Projektbeschreibung:
It has become fashionable to negate the relevance of Clausewitz and his thinking for understanding today’s wars and militarized conflicts. The changing nature of war, it is said, renders his concepts and ideas obsolete and turns his philosophy of war into a dangerously outdated ideology. Martin van Creveld argues that given the fact that low-intensity conflict is the dominant form of war today, Clausewitz’ thoughts are no longer valid or are simply wrong. Prominent strategists like Edward Luttwak and Steven Metz have supported this view. Similarly, Mary Kaldor has used Clausewitz to define what she calls “old wars” in order to differentiate them from “new wars,” in which substate actors are the predominant force. She argues the need for a non-Clausewitzian understanding of war to comprehend recent changes in the use of political violence. This creed is also the starting point of much of the literature on civil war economies. David Keen thus argues in a distinctly anti-Clausewitzian mode, that war is no longer politics, but economics by other means. Finally, John Keegan questions not only Clausewitz' timeliness, but his entire pertinence. In his view, Clausewitz’ thinking was mistaken from the very beginning and has poisoned not only military but also political planning more broadly. Many of these allegations can be attributed to intellectual ignorance. It is well known that Clausewitz is more often cited than read. He simply stands for a particular image of war which has consolidated through continued misinterpretation of his writings despite a number of attempts to correct such errors. But even authors who defend Clausewitz do so by attacking the critics rather than by pointing out Clausewitz’ analytical strengths. A more compelling strategy would be to demonstrate that the new forms of warfare attest to Clausewitz’ continued relevance and that his ideas about small wars allow a more sophisticated approach to the analysis of political violence than that provided by his critics. Doing so, however, demands that one go beyond his opus magnum “On War” to study the more arcane ma-nuscripts – lectures, memoranda, correspondence – most of which have not been translated into English.
It is our conviction that Carl von Clausewitz was one of the first theorists of wars of national liberation. In his “Lectures on Small War”, given at the Berliner Kriegsschule in 1811/12, he analyzed guerrilla warfare by studying the rebellion in the Vandee 1793-1796, the Tyrolean uprising of 1809 and, most prominently, the Spanish insurrection from 1808 onward. In his famous aide memoire or “Bekenntnisdenkschrift” of 1812, in which he demands a “Spanish civil war in Germany”, Clausewitz outlined a comprehensive guerrilla strategy against Napoleonic France and supported his view with theoretical reflections about the nature of defense and offence. In his posthumously published work “On War” Clausewitz included a short chapter on “The People in Arms” in the sixth book on defense, in which he deals with practical as well as theoretical aspects of popular uprising and guerrilla warfare. It is safe to say that biographically and intellectually “People's War” was at the very beginning of Clausewitz’ career.
As a modest historian Werner Hahlweg wrote in 1986: “Clausewitz describes the nature of guerrilla war with words that are in some aspects still applicable today.” Our claims are bolder. First, Clausewitz provides a superior conceptualization of political violence that offers a descriptive framework for both historical and recent changes in the nature of war, including the emergence of guerrilla warfare and terrorism. Second, Clausewitz offers fresh insights into the dynamics of unconventional warfare and the dialectic of offence and defense which help to explain why actors apply particular strategies and tactics. Finally, Clausewitz' analysis suggests hypotheses on the effects of small wars which may lead to explanations for why big states often loose small wars. Translating and editing Clausewitz’ writings “On Small War” will not only correct our image of Clausewitz as political and military thinker but also will revolutionize our understanding of war.