RANDOM LINKS
This page is a holdover from a much earlier version of The Clausewitz Homepage (though we occasionally add materials we can't find a use for elsewhere). It's a more-or-less random collection of links to materials that might be of some use or relevance to web-surfers interested in Clausewitz, but it is not part of the scholarly core of the website.
MIT PANTHEON: MAPPING HISTORICAL CULTURAL PRODUCTION
See Clausewitz's current ranking
See Clausewitz's current ranking
(The 'Who's Bigger?' chart really does seem to match the historical record of Clausewitz's changing fashionability over time.)
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Student Papers • Military History & Doctrine • PME • Texts • Marxist Views
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Free Essays on "Clausewitz Versus Jomini," from
or just Clausewitz in general.
T.O.P. ("Thousands of Term Papers")
The high-tech way to cheat (or to know your students are cheating).
We originally posted these mostly to alert you to the availability of these things. Today, of course, there are automated methods for detecting plagiarism. But the papers themselves are sometimes interesting.
T.O.P. lists at least the following papers discussing Clausewitz. Some are OK, some sound pretty foolish.
Military Strategists / Sun Tzu vs. Carl Von Clausewitz
A 4-page paper that considers the military philosophies presented by Sun Tzu and Clausewitz and the similarities and differences that can be inferred from a comparison of their works. Bibliography lists 2 sources. Artofwar.wps
Fog and the Friction / Always Part of the War
A 6-page paper arguing that regardless of how mechanized and technologically advanced warfare becomes, it will still contain the "fog and friction" described by Karl von Clausewitz. While technology will assist on the battlefield, it will not make up for numerous other factors. Bibliography lists 4 sources. Fogfric.wps
Napoleon Could Not Have Won The Russian Campaign
An-8 page paper positing that Napoleon had no chance of winning the campaign. Arguments are based on William Fuller, Jr's. "backwardness" theory of Kutuzov's campaign, which included tactics that Napoleon was unprepared, strategically, to fight, or even interpret. Fuller's theories and Kutuzov's tactics and strategies are argued successfully against von Clausewitz and Sun Tzu strategy and tactic theories. Bibliography lists 6 sources. Naporuss.wps
Search for Clausewitz - List below is incomplete.
Coursework.info (UK) lists for sale the following student papers mentioning Clausewitz:
In your opinion, how many capitalisms are there in the global system?
When is, according to Clausewitz, a war victoriously concluded? Discuss with reference to contemporary examples. Since the dawn ...
Why does Clausewitz's 'absolute war' not occur in reality?
Why does Clausewitz’s ‘absolute war’ not occur in reality? The time when Clausewitz wrote his ‘On War’, wars were indeed ...
Do the Writings of Clausewitz have contemporary relevance?
Do the Writings of Clausewitz have contemporary relevance? Carl Von Clausewitz has long been considered one of the most important ...
To what extent is terrorism a successful military strategy for achieving political objectives?
... Special attention would be paid to Clausewitz’s theory on strategy, as he has haled to understand the nature of violence, and his theories are relevant today ...
How satisfactory are the various accounts put forward regarding the causes of War.
... The writers I shall use are; Von Clausewitz, Wright, Lenin and Huxley. ... Von Clausewitz acknowledges that war will not always occur as anticipated by his theory. ...
What do you understand by the term Total War?
... Thusly, Carl von Clausewitz did not use the term Total War preferring Absolute War, and this as a philosophical concept, distinct from Total War [7] ; that in ...
Difficulties of giving a single definition of war
... Form Carl Von Clausewitz book, ‘On War’, it gives the definition of war as "the continuation of political intercourse with the addition of other means ...
Is War inevitable amongst sovereign States?
... 1800 that Realism gained its most recent influential writer in Carl Von Clausewitz whom we must consider for a more modern perspective. ...
Moltke's War Strategy
... Moltke’s concepts were based in the ideas of Clausewitz, who wrote that "crushing" the opponent was an undesirable aim, noting that the cease of ...
Threat of Nuclear Terrorism and its implication for Western Security
... According to the classic treatise by Karl von Clausewitz, On War, "It is clear that war is not a mere act of policy but a true political instrument, a ...
Why Should One Study Ancient/ Classical Greek and Roman Warfare?
... If modern times, by contrast, needed a Clausewitz (or Sun Tzu) to explain the point of war, it is not because we moderns are more saintly than our ancestors. ...
Reasons for Napoleon's Success (to 1807).
... instead on sieges, or on manoeuvring in order to evade the enemy or to gain a tactical advantage (also identified as ‘intensified diplomacy’ by Clausewitz ...
How is War changing?
... Carl von Clausewitz: The rise of the nation-state following the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648 marked the establishment of the state’s monopoly of violence and ...
How, When and Why do Western Democracies Use Coercive Military Power?
... relationship between war, the internal power and the progress of nations, had a profound influence upon German opinion from 1880 onwards, Clausewitz and the ...
Intelligence is a necessary but not sufficient condition for victory in war. Do you agree?
... Behind the Battle : Intelligence in the War with Germany, (London: Sinclair-Steven, 1994) Ferris, J. & Handel, M., "Clausewitz, Intelligence, Uncertainty ...
Conflicts are far more likely to be caused by greed than by grievance. Discuss (Collier, 2000)
... 2006) defines this shift in armed conflict as the emergence of a new type of war that contrasts to the nineteenth century depiction by Clausewitz of states ...
To what extent was Napoleon's success in Europe to 1807 the consequences of his own military ability?
... talented commanders and officers. The great military theorist, the prussian, Von Clausewitz wrote ‘on war’ in 1832. In this he ...
Compare realist, neorealist and liberal explanations of war. Using examples assess which explanations seem to you to be the most valid.
... I have already emphasized that realists see war an inevitable, I would also like to quote Carl Von Clausewitz, who was a military strategist, who said war is a ...
Is war an inevitable feature of international politics?
... international politics? War was defined by Clausewitz as "an act of violence intended to compel our opponent to fulfil our will". War ...
'Just war theory is more concerned with legality than morality'. Discuss.
... From his work-‘On War’- Clausewitz’s identifies the meaning of war by saying "war is identified as a political instrument, a continuation of political ...
Major Michael W. Cannon, USA
"CLAUSEWITZ FOR BEGINNERS," a paper by a student at SAMS (School for Advanced Military Studies, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas). Posted by the Air University.
Major Herbert T. Holden, USMC
"The Continuing Relevance Of Clausewitz: Illustrated Yesterday And Today With Application To The 1991 Persian Gulf War." Quantico, VA: USMC Command and Staff College, 1991. At http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/report/1991/HHT.htm
Marco J. Lyons [Infantry officer, U.S. Army; Blogger: "Desaxx, http://desaxx.blogspot.com]
Lyons/Desaxx seems very fond of this interesting quotation from Ketti Davison, “From Tactical Planning to Operational Design,” Military Review (September-October 2008), p.34: “The prevailing planning process, the MDMP, amounts to a mechanistic view of mindless systems. The mechanistic view of the world that evolved in France after the Renaissance maintains that the universe is a machine that works with a regularity dictated by its internal structure and the causal laws of nature. The elements of mechanical systems are 'energy-bonded' in that they reflect Newtonian mechanics; laws of classical physics govern the relationships among the elements. Concepts based on this mechanistic view pervade current military doctrine, as evidenced by terms such as center of gravity, mass, and friction. The mechanistic perspective focuses on physical logic and is entirely appropriate—at the tactical level. It becomes incomplete, however, at the more conceptual operational level, where the political objectives of war are at least as important as the physical disposition of forces.”
"Note: The Theories and Writings of Clausewitz." Wednesday, September 8, 2010.
"Note: Clausewitz and Relativity." Wednesday, September 8, 2010.
"Discussion: Clausewitz, Absolute War and Limited War." Wednesday, September 8, 2010.
"Discussion: Sun Tzu, Machiavelli, Clausewitz, and Jomini." Wednesday, September 8, 2010.
"Discussion: Clausewitz and Summers." Sunday, September 12, 2010.
"Discussion: Clausewitz and the Weinberger Doctrine." Monday, September 20, 2010.
"Discussion: Clausewitz and Napoleon." Sunday, September 19, 2010.
"Discussion: Clausewitz and Theory." Sunday, September 19, 2010.
"Some of Clausewitz's Ideas." Posted February 14, 2011. This is pretty thoughtful.
Kurt Kuhlmann
Review of On War. History 261, 10/7/92, on WarHorse Simulations page.
CLAUSEWITZ IN SPANISH
OSCAR ARANDA MORA, CAPITÁN DE CORBETA
(Lieutenant Commander, Chilean Navy)
"BREVE INTRODUCCIÓN A CLAUSEWITZ." This work pursues two intentions. The first is to introduce the thought and the work of General Clausewitz, with the hope to serve as a point of departure for further study of his work. The second intention is to spread its main concepts, thinking especially about those whose academic and professional obligations prevent them from dedicating the time required to the pleasure of reading this masterpiece concerning war. At the same time, it seeks to induce the reader to personal meditation on those paragraphs of On War that the author of this introductory work thinks—with modesty—to be of the greatest importance.
LtGen P.K. Van Riper (USMC) on
"The Immutable Nature of War" (NOVA)
In Millennium Challenge 2002, a $250 million war game designed to test the new technologies and concepts of transformation and network-centric warfare—in which U.S. forces are data-linked with one another as never before—Lt. Gen. Paul Van Riper, former president of the Marine Corps University, was asked to command the "enemy" forces. In the first days of that mock battle, he used unconventional methods, including a preemptive attack that featured air-, sea-, and ground-launched cruise missiles to sink 16 American ships. After the American forces decided to refloat the ships and restart the game, Van Riper stepped aside from his role, contending that the rest of the game was scripted for American victory. In this interview, Van Riper explains the peril of placing too much faith in technology at the expense of a deeper understanding of the nature of war.
See also Christopher Bassford, "Doctrinal Complexity: Nonlinearity in Marine Corps Doctrine," which discusses GEN Van Riper's contributions to USMC doctrine.
FOR OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM: Brigade Planners for the 1st Brigade, 1ID at Fort Riley Kansas have formed the "Devil Brigade Junior Clausewitz Club," dedicated to detailed and deliberate planning as their armored brigade continues to prepare, train, and execute missions in multiple theaters around the world. They will now be taking our Club House to Iraq for 6-12 months. (Probably obsolete....)
ACADEMIC EARTH.ORG — OnLine History Courses
Academic Earth was launched on the premise that everyone deserves access to a world-class education. In 2009, we built the first collection of free online college courses from the world’s top universities. The world of open education has exploded since then, so today our curated lists of online courses are hand selected by our staff to show you the very best offerings by subject area. We also make sure there is something for everyone: whether you want to explore a new topic or advance in your current field, we bring the amazing world of academia to you for free.
Web Sources for Military History compiled by Richard Jensen Military history site: http://www.americanhistoryprojects.com/downloads/mil-2012.html
Best of History Web Sites is an award-winning portal created for students, history educators, and general history enthusiasts. Here you'll find sites, rated for usefulness and accuracy, that will help you study or teach a wide variety of topics and periods in History. http://www.besthistorysites.net/
Web Based Resources
Edited by Lewis Armstrong — Links to Free Access, Full Text Electronic Journals and Selected Websites
Electronic Journals for History
History WebSites Military History WebSites
THN
The History Net
Napoleonic Literature Homepage. Includes many complete books, such as: The Imperial Guard of Napoleon; The Memoirs of Baron de Marbot; Maxims of Napoleon; Life of Napoleon Bonaparte; Memoirs of Constant; The Note-Books of Captain Coignet; Napoleon in Captivity
The Napoleonic Wargaming Club NEWSLETTER
In this issue, Meinen Damen und Herren, you will gain greater understanding of certain aspects of Prussia's contribution to the Napoleonic Wars: The intellectual giant of war theory, Carl Philipp Gottlieb von Clausewitz, is celebrated in an illuminating essay by Peter Robinson, and also in Meet the Leaders. The spiritual/musical side of the Prussian military is evoked by two of the favorite Lutheran hymns of the Landser, presented in The NWC Songbook. Do you think Church music is unmilitary? After absorbing the lyrics of Ein' Feste Burg Ist Unser Gott, you'll be inspired to tackle your weight in wildcats, or "hordes of devils"! And, natürlich, the Bekanntmachung den Königliche Preussiche Armee occupies its usual place of honor. Ach, so! Readers, be advised that der Redaktur has spoken: "You will read this issue...and you will like it!!"
xxx
Virtuelles-Museum-Preussen
An on-line museum of Prussia.
(Professional Military Education)
Führungsakademie der Bundeswehr
The Führungsakademie hosts the International Clausewitz Center [Internationales Clausewitz-Zentrum (ICZ)] and Clausewitz-Urkunde.
Die Clausewitz Gesellschaft
http://www.clausewitz-gesellschaft.de/
Publications, etc.
Air War College Gateway to Internet Resources
The AFWC Gateway is a particularly useful PME site, with many links of relevance to the student of military theory. See especially the listing of Military Theory & Theorists.
KING'S COLLEGE LONDON
DEPARTMENT OF WAR STUDIES
USMC Doctrinal Manual
FMFM 1 (original 1989 edition) Warfighting
LEXIMANCER
Leximancer is a computer-based tool that can be used to automatically analyse the content of document collections and display the extracted information. They've done some work on Clausewitz, but they now appear to be a subscription service so we can't link into it.
MACROKNOW
Edward E. Ayoub's Intellectual Intelligence website provides many references to Clausewitz, including a knowledge map of war including concepts from Clausewitz, Sun Tzu, Machiavelli, Mao, Che Guavara, et al.
Clausewitz.com
READINGS
On-line articles and papers about Clausewitz or his ideas
CLAUSEWITZ IN DENMARK
Edited by Claus E. Andersen
ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA
This is a pretty good blurb on Clausewitz. This piece used to open with a fatuous and incorrect line, out-of-synch with the rest of the article: "Prussian general whose writings, especially On War, advocated the concept of total war, in which all the enemy's territory, property, and citizens are attacked." But that nonsense has been corrected.
The Carnegie Council was established by Andrew Carnegie in 1914 to work toward the ideal of world peace. It is an independent, nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to research and education at the nexus of ethics and international affairs. Subject topics include, human rights, ethics and the use of force, Reconciliation, the global economy and the environment.
Our link is to the "Advanced Search" page of the Carnegie Council. The program develops resources and networks on the ethical uses of force, including references to Clausewitz. It includes speech transcripts, articles, reviews and other materials.
CLAUSEWITZ'S BOOK, ON WAR
Discussion of available translations
COMPLETE Original German Version (Berlin, 1832)
COMPLETE English Translation (by British COL J.J. Graham, London, 1873)
See the squashed version of Clausewitz's On War.
Clausewitz in Turkish (1975)
The entire (maybe) book, On War, in Turkish translation.
Carl Von Clausewitz Savaþ Üzerine [Türkçe baský, May Yayýnlarý, Nisan 1975, Çeviren: Þiar Yalçýn]
Clausewitz: THE PRINCIPLES OF WAR
JOHN BOYD
Boyd, a superb USAF fighter pilot, tactical analyst, aircraft designer, and inventor of the famous (and useful) "OODA Loop," is held by his followers to be the greatest strategic thinker since Sun Tzu. As usual with the acolytes of any particular strategic theorist, some of his followers—certainly not al, but a sizeable portionl—tend to waste our time by energetically sneering at other theorists rather than looking for the underlying links and synergies that might help us actually advance our understanding of war and of the strategic problems we face.
There are a lot of info and links at http://www.sci.fi/~fta/JohnBoyd.htm.
Links to Boyd's original briefings are available at Belisarius.com, "War, Chaos and Business."
This is a business-oriented Boyd site devoted to promoting Boyd's ideas. Visitors will be astounded to discover the following:
"You may not realize it, but many of today's most powerful business strategies—agility, the role of time and speed, and the need for mutual trust—trace directly back to this maverick Air Force fighter pilot."
See also the Sun Tzu site SONSHI.COM's excellent interview with Dr. Chester "Chet" Richards, who was an associate of Boyd from the mid-1970s until Boyd's death in 1997.
Chet Richards keeps Boyd's genius and contribution to society alive via his web sites, "War, Chaos, and Business" (AKA Belisarius.com).
Boydians tend to draw a caricature of Clausewitz as a Newtonian scientific primitive (a view hardly validated by modern nonlinear theorists' analysis of Clausewitz's world view) and as obsessed with "decisive battle"—a curious notion that traces back to Wellington's misreading of Clausewitz's study of The Campaign of 1815. This alleged "obsession with decisive battle" is basically a conflation of Clausewitz's 1) emphasis on combat as the factor that distinguishes war from other forms of politics, and 2) his suggestion that perhaps the sacrifices of war should be made in pursuit of an actual decision concerning the political issue under violent dispute.
The Clausewitzian countercritique of Boyd would go something like this:
The primary problem with Boyd's thinking is that he and his disciples consistently ignored the political factors in real-world strategy, on both the theoretical and practical levels—perhaps because there is not a lot of political interaction inside an F-86 cockpit. The results have been some useful tactical, doctrinal, and technical advances; much internecine bureaucratic hostility; and a whole lot of personal frustration and career destruction. Boyd was an interesting character and he provided some useful tools, but a Clausewitzian would be uncomfortable calling him a "strategist." Still, interesting stuff.
Chuck Spinney
"A Balkan Sun Tzu vs. the NATO Clausewitz: A Tentative Interpretation of the Serbo-NATO War"
April 4, 1999
A John Boyd/Sun Tzu fan (who, like many in that category, inexplicably feels that the sect requires him to sneer at Clausewitz) explains why a "Clausewitzian" NATO won't be able to beat the brilliantly SunTzuian strategist Slobodan Milosevic. "In short, Boyd's theory says NATO and the United States are in deep trouble, and the Clausewitzians want to continue fighting a methodical battle against a Balkan Sun Tzu who they hold in contempt." In actuality, of course, Milosevic was defeated by NATO, deposed by his own people, and held in jail until he very cleverly died of natural causes. But we certainly shouldn't let the actual outcome of NATO's strategy influence our evaluation either of this piece or of the kindergartenish tendency to emotionally bond with one cute kid against the other. Ed.
A USEFUL JUST WAR THEORY SITE
JustWarTheory.com is a free, non-profit, annotated aid to research and instruction in philosophical studies of warfare. It is owned and maintained by Mark Rigstad, Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Oakland University.
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Brian Orend, "War," The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2002 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.).
[U. Tennessee at Martin] Alexander Moseley," The Philosophy of War"
SUN TZU
The Giles Translation (c.1910) (Link?)
The Cleary Translation (c.1991)
Sonshi.com is almost certainly the best Sun Tzu site on the web. It's sole purpose is to be your one reliable Sun Tzu and strategy resource on the Web. It also features a heavily abridged version of Clausewitz's On War.
Introductory Working Bibliography to Sun Tzu's Art of War
(Sun Zi bing fa), by Prof. George J. Stein, Chairman, Dept. of Future Conflict Studies, U.S. Air War College.
Dr. Mikkel Vedby Rasmussen [Institute of Political Science, University of Copenhagen.]" The Acme of Skill: Clausewitz, Sun Tzu and the Revolutions in Military Affairs." Paper presented at the ECPR workshop on Theories of War, Grenoble, France. April 2001.
BIBLIOMANIA is a literary site with extensive links to important works on Reference (Literature and Language), Fiction, (including 60 classic novels), Non-Fiction, Important Classic Works, Biography, Science, Economics, Ancient Texts, Poetry, and Shakespeare.
They have a translation of Clausewitz's ON WAR, but we don't recognize the translation. So we've asked about it. No answer yet.
KANT: POLITICAL THEORY
- a section of "The Western Canon."
An ancient site: Last modified: 2 December 2003
Kant greatly influenced Clausewitz's approach.
A website with links to information on and writings by important political theorists: Plato, Aristotle, Niccolò Machiavelli, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Baron de Montesquieu, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Immanuel Kant, Edmund Burke, The Federalist Papers, Jeremy Bentham, G. W. F. Hegel, Alexis de Tocqueville, John Stuart Mill, and Karl Marx.
HighBeam Research (the old "Electric Library") is a searchable on-line collection of books and journals, fully indexed. Access requires a paid subscription (a 7-day free trial is offered). It listed 1,225 returns from a search for "Clausewitz" made on 30 DEC 2004.
Terence Heelas
Strategic Commentary 22nd. July 1965: Clausewitz and Vietnam.
Strategic Commentary 21st. April 1966: Clausewitz; Vietnam; Rhodesia.
Two 1960's-era commentaries on Vietnam from a Clausewitzian perspective, written by a radical strategist and an admirer of Clausewitz. From cartoonist Leo Baxendale.
A Neo-Marxist View
"Von Clausewitz contro Sun Zu"
This article is in Italian. It argues that Sun Tzu's practical view of war is more sensible than "the logical and absolute theories of von Clausewitz." Technically, the Clausewitz Homepage agrees completely with this assessment, since Clausewitz's discussion of "absolute war" is, as Clausewitz called it, "a logical fantasy" designed to show the dangers of relying on abstract logic when considering the dangerous problem of war in the real world in which we live.
KIRSTEN CALE
Originally from the now-defunct LM: THE MARXIST REVIEW OF BOOKS on-line archive.
Review essay on Keegan, A History of Warfare; Pick, War Machine: The Rationalisation of Slaughter in the Modern Age; Porter, War and the Rise of the State; van Creveld, On Future War.
MARXISTS.ORG
Search for Clausewitz in Marxists.org archives containing works by numerous key Marxist writers. (This Google engine returned 380 hits from the Marxists.org archive on 3 July 2012.)
"Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before," Bokonon tells us. "He is full of murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by their ignorance the hard way."
Kurt Vonnegut, Cat's Cradle
