The Absolute War

The Absolute contendIn order to understand why inviolate fight does non occur in reality, the absolute war should be defined in the number one place. It should be underlined that absolute war differs from total war. Total war abstruse the total subordination of regime to the war effort, an idea Clausewitz emphatically rejected, and the assumption that total victory or total defeat were the nevertheless options. Total war involved no suspension of the effects of time and space, on the early(a) baseball glove Clausewitzs model of the absolute did.1 The word absolute refers to purity and extremes in that sense.Before explaining Clausewitzs conception of absolute war, his army as well as intellectual and historical background should be kept in mind. The background of Clausewitzs ideas which covers the transition from the enlightenment to the German movement that was hostile to it should be recognized. In Berlin Institute for Young Officers, he tick offt that the system h ad to be concrete and circumstantial, encompass that formed the reality, and be closely linked to historical experience.2 He was overly formd by the theoretical ideal that has to reflect the relationship amid the parts of war and the whole, and be necessarily grounded in the nature of things. The primacy of the major battle, aided by a massive concentration of forces and in-your-face conduct, and aiming at the total countermine of the enemy reflected the impact of the Napoleonic experience.3 In 1827, term composing On War, Clausewitzs line of judgment underwent a radical change of direction. He transformed but did non lay off his old military outlook, and developed completely new theoretical devices. The origins and nature of Clausewitzs new theoretical framework have remained a mystery, and as a result the exact nature of the transformation in his thought has not been entirely clear. This explains why Clausewitzs ideas could be interpreted so differently by successive gen erations.4Clausewitz precious to do to a greater extent than merely writing for next generations, or Prussian army, he wanted to reckon for the absolute, the very nature, or the regulative idea of things.5 He put emphasis on the role of the surmise that it is its duty to give the place to the absolute form of war and to use that form as a general point of direction, it had to reflect the relationship between the parts of war and the whole, and to be found in the nature of things. He regarded absolute war as ideal in the philosophical sense, as a regulative idea which gives unity and objectivity to diverse phenomena, an idea like that of perfect beauty in art which whitethorn never be attained but constantly approximated.6According to Clausewitz, the explanation of war is War on that pointfore is an act of violence intended to compel our opponent to fulfil our will.7 After defining, he then deductively argued from this definition to essential features to conclude how one should b ehave to realize its will. Therefore, from the definition, it gouge be understand that the violence, or physical force is the means, and the compulsory compliance of the adversary to our will is the ultimate end. To this end, the violence is pushed to its completion bounds, since one side dictates law to its adversary, there occurs a kind of bilateral action, leading to an extreme, which is first reciprocal action 8. To compel the enemy to our will, the enemy must be placed in a dapple so that he would sacrifice which is demanded. This situation can be disarmament the enemy, threatening him with it, or overthrow of him. As long as the enemy is not defeated, there is always possibility that he whitethorn dictate to the other side. Therefore, it is the second reciprocal action leading to second extreme.9 If one wants to defeat the adversary, he must proportionate his efforts to the others powers of resistance by increasing the means as much as possible, but the adversary would d o the same and meet him in a new mutual enhancement, therefore there would occur the third reciprocal action leading to the third extreme.10The absolute war can also be understood as a war, in which all available force is concentrated into a single, instantaneous blow.11 From this logic, it can be argued that there can be no middle ground between the state of peace and the absolute war, the two extremes where force remains altogether unused or wholly and immediately used in order to make the adversary defenceless. However, in reality, the conduct of war engages the incremental use of force.12 The discrepancy between the absolute and real wars is due to the two basic factors. Firstly, the real war is dictated by the time and space. Actual military means atomic number 18 spatially distributed therefore they can be employed in some period of time, but not instantaneously. Also, the real war is un essential by the friction, which refers to the obstacles to the efficient usage of forc e that the real humanity imposes, and it is caused by the chance, and uncertainty, physical exertion and danger.13Moreover, for bound the absoluteness of war, Clausewitz introduced the effect of politics on wars. According to him, all characteristics of war are influenced by politics, and this influence is not part of the nature of war. On the contrary, the influence of politics is an external force which works over against the admittedly essence of war, harnesses it to its needs, and modifies the imperatives which it imposes in the process.14 It is due to the fact that when the insurance policy-making influence on the war is admitted, one may be willing to wage minimal are closely linked to the character and scope of the semipolitical objectives. These wars may consist threatening the enemy, with negotiations held in reserve.15 Therefore, the politics convert the destructive element of war into a mere legal document, in other words, the conception that war is a mere contin uation of policy by other means.16To introduce the Trinitarian nature of war, Clausewitz, first of all, wrote that warfare was a complex combination of passion, chance and reason. War is partly a matter of great passion, of hatred, danger, exertion. To the extent that war was an extension of politics, it was a intelligent, purposive activity aimed at altering the behaviour of an opponent. War, according to Clausewitz, was also the realm of chance. This combination makes war a foolish trinity. 17 In short, war is composed of three elements first, primitive violence, hatred, and hostility, which should be regarded as a blind natural force second, the play of chance and probability within which the creative spirit is free to roam and third, its subordination, as an instrument of policy, which makes it subject to reason alone.18 The relations among these elements are fluid and tense. As warfare moves towards its absolute nature, the passion adjoins and the rational direction of war becomes more(prenominal) problematic. As the violence becomes more complete, untramelled, and absolute -since the pure concept requires, war would drive policy out of office and it would rule by the laws of its own nature. As the goals of war expand and the stakes increase, warfare would tend to move towards to the absolute form. This tendency towards absolute war would increase the tensions between the constitutive elements of the trinity, threatening to displace reason.19 However, by arguing that the war is the extension of politics, Clausewitz asserted the rational direction of war as a whole. Similarly, as long as war is a political activity, it is fought for a purpose. It is neither the result of unreasoning passion, nor the result of mistakes.Besides, to explain the fact that although politics is artificial element to the nature of war, the real war may still come close to the absolute war. From Clausewitzs writings, it can be understood that state policy determines the mai n lines along which war is to move. This is the correct order of things, since the policy does not demand anything against the nature of war. If the political tensions carry very powerful character, and if adequate material means are given, the political aim may disappear behind, or rather coincide with, the military aim of disarming the enemy. In such human face, real war approaches to absolute war. 20 He argued that this type of warfare would appear again and again in the age of nationalism.21 On the other hand, this does not necessarily mean Clausewitz argued in favor of the absolute war, but rather he supported expressage war. His conception of war became more durable, and more sophisticated after seeing Napoleons defeats at Russia in 1812, at Leipzig in 1813 and finally at Waterloo in June 1815. This conception became regarded as a political act, and as an act which is and should be limited.22To argue in favour of why limited wars happen in reality, Liddell hart raised Clau sewitzs conception of absolute war to the take aim of an infallible religious dogma.23 In this critic, it may be argued that Hart did not carefully read Clausewitz, as yet at this point I would only like to give Harts point of view on war. Harts definition of strategy was designed to reemphasize the subordination of the conduct of war to political objective. He believed that since Napoleon, the definition of strategy had grow to the point where it was controlled completely by the military, the situation which created the dominance of the false objective.24 Therefore, he redefined strategy as the distribution and transmission of military means to fulfil the needs of policy making it more clearly myrmecophilous upon political decisions while leaving its execution in the hands of the military.25 Since the objective of war is to change the enemys will, Hart concluded that the strategy should not accept seeking decision in battle as a guiding principle, the situation in which the en emys power of resistance is likely to be greatest, but it should be attack to the vulnerable points in the enemys armour where defeat would destroy his moral and physical capacity to resist. In other word, it is a strategy of paralysation thorough dislocation rather than annihilation thorough attrition.26Moreover, Hart also criticized Clausewitzs affirmation that locates overthrow of the enemy as the aim of the war. Hart argued that the complete overthrow of the adversarys forces and the occupation of the opponents territory may be necessary to his success, but it is not compulsory to ones achievement. The object is fulfilled if the enemy can be convinced that he cannot conquer.27 In order to illustrate this logic, the thermonuclear age and the deterrence theory establish on the assumption that when one state does cost-benefit analysis before engaging to any aggression, and in this case since one state owns nuclear capability, it would deter other states from creating or getting involved to aggression, can be used.28 The nuclear weapons and limited war are incompatible with severally other since an unlimited war with nuclear weapons would mean mutually suicide. Therefore, the states need to establish adequate forces to defend themselves. Hart criticized the common assumption that the world faces a choice between the extremes of total war and total peace, but he urged a more limited approach to war.29 Therefore, it can be understood that if wars are likely to occur, the limitation of their destructiveness is in any states interest.Similarly, although it is always irrational to fight nuclear war, and it may not be irrational to risk nuclear war, not all wars are nuclear wars, even in the nuclear age.30 Nor nuclear war is instrument of policy, neither are nuclear weapons. These nuclear weapons are to be used only to prevent wars, not to fight wars. The purpose of the development of the doctrine of limited war in the 1950s was to restore policy control over t he use of violence.31 From these arguments, it can be understood that states may sometimes choose limited war, in order not to start or create possibility of engagement to any nuclear wars, but to keep their power over the use of force. It can be therefore further argued that while engaging to wars, states keep their political aims limited, so that they can keep their weapons courtly and limited. For instance, in 1950, during the Korean War, the US General MacArthur was in favour of nuclear weapons against North Korea. However, American policy makers decided on diplomatic and political utility in nuclear weapons rather than military utility.32 Therefore, when the US intervened in Korea, it used ceremonious and limited military means to defend the South Korea. Meanwhile, when the allied powers came at the border of Yalu River, China got involved to the conflict to support North Korea. These two states, namely the US and China fought with limited scope and conventional weapons, the refore this example shows that states sometimes prefer to keep their force limited due to the political influence. asunder from these, the bargaining theory which assumes the wars with bargained settlements developed by Alastair Smith and Allan C. Stam approaches to Clausewitzs limited wars, or wars in reality. Since the bargaining theory is in realm of game theory, I will not speak of it in details. However, since one of the tombstone feature of the theory is much more related to Clausewitzs limited wars, I will use it as an instance as an illustration. One of the features of the model is that as nations fight battles and capture forts from each other, both nations learn common information about the nature of warfare between them. As long as more and more information is revealed, the beliefs of nations converge. Therefore, wars are fought until either one side decisively defeats the other or until beliefs of each side unite sufficiently so that they can agree to a settlement.33Bib liographyGat, Azar. 1989. The Origins of Military Thought From attainment to Clausewitz. New York Oxford University PressEarle, Edward Mead. 1973. Makers of Modern Strategy. Princeton Princeton University PressHoward, Michael. 1983. Clausewitz. 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