The Great Military Theorist, Carl Von Clausewitz

Over the course of history, the strategic environment has changed rapidly and is now more complex than ever before – it is currently characterized by unpredictability and disorder, and may yet manifest itself in the collapse of nuclear armed nations, destabilizing conflict in geo-politically vital regions, and humanitarian crises. A world of disparate actors – not all nation states – now exists. Unpredictable events will continue to cause strategic surprise. The widespread effects of past conflicts such as World War II, Vietnam and the Iraq war are still being felt and have created significant strategic repercussions. The failures of these conflicts are the result of our military and political leaders’ failure to quickly adapt to wartime conditions. This occurs because of a general refusal to commit to a military culture of learning that encourages serious debate, critical assessments of our military operations, and challenges to our doctrine in the face of emerging change. Additionally, leaders have struggled with the critical responsibility of forecasting and providing for a ready force, one that is well-resourced and prepared to conduct future operations. It is the responsibility of our military and political leaders to send our military to war with a ready force, and a strategy that will ultimately result in victory. But understanding war and warriors is critical if societies and governments are to make sound judgments concerning military policy.

The National Defense Strategy (NDS): The NDS outlines how DOD will contribute to achieving National Security objectives.

The United States from the Cold War and into the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT) continues to face challenges in translating military might into political desires due to its obsession with raising an army, electing politicians and assembling a diplomatic corp that continue to gravitate towards State-to-State engagements that if not rectified could lead to substantial delays in fighting terrorism and non-terrorist adversaries or worse total failure of the United States Military’s ability to properly carry out it’s politicians objectives due to being blindsided.

2. The National Defense Strategy (NDS) counterbalances the Defense Departments tendency to focus on winning conventional conflicts rather than irregular wars by empowering those small nations to improve the security of their countries to prevent conflicts from happening. The NDS focuses on the different irregular warfare tactics that can be used by our enemies in the strategic environment. It gives us guidance on what we need to do to prevent the use of these irregular warfare tactics. It was not until the last decade that the U.S. military started fighting the irregular wars; our Special Forces units were the ones that were fighting the unconventional wars. The U.S. military has had a difficult time changing its focus on fighting conventional wars to fighting irregular wars. During the Vietnam War, the U.S. military became very experienced in guerrilla warfare tactics. However, when that war ended the focus shifted back to fighting the conventional wars and that experience was lost. Now, because of the lack of experience, the U.S. military is having a difficult time fighting the unconventional wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

To follow their goals in wartime, states tap their economic, political, and diplomatic resources and experiences, as well as their military ones. All of these are elements of grand strategy. Strategy means the larger use of military force. Some examples include implementing blockades, wear and tear, exhaustion, and applying immediate pressure at many points.

Carl Von Clausewitz and Helmuth Moltke the Elder were both practitioners and theorists of the war art in the 19th century. Their military thoughts on war’s character and its dynamics have influenced the later militaries in the conduct of war. Particularly, the Clausewitzian concept of the “culminating point of victory” and the Moltke’s principle of “Auftragstaktik”, or mission type tactics by a decentralized command were implemented and culminated in the battlefield of World War II. Moreover, today, the US Army has adopted both concepts in its latest refined “AirLand Battle” doctrine recognizing their importance in the operational art of modern warfare.

Comparing and contrasting of military theorists Carl Von Clausewitz and John R. Boyd and how relevant there ideas are in the military today. Both have differing theories on the nature of war, but fundamentally similar in the simplicity and psychology of a very complex environment. Clausewitz’s ideas were more strategic in nature with a focus on a “Trinity” to address the enemy’s center of gravity drawing on his ideas for how and why war exists. While Boyd’s work was more tactical with the development of the OODA loop out maneuver and defeat his adversary in aerial combat. Even though they focused on different ends of the spectrum within the nature of war their theories have paved the way for Marine Corps doctrine and leadership development

Accordingly, the Department of Homeland Security’ mission statement addresses and appears to reflect the definition that the six crucial points of the National Strategy, which are first, intelligence and warning; second border and transportation security; third domestic counterterrorism. The fourth point of the National Strategy is the protection of critical infrastructures and vital assets, fifth defending against catastrophic threats and lastly emergency preparedness and

For this paper, I am going to define strategy using Joint Pub 3.0’s definition: A prudent idea or set of ideas for employing the instruments of power in a synchronized and integrated fashion to achieve theater, national, and/or multi-national objectives. Using this definition of strategy, I’ll argue that Nightingale makes a valid claim when he states that the US is weak in formulating strategy by highlighting several aspects of strategic development where the US needs improvement. Nonetheless, let the record show that America’s success rate in conflicts in the last century is mixed, laying claim that the US may not be great at strategy development, however, it has done well enough to defeat some pretty ruthless villains ie., Hitler, Saddam, Milosevic, and Bin

Within days of Iraqi forces invading Kuwait in 1990, President Bush publicly backed the United Nations’ (UN) stance on the incursion with four national strategic objectives and determined that, ‘if invited, US forces would be deployed to deter further Iraqi attacks, defend Saudi Arabia and enforce UN resolutions.’ From the national strategic objectives, the military end-state is deduced. The military end-state is a conceptual element of operational design which describes the conditions that forces must achieve to attain strategic objectives/ hand over main effort responsibilities. The military end-state does not necessarily indicate the end of a military activities to attain national objectives. While one specific national objective would not

Great start to the thread! In reading our assignment, it was clear Clausewitz’s belief in total warfare was heavily motivated by the success of the French Revolution in part by the mobilization of France’s commonality to fight. To achieve success France mobilized all their resources which included military, economic and diplomatic resources to defeat its enemies, and upon the occupancy of their enemy the French army then took aim on a county’s military leadership and launched a major attack against it. What this means is Clausewitz saw the French Revolution from a tactical perspective but, the conclusions and the concepts on the ever-changing nature of war and its participants remain

“North America – Our Nation’s most vital interests are the safety and security of our people and territory and our way of life. We will defend the homeland and play a critical role in supporting homeland security. We will work with the Department of Homeland Security, particularly the Coast Guard, to improve air, maritime, space, cyberspace and land domain awareness to help secure the approaches to our continent and Nation.” (National Military Strategy, Mullen, 2011, p.10) The National Military Strategy outlines specifically that the U.S. military will work synergistically with the Department of Homeland Security to ensure the security of our nation’s core territory and interest. The requirements levied upon the homeland defense mission are very overt in nature. The military takes bold action to the conventional threats against the United States such as nuclear inter-continental ballistic missiles or unwarranted territorial expansions. Today we see violent extremism spreading across and controlling other nations which poses a major threat

Carl Von Clausewitz is one of the most well known, as well as important, war theorists in our history. Although he has been dead for almost two decades, he still plays a major role in shaping military thinkers around the world. The reason his theory is somehow still relevant is because of its flexibility. He did not prepare for nuclear warfare or cyber warfare, but you can apply his theory to the 21st century. Clausewitz believed in two levels of war and that war was continuous. Clausewitz believed that when one goes to war, they should have an achievable political objective; "war is the continuation of politics by other means” (Clausewitz, 1832).

Throughout history wars have been fought for a myriad of different reasons such as religion, politics, land disputes, economics, and to defeat tyrannical leaders who have committed atrocities against mankind. Very few men have ventured to explain the philosophical side to what is considered commonplace in today’s militaries. The most important and influential include Sun Tzu and Carl von Clausewitz. Although the men share much in common, they utilize their varying methods to try and make sense of war.

However, when situations are not foreseeable and obscure, it is possible to implement other alternative grand strategy options such as opportunism and risk management. According to P. Layton, both ‘opportunism and risk management are means-centred, not ends-centred as a grand strategy is’ (Layton, 2012). In other words, if the situation is unclear grand strategy, that planned, might not be an appropriate instrument for country’s policymakers to act. For instance, during analysing US strategy in the Middle East since 1975, it is obvious that they followed opportunistic approach to exercise their grand strategy. Because there actually was ‘no grand strategy in the Gulf since 1975 for US policy simply, there were continuing reactions to unexpected events and surprises’ (Layton, 2012, p. 59). The purpose of the grand strategy is to assemble and outline all strategies to the focal objective that nation willing to accomplish it in upcoming years. In other words, the grand strategy is a nation’s ‘tool’ or ‘intent’ to achieve decisive conditions in the future in order to achieve strategic aims. It gives broad plan for ‘minor strategies’ and serves as a general structure to guide national policy to act as a state in geopolitical environment. The ‘grand strategy’ should always serve as a balancing tool for resources and goals in order to support military power in case of armed conflict as