ABSTRACT
Prussian military thinker Carl von Clausewitz (1780–1831) developed his theories some 200 years ago, after witnessing first-hand the effectiveness of Napoleon’s way of waging war. Nonetheless, they have proven remarkably resilient. One reason for this durability is undoubtedly, as historian Hew Strachan suggests, that the ideas expressed in Clausewitz’s masterwork, On War (Vom Kriege), are ambiguous enough to lend themselves to reinterpretation when new circumstances emerge. 1 Yet, there is another, equally valid reason. As the late American strategic theorist Bernard Brodie once argued, the analyses underpinning the Prussian’s ideas penetrate to the very fundamentals of war. 2 It is the desire to understand those fundamentals that draws serious readers to On War, whether or not what they ultimately see is largely a reflection of the assumptions and concerns of their times. Brodie went on to say that On War was the only military text to have plumbed war’s depths so thoroughly. That is still true today, and it makes the earnest study of On War all the more rewarding.
