ABSTRACT
The strategic genius of Karl von Clausewitz is one that is often quoted, seldom read, and little understood. Many viewed “classical” strategy, as interpreted by Clausewitz, as a Kafkaesque landscape of violence and brutality, when, in actuality, it was a conscientious effort to translate the surrealistic tableau of war to the concrete reality of political intercourse. With the possession of thermonuclear weapons and means for their delivery, victory, in one sense of the word, is no longer attainable. It is sometimes argued that limited war, which involves nuclear powers even indirectly, is impossible because each side, rather than lose, would expand the scope and character of the conflict until it would end in mutual nuclear destruction. The conduct of the conflict in Vietnam has followed a neo-Clausewitzian strategy particularly suited to conditions of limited war. Clausewitz said that there were two things which, in practice, could take the place of the impossibility of further resistance as motives for making peace.
