Inconclusive Wars: Is Clausewitz Still Relevant in these Global Times?
| Published date | 01 October 2010 |
| Date | 01 October 2010 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1758-5899.2010.00041.x |
| Author | Mary Kaldor |
Inconclusive Wars: Is Clausewitz Still
Relevant in these Global Times?
Mary Kaldor
London School of Economics and Political Science
Abstract
This article argues that the core Clausewitzean
proposition that war tends to extremes no longer
applies in contemporary wars. Instead an alternative
proposition is put forward that war tends to be long
lasting and inconclusive. The article adopts the
Clausewitzean method and derives this proposition
from the logic of a redefinition of war. It also shows
the relevance of many of Clausewitz’s central tenets if
reinterpreted. Thus contemporary wars are about
politics, not policy; they are instrumental and rational
but not reasonable (in the sense of being in
accordance with universal values); and they bring
together a trinity of motivations (reason, chance and
passion) but not a trinity of the state, the generals and
the people since new wars are fought by a range of
nonstate actors. In particular, international missions in
crisis zones should take seriously what Clausewitz says
about the importance of political control, the character
of the commander and the crucial significance of
moral forces.
Policy Implications
•The redefinition of war as organised violence
framed in political terms that can be either a
mutual enterprise or a contest of wills has pro-
found implications for policy.
•If war is a mutual enterprise rather than a contest
of wills, then the international policy must aim to
damp down violence rather than support one side
or another or even find a compromise between the
sides.
•Policy instruments like international law, creating
humanitarian space or involving civil society
may be just as or more important than political
negotiation.
•Morale and leadership are crucial in international
missions to crisis zones.
On War is one of those great books, like religious texts or
classic works of political theory, from which soldiers,
statesmen and scholars gain inspiration and legitimation for
what they are trying to achieve.
1
It is the standard text in
all war colleges and officers are expected to relate their pro-
posed strategies to some tenet of Clausewitz’s thought. Yet
Clausewitz was primarily concerned with the great armed
clashes between states that were typical of European wars
in the 19th and 20th centuries. So is Clausewitz still rele-
vant in the 21st century? Or does our habitual deference to
Clausewitz cloud our ability to deal with contemporary
conflicts at a global level? Can Clausewitzean thinking be
applied in an era when absolutist conceptions of the nation
state are giving way to complex multilateral arrangements
and when wars between nation states are being supplanted
by new types of warfare involving nonstate actors?
In this article, I argue that the notion of absolute war,
the inner tendency of war to lead to extremes, which I
regard as the core of Clausewitzean theory, is no longer
applicable. For Clausewitz, war was fundamentally about
the ‘urge to decision’, which was achieved through fighting,
that is to say combat between two warring parties, and this
implied the need for speed and concentration; the suspen-
sion of belligerent action and the dispersal of forces did, of
course, take place but were explained in terms of departures
from the inner nature of war. Today’s wars, by contrast to
the European wars of the 19th and 20th centuries, are
inconclusive, long lasting and have a tendency to spread.
My argument is that this is because these wars have a dif-
ferent inner nature. In this sense, a Clausewitzean under-
standing of these wars can be deeply counterproductive in
developing appropriate international strategies both for try-
ing to end these wars and for the role of military forces.
On the other hand, there is much in Clausewitz’s method
of argument that can help us think through alternative
approaches.
The argument can be said to be post-Clausewitzean,
in the literal sense of coming after Clausewitz. It builds
on Clausewitz’s methodological approach – the dialectic
between the ideal and the real and the need to combine
experience, empirical study and theory. And it accepts that
certain important propositions made by Clausewitz, includ-
ing the trinitarian conception of war as reason, chance and
emotion; the primacy of policy or politics; and the instru-
mentalisation of war, remain highly relevant, depending on
how they are interpreted. In particular, some of Clausewitz’s
Global Policy Volume 1 . Issue 3 . October 2010
Global Policy (2010) 1:3 doi: 10.1111/j.1758-5899.2010.00041.x Copyright 2010 London School of Economics and Political Science and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
Research Article
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