Von Clausewitz, calculation and perception
Feb 16, 2009 Homo sapiens, Past is prologue, Stragety
Zenpundit over at Chicago Boyz questions the assertion by von Clausewitz that the challenge of a comprehensible military reality has almost the same effect as the acceptance of that challenge and actual engagement. This is because the playing out of that scenario in an adversary’s strategic calculus is little different than it being played out on the battlefield, except for the slight matter of the cost in blood and gold, and of course the chance that everyone is guessing wrong about the outcome.
Mark Safranski, the author of the post (he is Zenpundit), says von Clausewitz places too much stock in not only the quality of information about strategic reality — a surprising error considering the master’s own teaching regarding the fog of war — but the quality of, well, thinking:
Cultural differences, too, when civilizations are at war, create a cognitive “fog” for commanders. Alien value systems create a “noise” that interferes with the “signal” intended by the offer of engagement by one side to the another. They will not be calculated “right” because the shared understanding of war and the valuation of objectives is much more limited. The Iran-Iraq war dragged on as a Middle-Eastern version of WWI primarily because of the differences in worldview between the leadership of Saddam Hussein’s secular, Baathist, Sunni dominated, Arab, Iraq and the radical Shiism of Ayatollah Khomeini’s revolutionary, Persian, Iran. Two countries in the center of the same Muslim civilization! How much greater is the “fog” between Washington and the hills of Pushtunistan where al Qaida’s leaders reside?
This is not to say that Clausewitz’s principle of possible engagement does not exist under conditions of opacity, it just offers far less data to work with for the commander. The “unknown unknowns” predominate.
Indeed, can’t it be fairly argued that the great Prussian really was a victim here of his own cultural limitations? Von Clausewitz was a great student of war among regional powers, and can hardly be said to have been thinking beyong the scope of conflicts among squabbling Habsburgs or Hohenzollerns.
Fundamentally, however, von Clausewitz’s frame of reference is Western, and Safranski seems to be saying that once you get far enough out of town, sometimes even real defeat — much less imagined defeat — doesn’t even teach the strategic lesson it should.
Opacity indeed. It’s gravely dangerous that Western intellectuals and politicians still don’t get this, and believe that, just like two neighbors feuding over the proper location of a fence post in New Hampshire, “understanding” and “communication” will pave the route to “peace ” in places where the fog never lifts.
February 17th, 2009 at 4:41 am
I think this is a fair point, but at some point you have to consider that aside from the truly deranged, humans are generally after the same things. In my mind conflicts tend to fall into three categories – two (or more) rational actors fighting, a rational actor fighting an irrational actor, and irrational actors fighting each other.
If you determine your antagonists to be rational, then you tend to plan with the assumption they will act in a rational way. That is, they won’t initiate a conflict that they will likely lose. You have to consider a couple of things though. First, once a conflict has started, even if the rational choice is to surrender, national pride often prevents that from happening (many historical examples of this). And secondly, they may know something you don’t, or think they know something you don’t, in which case they may act differently to what you expect. However, keeping all this in mind, smart people tend to do make the right choices. For example, as much as China talked about invading Taiwan, I think they realize the reality of how much it would cost them to do so and this is an important factor in why they haven’t. The Chinese may have be communists but they have never been particularly stupid.
On the other hand, when you are dealing with an irrational actor, you have to treat them differently. This has been one of the major challenges in the “war on terror”. Even when Al Qaeda can’t possibly win they still fight. This is a large aspect of why it’s almost impossible to defeat them with a purely military strategy. The Taliban are a bit more rational. Setting up base across the border in Pakistan was a smart thing to do.
Anyway I agree that one has to always keep imperfect knowledge and actors’ rationality in mind, but when one does, I think Clausewitz’ point is still valid. In the mind of your enemy, if they see the threat of your action is real, then it’s as good as if it actually is real. Better, in some ways, because of the reluctance to disengage once conflict has started vs. the typical reluctance to engage beforehand. However, it’s how they see you and how they understand your motives that matters, not how you see yourself or what your motives really are.
February 17th, 2009 at 11:39 pm
Well put, Nicholas. You’ve densely packed quite a lot of ideas in that comment. I would ask you to consider this, though: You use, as exemplars of irrational actors, classic Muslim terrorist organizations. But what about classic Muslim state military regimes?
It is true that the Syrias and Irans of the world have learned how much healthier it is for the local economy, infrastructure and reputation to utilize non-state-based proxies to advance violent goals than to repeatedly and loudly lose big ugly ground wars against the Israelis. Yet so much of the suicidal / irrational mindset of today’s free agent militias are directly descended from the “black is white, night is day” political and military styles of Baathist-type totalitarians who for generations imprinted the habit of characterizing humiliating defeat as victory. The apotheosis of this was of course Sadaam Hussein, and his end only confirmed that this model was not a useful one for states you could find on a map and blow up. I believe this distortion of common sense far exceeds “national pride” as a rationalization for irrational behavior in warfare and, because it is in the hands of, yes, a non-western mindset, goes places (in terms of utter self-destructiveness) where even its notional model for totalitarian leadership and decision-making in war, namely Stalinism, would never dream of going. To the contrary, Stalin would lie and waste limitless lives to achieve his goals without losing sleep, but all students of his life agree that he did nothing without a very specific, rational goal in mind (even if that goal could be radically changed in a very short time).
The question here is, then –
Oh gosh, I am rambling. Maybe somewhere in there I’ve made a point, namely that VC would probably recognize the European precedents for quasi-suicidal decision-making in warfare, and perhaps even those of classical Eastern tyrannies, but as for modern Arab / Muslim insanity — well, I don’t know.
February 18th, 2009 at 10:58 am
If we’re going to assume a huge cultural difference between Iran and Iraq in the mid 1980s, surly we can also assume a huge cultural difference between (proto-imperial) Germany and (Republican) France of the 1790s. Also: Clausewitz lent his services to the Russians in the 1800s and 1810s. Not to mention fighting with and against Italians, Poles, English, Spanish, etc.
I think he knew just a bit about cultural differences…
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February 18th, 2009 at 11:03 am
No, I disagree. I believe that fundamentally these European powers shared cultural assumptions and “ways of thinking” and were far more alike than they were different. After all by World War I, as I alluded to in the post, they were all ruled by members of the same extended family.
February 18th, 2009 at 11:14 am
All of them except France, which was ruled by a Constitution (and never again a monarchy!), and Russia, which had a different set of rulers (The Czars were not part of the European marriage game), etc.
Certain assumptions? Maybe, after all, they’d been using the same calendar for upwards of 40 years (except Russia, who persisted on the Julian Calendar until after WWI). Some of them were “Protestant”, others were
“Universal”“Catholic”– England was even fairly “tolerant”!It is simply absurd to say that Iran and Iraq were more different in 1980 than Russia and France were in 1810. Indeed, a good deal of the pre WWI similarity you note was an outcome of the Napoleonic wars that were then raging.
It’s a bit like saying that, in 1863 Virginia and New York must have been very similar– after all, in 2008 they both voted for Obama…
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February 18th, 2009 at 11:22 am
You’re wrong about Russia. Czar Nicholas II of Russia was first cousins with Kaiser Wilhelm II.
I would never suggest that it is possible to understand the French except in error. I stand corrected.
I disagree with your argument, however. England was Catholic on one day and Protestant the next. Did its mental style change overnight? I am not saying the cultures were the same. I am saying the cultures were sufficiently similar that commanders of opposing armies could act within the same frame of mutually conceived rationality.
February 18th, 2009 at 11:42 am
England’s proclivity towards sect change operations is why they were “tolerant”.
We’re not talking about Czar Nicholas the Second, we’re talking about Czar Nicky-poo the First. I don’t know why you keep bringing the Great War into this conversation; we’re discussing the World War _before_ that one. The one from 1793-1814.
I’m glad you’re not arguing that the cultures were the same. I’m stating that they were more dissimilar than Iran and Iraq Circa 1980. Indeed, the whole point of the Napoleonic wars was that France had some great new memes called “Republican Rule”, “Kill the Royalists”, and “Slaughter the Priests” that were pretty fracking different from what Russia, Germany, England, or Italy had going on…
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February 18th, 2009 at 5:24 pm
I don’t know why you can tell me which czar I was talking about! Anyway I just plain disagree with you on the empirical question, and at this point we’re not really proving anything with facts, figures or documents, so maybe we should let it go.