Editing Carl von Clausewitz (section)

==Interpretation and misinterpretation==
Clausewitz used a [[dialectical]] method to construct his argument, leading to frequent misinterpretation of his ideas. British military theorist [[B. H. Liddell Hart]] contends that the enthusiastic acceptance by the [[Prussia]]n military establishment—especially [[Helmuth von Moltke the Elder|Moltke the Elder]], a former student of Clausewitz<ref>{{cite book |page=35
|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bI5CAAAAIAAJ&pg=GBS.PA35 |title=Moltke: His Life and His Character: Sketched in Journals, Letters, Memoirs, a Novel, and Autobiographical Notes |translator-first=Mary |translator-last=Herms |publisher=Harper & Brothers Franklin Square |location=New York |year=1892 |last=Moltke |first=Helmuth
}}</ref>—of what they believed to be Clausewitz's ideas, and the subsequent widespread adoption of the Prussian military system worldwide, had a deleterious effect on [[military theory]] and [[warfare|practice]], due to their egregious misinterpretation of his ideas:

{{blockquote|As so often happens, Clausewitz's disciples carried his teaching to an extreme which their master had not intended.... [Clausewitz's] theory of war was expounded in a way too abstract and involved for ordinary soldier-minds, essentially concrete, to follow the course of his argument—which often turned back from the direction in which it was apparently leading.  Impressed yet befogged, they grasped at his vivid leading phrases, seeing only their surface meaning, and missing the deeper current of his thought.<ref>[[B. H. Liddell Hart|Liddell Hart, B. H.]] ''Strategy'' London:Faber, 1967. Second rev. ed.</ref>}}

As described by [[Christopher Bassford]], then-professor of strategy at the [[National War College]] of the United States:

{{blockquote|One of the main sources of confusion about Clausewitz's approach lies in his dialectical method of presentation. For example, Clausewitz's famous line that "War is the continuation of policy with other means," ("{{lang|de|Der Krieg ist eine bloße Fortsetzung der Politik mit anderen Mitteln}}") while accurate as far as it goes, was not intended as a statement of fact. It is the antithesis in a dialectical argument whose thesis is the point—made earlier in the analysis—that "war is nothing but a duel [or wrestling match, the extended metaphor in which that discussion was embedded] on a larger scale." His synthesis, which resolves the deficiencies of these two bold statements, says that war is neither "nothing but" an act of brute force nor "merely" a rational act of politics or policy. This synthesis lies in his "fascinating trinity" [{{lang|de|wunderliche Dreifaltigkeit}}]: a dynamic, inherently unstable interaction of the forces of violent emotion, chance, and rational calculation.<ref name=ClausewitzDotComBio />}}

Another example of this confusion is the idea that Clausewitz was a proponent of [[total war]] as used in the Third Reich's propaganda in the 1940s. In fact, Clausewitz never used the term "total war": rather, he discussed "absolute war," a concept which evolved into the much more abstract notion of "ideal war" discussed at the very beginning of {{lang|de|Vom Kriege}}—the purely ''logical'' result of the forces underlying a "pure," Platonic "ideal" of war.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Bassford |first=Christopher |date=15 February 2022 |title=Clausewitz's Categories of War and the Supersession of 'Absolute War' |url=http://www.clausewitz.com/mobile/Bassford-Supersession5.pdf |access-date=26 October 2022 |website=Clausewitz |archive-date=11 December 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221211092848/https://www.clausewitz.com/mobile/Bassford-Supersession5.pdf |url-status=dead }}</ref> In what he called a "logical fantasy," war cannot be waged in a limited way: the rules of competition will force participants to use all means at their disposal to achieve victory. But in the ''real world,'' he said, such rigid logic is unrealistic and dangerous. As a practical matter, the military objectives in ''real'' war that support political objectives generally fall into two broad types: limited aims or the effective "disarming" of the enemy "to render [him] politically helpless or militarily impotent. Thus, the complete defeat of the enemy may not be necessary, desirable, or even possible.<ref>{{cite book|first1=Hal |last1=Brands|first2=Jeremi |last2=Suri|title=The Power of the Past: History and Statecraft|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=D03DCQAAQBAJ&pg=PA147|year=2015|publisher=Brookings Institution Press|page=147|isbn=978-0815727132}}</ref>

According to [[Azar Gat]], the opposing interpretations of Clausewitz are rooted in Clausewitz’s own conceptual journey.<ref name=":2" /><ref name=":1">{{Cite book |last=Gat |first=Azar |title=The Clausewitz myth: or the emperor's new clothes |date=2024 |publisher=John Hunt Publishing |isbn=978-1-80341-621-2 |location=Washington}}</ref> The centerpiece of Clausewitz’s theory of war throughout his life was his concept of all-out fighting and energetic conduct leading to the great battle of annihilation. He believed such conduct expressed the very “nature”, or “lasting spirit” of war. Accordingly, Clausewitz disparaged the significance of the [[Maneuver warfare|maneuver]], surprise, and cunning in war, as distracting from the centrality of [[battle]],<ref>''On War'', IV, 3, pp. 228-229; III, 9, p. 198; III, 10, p. 202.</ref> and argued that defense was legitimate only if and as long as one was weaker than the enemy.<ref>''On War'', VI, 1, 2, pp. 358-359; VI, 8, p. 380, and VII, 2, p. 524.</ref> Nevertheless, in the last years of his life, after the first six out of the eight books of ''On War'' had already been drafted, Clausewitz came to recognize that this concept was not universal and did not even apply to the [[Napoleonic Wars]], the supreme model of his theory of war. This was demonstrated by the [[Peninsular War|Spanish]] and [[French invasion of Russia|Russian]] campaigns and by [[guerrilla warfare]], in all of which battle was systematically avoided. Consequently, from 1827 on, Clausewitz recognized the legitimacy of [[limited war]] and explained it by the influence of politics that harnessed the unlimited nature of war to serve its objectives. Clausewitz died in 1831 before he completed the revision he planned along these lines. He incorporated his new ideas only into the end of Book VI, Book VIII and the beginning of Book I of ''On War''. As a result, when published, ''On War'' encompassed both his old and new ideas, at odds with each other.

Thus, against common interpretations of ''On War'', Gat points out that Clausewitz's transformed views regarding the relationship between politics and war and the admission of limited war into his theory constituted a U-turn against his own life-long fundamental view of the nature of war. Gat further argues the readers’ miscomprehension of the theory in ''On War'' as complete and dialectical, rather than a draft undergoing a radical change of mind, has thus generated a range of reactions. People of each age have found in ''On War'' the Clausewitz who suited their own views on war and its conduct. Between 1870 and 1914, he was celebrated mainly for his insistence on the clash of forces and the decisive battle, and his emphasis on moral forces. By contrast, after 1945, during the [[Atomic Age|nuclear age]], his reputation has reached a second pinnacle for his later acceptance of the primacy of politics and the concept of limited war.

Referring to much of the current interpretation of ''On War'' as the [[The Emperor's New Clothes|Emperor's New Clothes]] syndrome, Gat argues that instead of critically addressing the puzzling contradictions in ''On War,'' Clausewitz has been set in stone and could not be wrong.

In modern times the reconstruction of Clausewitzian theory has been a matter of much dispute. One analysis was that of [[Panagiotis Kondylis]], a Greek writer and philosopher, who opposed the interpretations of [[Raymond Aron]] in ''Penser la Guerre, Clausewitz,'' and other liberal writers. According to Aron, Clausewitz was one of the first writers to condemn the militarism of the Prussian general staff and its war-proneness, based on Clausewitz's argument that "war is a continuation of policy by other means." In ''Theory of War,'' Kondylis claims that this is inconsistent with Clausewitzian thought. He claims that Clausewitz was morally indifferent to war (though this probably reflects a lack of familiarity with personal letters from Clausewitz, which demonstrate an acute awareness of war's tragic aspects) and that his advice regarding politics' dominance over the conduct of war has nothing to do with pacifist ideas.

Other notable writers who have studied Clausewitz's texts and translated them into English are historians [[Peter Paret]] of the [[Institute for Advanced Study]] and [[Michael Howard (historian)|Sir Michael Howard]]. Howard and Paret edited the most widely used edition of ''On War'' (Princeton University Press, 1976/1984) and have produced comparative studies of Clausewitz and other theorists, such as Tolstoy. [[Bernard Brodie (military strategist)|Bernard Brodie]]'s ''A Guide to the Reading of "On War,"'' in the 1976 Princeton translation, expressed his interpretations of the Prussian's theories and provided students with an influential synopsis of this vital work. The 1873 translation by Colonel James John Graham was heavily—and controversially—edited by the philosopher, musician, and [[game theory|game theorist]] [[Anatol Rapoport]].

The British military historian [[John Keegan]] attacked Clausewitz's theory in his book ''[[A History of Warfare]]''.<ref>John Keegan, ''[[A History of Warfare]],'' 1993. Second edition 2004, p. 3.</ref> Keegan argued that Clausewitz assumed the existence of states, yet 'war antedates the state, diplomacy and strategy by many millennia.'