Military Theory and the Conduct of War
By
Azar Gat
M. P. Ross 03-17-25
“War is too important to be left to the generals.”
Clemenceau
“[Clemenceau] said war was too important to be left to the generals. When he said that, 50 years ago, he might have been right. But today, war is too important to be left to politicians. They have neither the time, the training, nor the inclination for strategic thought.”
J. D. Ripper, Col. USAF, fictional character
Clemenceau also said, “I do not know whether war is an interlude in peace, or whether peace is an interlude in war.” This raises the question, and more assertively demands an answer, what is war? Why do we engage in war, and just how do you go about it? It is surely more that the mere expansion in scale and violence of sports on a field of play, an expression of an innate human trait of aggression. When not at war, the British leisure classes took to sailing and mountain climbing, with their similarities to military operations of strategy, tactics, logistics, and the movement of personnel and material under hazardous conditions, to fully test spirit and skill.
War is costly, and what is more it is expensive. Whole societies pay the price, the winners and the losers. It is arguable what it means to win a war, or win the peace. If only war was a zero-sum game, where one side or the other achieved a net gain. War may also be a necessity, imposed by a determined aggressor, avoidable only by agreeing to unacceptable terms. History is not encouraging. War, reflected upon and absorbed, has been a subject for the arts and sciences since cave painting. Current events suggest that war is unlikely to disappear anytime soon, if ever. Given its gravity, seeking a definition of war, a theory of war, and practical wisdom applicable directly to its execution, seems obviously desirable.
Military Theory and the Conduct of War gets to the point and holds its focus throughout. Well-written—concise, clear, and comprehensive, a serious work on a complex topic, it yet offers a refuge of theory away from the chaos of current events. Remarkably, its author is a non-native English speaker.
Characteristic of his other books, as in this new one, Azar Gat demonstrates a consistent intellectual honesty. A noted Clausewitz scholar, Gat’s works on the writings of the Prussian military theorist are critical in the best sense, distinguishing, as he does in his previous book, The Clausewitz Myth, between the “real” and the “mythical” Clausewitz, acknowledging Clausewitz’s errors while supporting his enduring contributions. Military Theory likewise treats its subject with the same rigor, addressing the nature, capabilities, and limits of its topic. The author of Ideological Fixation knows that not everyone will be persuaded. Nonetheless, armed with a career of scholarship, military service, and welcome common sense, he renders an abundance of plainly observable fact down to supportable theory and practice. It is hard to disagree with someone who comprehends and employs your own rationale. This book understands the Folly of the Pure Model and how to avoid it, and how to distill applied theory from pure theory.
The natural expectation of a book titled Military Theory and the Conduct of War is that it will finally deliver the definitive, universal, and essential word on war, etched in stone to put a timeless if retro face on it. We should not expect and would not profit from such an exercise. We might arrive at an intellectually satisfying essence of war, but end up with Begriff ohne Griff, a concept lacking anything to grasp onto. “The question to which the book is dedicated is what a theory for the conduct of war is, and, indeed, how general/universal it is, or can be.” The title guides us to the book’s goal, not merely a treatment of theory, but how does it relate to engaging in actual warfare.
Action beyond simple reaction involves thought, something that can be held in the mind, and for complex action, communicated to others and acted upon. As political theory supplies the materials out of which policy and diplomacy are created, military theory provides likewise for warfare. “The first thing to clarify is that all concepts—including ‘war’—are cognitive frameworks coined by the human mind to make sense of an infinitely complex and ever fluctuating reality.” It is through such abstract concepts as theory that we can communicate roughly agreed upon terms for actual phenomenon, “…for abstraction as well as concreteness are tools that the human mind employs to cope with a complex reality.”
Abstraction is the key that unlocks the potential of theory’s actuality. Mere abstraction, however, is not only insufficient, but often the cognitive misstep towards calamity. It is necessary to employ the correct level of abstraction/degree of specificity, or in Gat’s terms, abstraction/concreteness. As an example, let us take the dynamic of Conflict/Convention, at a higher level of abstraction. At a greater degree of specificity we can derive Clausewitz’s War/Politics. These are yet necessarily formal constructs, lacking specific content. Conflict broadly expresses disagreement, which might more concretely manifest as War.
At the proper level of abstraction, the dynamic between War and Politics provides a marvelously useful clarification of the parameters within which a conflict will play out and resolve. It tells us nothing, however, about how any of it will take place. This is also the problem contained within a universal principle on war. The essence of war may be a violent confrontation of forces to compel the enemy to accept your terms, but that supposes selecting a narrow selection of tools from a large and diverse toolbox, without much consideration for what you may want to build—or tear down.
Achieving success in war and peace may be explained by theory, but not always directed from a studied adherence to it. Gat relates this of Ulysses S. Grant:
[He] told a young officer after becoming famous that he had never paid much attention to military theory (Jomini). ‘The art of war’, he said, ‘is simple enough. Find out where your enemy is. Get at him as soon as you can. Strike him as hard as you can, and keep moving on.’ In this, one might say, Grant himself in effect articulated a theory for the conduct of military operations, which, one might add, actually rings all too familiar. He also reminded us how elementary the theory of war is, especially in its abstract parts, before it is fully dressed with the innumerable details, great and small, of practical experience, the ocean of concrete conditions of armament and organization, and the specifics of military doctrines.
This is what Clausewitz got right about military theory, and leads us to what he got wrong. The essence of war is a clash of forces. Beyond that, a universal theory cannot take full account of war’s contingencies, complexities, and complications. Add to that “the fog of war.” Even the relative calm and clarity of forces at rest before action, in formation of line and column let alone hidden in protected positions, gives way to the confusion and chaos of battle described in Tolstoy’s War and Peace during the same battles foremost in Clausewitz’s thinking.
Contingencies are not limited to those provided by the participants, engaging in strategy and tactics, acting and reacting to those of the opposing side. There is always the weather, terrain, the physical and emotional fitness of the troops, and availability of supplies. Clausewitz understood this. Gat makes the point that what Clausewitz got wrong was the impact of improvements in technology on the conduct of war.
War has always experienced and over time adapted to technological innovation. On horseback, armed with the recurved composite bow, the Scythians and then the Turko-Mongols dominated the vast Eurasian steppe. Then came gunpowder, followed by firearms and artillery. (If a pun may be permitted during such a deadly serious discussion, cannon entered the canon.) Gat allows Clausewitz his error. Change had been multigenerational. And, while the cannon and firearm had supplanted catapult and bow—though sword and bayonet were still in use—these had not so drastically changed warfare, nor so rapid was the change, that the order of battle from Genghis Khan to Napoleon was not unrecognizably different. Certainly, that change was nothing like what took place from Napoleon to Clemenceau.
Returning to what Clausewitz got right, wrong, and right again, contingency does constrain universal theory, as does technological change. While war involves a violent clash of forces, how those forces clash changes with innovations in technology. Thus, the theory and conduct of war are time-bound. Therefore, a universal theory of war is necessarily reliant on being understood at the correct level of abstraction for it to be of practical benefit. So far all this assumes a coherent rationale for the conflict.
Means and ends enter the discussion. Their relationship is a higher level of abstraction of Clausewitz’s dictum on war and politics. A greater degree of specificity is required for two important reasons if these abstractions are to serve as practical guides to an actual conflict. The first is to describe exactly what is meant by relevant means and ends—how the war is to be conducted and what political conditions are sought. The second follows from the first, getting participants on the same page, especially those on the same side, with an agreed upon understanding of what is meant by the means of war and the goals the war is to achieve. This seems absurdly obvious, and yet failure to heed its lesson is common and at the root of catastrophic outcomes. The Iraq War?
It should be clear that the means of war are continually changing. No longer will generals inquire of their staff, “have we reserved that field in Belgium for the battle? You know how I favor the north pasture for my camp.” The entire world is now a potential battlefield, and war also takes place within cyberspace and our own personal tech devices. What has forever been and continues in question are ends. What, exactly, for a given conflict, constitutes victory?
With an arsenal of nuclear weapons, “winning” a war might be accomplished in short order; in a very narrow sense, scoring a victory. We call upon abstractions, analogies, to make sense of the status quo post bellum, to comprehend a surprising, unwelcome new reality. The dog that caught the car comes to mind. Again referring to the Iraq War, Colin Powell invoking the Pottery Barn rule, “if you break it, you’ve bought it.” Some readers may recall the not so facetious wisdom that losing to the United States is the most profitable outcome of a war.
One definition of genius might be the recognition of the obvious. “War is the mere continuation of politics with other means.” An already known, but critically necessary, concept in a practically useful form. It leads directly to a consideration of means and ends, and as the desired end is obviously victory, not defeat, the next question is what shape does victory take? Admittedly, this leads back up the levels of abstraction to means and end, war and politics, and back down again to greater degrees of specificity.
There is no easy answer. No universal theory; at least not for the conduct of war. Perhaps the subtleties of Sun Tzu are as close as we can come. This should be disconcerting only to those who must have an immutable theory in which to invest their faith, those same individuals most prone to committing the Folly of the Pure Model. Reading Gat, Military Theory and his other works, taking Clausewitz as our main example, we can profitable conclude that while war can be understood as the violent clash of forces, that is not the only form it will take, and perhaps war’s most essential feature is contingency, all that can or may occur in a given context of time, place, politics, and technology.
Let us recapitulate. The two-way interrelationship between ‘political’ ends and ‘military’ means in war is logically derived from what the concepts of ends and means signify. Practically, this implies that the desired ‘political’ ends and the ‘military’ means employed to attain them must be harmonized, which may require adaptations on both sides of the means–ends equation. Similarly, the notion of victory and what it signifies can be analytically derived from the ‘nature of war’, and yet what victory means has been far from self-evident or well-recognized.
Military Theory and the Conduct of War is literally a textbook of applied political theory. It critically examines theories of war, seeking practical applications for actual warfare, holding to what is intellectually defensible and genuinely useful. Where those qualities are lacking, Gat does not attempt to satisfy an audience or a market demand for clever but unreliable policy. So thorough and to the point, one might have to resist taking a highlighting pen to half of the entire book.
This review is not wholly positive, however. Two glaring possible errors were found. Perhaps the author intended meanings beyond the reviewer’s knowledge. In the first example of potential error, we find the word, “Sceptiks.” Is this a kind of British English and German mashup, a portmanteau with a definition distinct from the more usual “skeptic?” The other possible error reads: “It reflect the normative tension.” Again, an arcane British usage? No page numbers will be given. Easter eggs for the reader to find.