hearings and because your people can hold your leaders accountable. America is different because America is free.

Thank you for the reminder, Mr. Sharansky.

(Cross-posted at Dadmanly.)

RE: Clausewitz

Chap wrote:

Hair? Dude. That guy's neck is out of standard...

He does have a purty poofy uniform. And here I thought he was a Prussian General, not a French Admiral.

Re: Clausewitz

Hair? Dude. That guy's neck is out of standard...

RE: NIE

My first thought after reading it? "Harumph. Intel weenies." But you know me, I have more to say than just that.

98

There are certain years in our nation's history in which numerous "moments" occur in multiple chains of events that significantly impact the subsequent timeline. Such years are identifiable only in in hindsight - the reverberations of then-seemingly minor issues require time to expand, much the opposite way that reverberations of seemingly major issues du jour often tend to diminish with the passage of years, months, days, or even hours. I think just enough time has passed to identify 1998 as one such seminal year.

The connection between Iraq and the "war on terror" was obvious back then - at least for those of us fighting the war. Ditto the rising threat of Osama bin Laden - something that was occurring in plain sight. But no one paid much attention, as on the domestic front the impeachment of President Clinton stirred political resentments that would grow unimpeded by war and other international events to today's seemingly unprecedented level of rancor.

There are those among us who like to believe that history began in November, 2000, or September, 2001. Even some of us over age 12 probably look back on '98 as the good ol' days. In many ways they were - "peace dividends" and "dot com booms" still appeared strong - but in the midst of the party an ominous background noise was growing, even if not yet to a level of distraction.

Adios Tomcats

As much as I hate to interupt this Clausewitz love-fest, Pinch Paisley of Instapinch has some excellent coverage of the final farewell to the F-14 Tomcat at Oceana Naval Air Station. This stuck with me:

As I tell my students during my Combat Identification lectures, if you see a Tomcat anywhere in the world now, it is Iranian and can be positively identified as a bogey - a hostile - a bad guy. No ifs, ands, buts or maybes about it.

Roger that dude.

RE: Clausewitz

Sorry Chap, I don't trust anyone whose hair is that far out of standard.

Re: Clausewitz

He must be part cat because people keep saying he's dead, then all of a sudden people talk Clausewitz again. My favorite article about this is by Christopher Bassford. It's subtitled "A Polemic".

More interesting references here, too.

RE: Clausowitz

Karl von C's usefulness died with the cold war, back when states fought other states according to his "trinity."

Those were the good old days John. One big lump of Soviet armor pressing down on Europe that we could lob tactical nukes at. Now we've got a bunch of would be mini-prophets with dynamite strapped to their chest bringing down a millenium of civilized warfare because the West and Israel hurt their feelings.

Strange times.

Holding a wake for Clausewitz.

Or not. Depends on how many (and of what persuasion) of you guys choose to pop over to consider the issue of the applicability of the Clausewitzian Weltanschauung (woooo, big word, Donovan) to today's wars and rumors of wars, and the impacts thereon.

Vice those nice, neat, tidy Total Wars we as a military prefer because they are sooo much simpler. Anyone remember how easy and simple (in essence) the General Defense Plan for Germany was? Civilians? So what? We weren't going to live that long - it was gonna be the National Guard's problem when they showed up after REFORGERing in and mopping up what was left of Europe.

I promise, we aren't slinging words like that double-u thingy up there around profligately a lot.

The Clown Car Gets Another Passenger

To Jesse Macbeth et cetera we add a Sargeant Chavez.
He's here to tell you about "9/11 Truth". He says he flew into Kabul in a C-5 that stopped bullets (wow! A bulletproof C-5!) two and a half weeks after 9/11. As part of a "Veterans For 9/11 Truth" thing.

Riiiiight.

Cue the Blues Brothers: "I hate Illinois Nazis."

Re: NIE

And I just now got emails from the guys reading the NYT trying to school me on what the NIE "said"...

Heh.