Book Review: Christopher Daase and James W Davis (eds), Clausewitz on Small War and Peter Paret, Clausewitz in His Time: Essays in the Cultural and Intellectual History of Thinking About War
| DOI | 10.1177/1478929917719412 |
| Date | 01 November 2017 |
| Published date | 01 November 2017 |
| Author | Vladimir Rauta |
| Subject Matter | Book ReviewsInternational Relations |
636 Political Studies Review 15(4)
The varied, detailed and cross-disciplinary
analyses comprised in the volume put the onset
of the Russia–Ukraine in a unique perspective:
one that does away with the primacy of interest
and power, and effectively relocates decision-
making – military or otherwise – towards a
nuanced position where politics becomes cul-
turally sensitive and historically transforma-
tive.
To clarify, two key points mark the current
crisis: the Russian annexation of the Crimean
Peninsula and the on-going civil unrest in
South-East Ukraine. In helping to understand
the recent Russian assertiveness over its neigh-
bour, the volume points to the historical link-
ages between the two, their cultural overlap
and the similar trajectories in their post-com-
munist transition processes. As Yasin’s chapter
details, the cradle of Russian history is the
Kievan Rus from which Great Russia would
split at the turn of the thirteenth century. As
separately argued by Snegovaya, Knochalovsky
and Knorre, Orthodoxy and its Church act as a
transnational bond that both pushes the two
countries and pulls them apart.
Of particular note here is the prevalence of
the Russian Orthodox Church as the single
most important identity marker, so powerful
that in enforcing the political establishment it
becomes part of it. Tying the two – history and
culture – are the twists and turns of the coun-
tries’ processes of transitioning to democracy.
What is unique is that in both cases, Russia and
Ukraine found themselves transitioning not to
democracy, but to a closer-to-home model
combining remnants of absolutism and author-
itarianism. Here, we see culture at work: what
might be construed as mere historical repeti-
tion is in fact culture exerting its gravitational
pull.
For opening the debate on conflict and
intervention from a different angle, and for pre-
senting more questions than answers, Harrison
and Yasin’s edited book is a welcome contribu-
tion that escapes the obvious Huntingtonian
undertones of simple clashes of civilizations.
Vladimir Rauta
(Staffordshire University)
© The Author(s) 2017
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DOI: 10.1177/1478929917719405
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Clausewitz on Small War by Christopher
Daase and James W Davis (eds). Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2015. 251pp., £50.00
(h/b), ISBN 9780198737131
Clausewitz in His Time: Essays in the
Cultural and Intellectual History of
Thinking About War by Peter Paret. Oxford:
Berghahn Books, 2015. 134pp., £25.00 (h/b), ISBN
9781782385813
As contemporary war and warfare are trans-
formed by the growing presence of non-state
actors that swiftly undergo radical morphologi-
cal changes and that satisfy a wide range of
functions in the politico-strategic battle space,
it is comforting to make a return to the classics.
In fact, to the classic: Carl von Clausewitz.
The books briefly discussed here look at
Clausewitz from afar and from up close, in an
elegant combination of both general reflections
on his overarching thinking, as well as particular
aspects hitherto left undisclosed to the English
reader. The latter is the case with Clausewitz on
Small War, edited and translated by Christopher
Daase and James W. Davis, and the former is the
perspective of Clausewitz in His Time: Essays in
the Cultural and Intellectual History of Thinking
about War, by Peter Paret.
To begin with, Daase and Davis’ book is a
new translation of Clausewitz’s lectures on
the topic of small wars, also known as wars of
the people that, in the context of the nine-
teenth century, were yet to outrank inter-state
war, as they would after the end of the Second
World War. And it is this exact tension
between the primacy of state-against-state
war at the expense of minor, albeit violent,
rebellions and uprisings that make the transla-
tion so valuable.
The book offers a window into the micro-
foundations of insurgencies and achieves a
stunning feat: it emphasises their cross-histori-
cal locus in the history of war, as well as their
intrinsically political nature. In doing so, the
book first becomes a critical tool for under-
standing and explaining the presence today in
warfare and reliance on non-state actors, mili-
tias or paramilitaries. At this level, the transla-
tion clarifies the wide spectrum of functions
these actors can satisfy: from tactical military,
through strategic military, and to political. In
today’s environment dominated by proxy wars,
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