Clausewitz and ‘New Wars’ Theories

Dr Sandra De Carvalho is a Teaching Associate at the Queen Mary University of London and a tutor in the university’s online MA in International Relations. Her main areas of interest are Latin American politics (with a focus on Brazil’s foreign policy), US Foreign Policy, and International Security (with an emphasis on nuclear proliferation and nuclear international norms). In the article below, she discusses the relevance of Clausewitz and ‘New Wars’ theories to our understanding of current conflicts.

What is war? Can we easily define it? Is it possible to make a clear distinction between legitimate violence and murder? What are war’s key elements, causes, and manifestations? Is the character of war immutable, or it is like a ‘chameleon’ that changes according to different circumstances?

Our understanding of war

A key contributor to our understanding of war has been the Prussian general and military theorist Carl von Clausewitz (1780-1831). His major philosophical work, On War (1832), has been selectively interpreted (and sometimes also misunderstood) by commanders and militaries on different sides of the political spectrum, for almost two centuries.

Clausewitz’s works experienced a resurgence in the 20th century, and were studied by those supporting fascism as well as by those fighting wars of liberation, by communists and anti-colonial rebels, as well as by those in the Western military - he is still a key reference in American academies.

Perhaps the reason for his enduring influence and appeal has been the breadth of his study on war, which went well beyond providing lessons in military strategy. Clausewitz was concerned in understanding war in its great complexity, and helping others to understand it and wage it better. Part of his knowledge was derived from studying philosophy and military theory (Machiavelli was a key influence on the connection between war and politics) and part was derived from his own experience.

From limited to total war

Clausewitz lived in a transitional period when warfare was rapidly changing from ‘limited war’ (restricted to armies and in geography) to ‘total war’ (involving entire societies and many countries). He witnessed those changes during the French Revolutionary Wars (1792-1802) and the Napoleonic Wars (1803-1815). Clausewitz saw the Prussian army defeated by the French in 1806, and took an active part in the campaign against Napoleon’s forces in Russia (1812-1815).

On War is a collection of eight books on various issues - it covers from a definition of war and its connection to politics, to strategies, the concepts of ‘friction’ and uncertainty (popularly known as ‘the fog of war’); from the role of the commander and ‘military genius’ to the psychological aspects of war, the power of defence and ‘the people in arms’.

Clausewitz had been impressed by the levée en masse (1793), a policy of national mass conscription in France, which called all unmarried and able-bodied men, between the ages of 18 and 25, to serve in the revolutionary wars. He foresaw a great transformation in warfare, when war, fuelled by the passion and hatred of the masses, could easily escalate into ‘total war’. But he also saw benefits in organising popular insurrections in Prussia and in Russia to fight against French forces (he discussed the role of ‘small wars’ or guerrillas and irregular warfare in other studies).

Most famously, Clausewitz pointed out that ‘war is a continuation of political intercourse, carried on with other means’. To Clausewitz, wars were multi-causal, but there was always a political purpose to them. Another important principle introduced by Clausewitz was that of ‘trinitarian war’. According to him, war is often the result of three interacting elements:passion and hatred; chance and probability; and policy/politics. He related those three elements, respectively, to the role of people, the military, and the government.

Critics of Clausewitz

Critics of his theories, mostly ‘New Wars’ scholars such as Mary Kaldor and Martin van Creveld, argue that his principles are no longer relevant in the 21st Century. They observe that since the late 1980s, there has been a rise in intra-state conflicts, that many have multiple types of combatants and are transnational in nature (sponsored by foreign groups and states alike), and involve non-state actors such as rebels armies, private militias and terrorist organisations. Those conflicts have developed a logic on their own, very different from the conflicts of Clausewitz’s time.

On one hand, the criticisms are valid. Clausewitz did not consider aspects such as the role of ideology and identity in war, or issues such as genocide, logistics, the political economy of war, and technological revolutions in transports, communications and weapons that would follow after his death. And there are contradictions and incoherence in his major work (partially due to mis-translations and partially because he died before revising it).

Nonetheless, there are many insights which can be still relevant, such as war as a political instrument (not necessarily of the state but of communities/groups), the role of intelligence gathering, of chance, and of friction in war, as well as the psychological and irrational aspects of it.

We will discuss Clausewitz’s relevance to understanding modern conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria (among others) in our module ‘International Security: War and Peace in a Global Context’ of our online MA in International Relations.

We will explore the debate between ‘Clausewitzians’ and ‘New Wars’ theorists, identifying changes and continuities in warfare from the 18th Century to today’s Revolutionary Military Affairs (RMA) - from the gunpowder revolution to the nuclear arms race and the use of drones. By comparing and contrasting his insights with the most recent scholarship, we will be able to better comprehend the nature and character of war.