ABSTRACT
Clausewitz, On War War is a paradox; it is both simple and complex. It is simple when a nation uses war to attain clear objectives with only a small loss of life and treasure. But in reality war will always be complex because it is inherently unpredictable and its basic characteristic is chaos. Unfortunately the historical record of warfare generally presents an orderly picture of war since, to make any sense at all of what happened in past wars, historians must necessarily record war’s chaos in an orderly fashion. The orderly record of war tends to mask the chaos and confusion which invariably accompanies the conduct of war. Relying solely on an historical record which portrays battles, campaigns, and wars as a series of neat red and blue lines and boxes on a map which in many cases may not have even existed at the time of the conflict is not enough to understand war. Understanding war means understanding its inherent chaos.
