ABSTRACT
This paper will explore the connections between intelligence, the conduct of military operations and the art of command. It will first examine this relation in the period before the industrial revolution and the development of real time communications, particularly as it was reflected in the influential arguments of Carl von Clausewitz. It will also examine how far his ideas on intelligence and uncertainty shaped his theory of military operations. Second, this paper will study the relationship between intelligence, operations and command in the modern period. For this purpose, it will rest on a mature case study-Edward Drea’s account of the use and misuse of intelligence in the Pacific War by General Douglas James MacArthur. Finally, this paper will consider the relationship between intelligence, operations and command in the future. It will link together such issues as one general’s use of ULTRA and the interrelationship between intelligence, uncertainty and command in one war, and in the theory of war; it will use Clausewitz to illuminate a campaign and vice versa. This paper cannot develop every point which it mentions, but the hope is to show that these points merit further development and to provide a conceptual framework which may assist that process.
Any discussion of intelligence and war must begin with Clausewitz’s arguments about uncertainty and the psychology of command. Such a discussion may also illuminate those ideas, which are fundamental to modern theories of war. The limits to this approach must be emphasized from the start. Both war and On War are complex matters. The discussion at hand will focus on only certain variables, excluding issues like technology, doctrine and politics. It will discuss only part of a phenomenon, not the whole.
