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Dr. Chet Richards –Certain to Win

Dr. Grant T. Hammond – The Mind of War: John Boyd and American Security

After numerous small difficulties, I finally pulled it together:

Clausewitz, On War, Book I.: A Man of His Time or for All Times?

….It is is difficult not to be impressed with the brilliance of Clausewitz’s insights as I read Book I. His disciplined yet speculative mind was not constrained by the Newtonian paradigm that governed the 19th century’s increasingly deterministic understanding of nature; nor did he become intoxicated by the mythic Romanticism that pervaded European elite culture and abandon the rigor that can be found on every page of On War. There is ample evidence to be found in Book I. of Clausewitz surpassing his times to grasp concepts and truths that do not emerge in other fields for decades or more than a century.

Yet there are also passages that show the rootedness of the worldview of a European military officer who survived the cataclysm of the Napoleonic wars. I finished Book I. firmly convinced of Clausewitz’s genuine greatness as a philosopher but remain unconvinced that that he has discovered the eternal nature of war in all it’s varied manifestations – I am also deeply skeptical that such a thing could even be possible

Read the rest here.

The quality of the posts at The Clausewitz Roundtable has been outstanding, as have the comments.  Every participant has taught me something, some more than once or posed questions that stretched my mind. Here are the recent editions and their authors:

josephfouche – Clausewitz, On War, Book I: War is a Buffet. Eat Up. and Clausewitz, On War, Book I: Defense

Jay Manifold – Clausewitz, On War, Book 1: War as a Single Short Blow

Sam Liles – Clausewitz, On War, Book 1: Into a cavern to find the darkness of cyber space

Tim Stevens – Clausewitz, On War, Book 1, Chapter 1: the Paradoxical Trinity

Lexington Green – Clausewitz, On War, Book 1, Chapter 3: Response to Capt. Lauterbach on Clausewitz on Military Genius and Clausewitz, On War, Introductory Matter: Empiricism, Clarity of Expression, Patterns not Systems, Utility

seydlitz89 – Clausewitz, On War, Book 1 – My introduction, and comments on Chapter 1 and Clausewitz, On War, Book 1: Dialectic, but which dialectic?

Cheryl Rofer – Clausewitz, On War, Book 1: Clausewitz and Herman Kahn and Clausewitz, On War, Introductory Material: Cordesman Asks the Question

Nathaniel T. Lauterbach – Clausewitz, On War, Book 1: Clausewitz on Military Genius

Younghusband –  Clausewitz, On War, Book 1: On Wrestling and Clausewitz, On War, Book I: Solving for War

Kotare – Clausewitz “On War”, Book 1: such a dangerous business and Clausewitz, “On War”, Book 1: it all seems so simple

Shane Deichman – Clausewitz, On War, Book I: Art with Science

Critt Jarvis – Clausewitz, On War, Introductory Matter: “Hello World!” and Clausewitz, On War, Book I: What Is War?

Jonathan – A Note to Readers and Participants in the Clausewitz Roundtable

Tom’s new book Great Powers: America and the World After Bush is not out yet but I have read two different versions. A first draft, chapter by chapter more or less as fast as Dr. Barnett was able to write it and then a near finished but yet to be finally edited penultimate version. The second incarnation I read had significant structural differences from the first draft manuscript, as it should when an author works with a professional editor and publisher on a major book.

Tom has just released some of the material that had been cut during the editing process and it’s worth a look. It’s interesting and it gives you an idea of thoughts in process for writing a large work even if ultimately, these sections received the axe:

GP: the lost chapters

Remember when Tom wrote that the deleted chapters from Great Powers would appear online? Two are now up on International Relations and Security Nework.

The original Chapter One is now Creed of an American Grand Strategist: I am a great power. And so can you!

The subtitle was Mark Warren’s idea (an obvious link to Colbert’s book), which Tom thought was pretty funny.

The original Chapter Two, ‘A-to-Z of American Grand Strategy’ is now broken into four parts:

+ A lexicon deconstructed: A-G
+ A lexicon deconstructed: H-M
+ A lexicon deconstructed: N-S
+ A lexicon deconstructed: T-Z

For now, we’re just linking to ISN. We’ll be reprinting both of these lost chapters in their entirety later in the month.

Having been both writer and an editor on a small scale, I think the natural tendency of every writer is to cling to every word. Frequently though, in making an important point, less really is more to the reader. A good editor clears away the clutter and let’s the writer’s best shine through with clarity.

Working on my first Clausewitz post ( for the second time as version I. was eaten by WordPress)

David Axe of War is Boring has a piece in World Politics Review on 5GW that summarizes the extended journal article “Fifth-Generation War: Warfare versus the nonstate” in the Marine Corps Gazette by LTC Stanton Coerr that I linked to previously:

War Is Boring: U.S. Wages First Battles in New Generation of War

War has evolved rapidly in the last 100 years, prompting historians and strategists to come up with new terms for new ways of fighting. They call mechanized warfare, which originated in the early 20th century, the third “generation” of war, and ideological warfare waged by guerilla groups the fourth.But what about guerilla-style warfare waged by non-ideological groups against traditional states — pirates, for instance, whose attacks can destabilize trade-dependent nations, but who don’t have strategic goals beyond just getting rich? Free-for-all violence, with indirect global effects, represents a fifth generation of war, according to some experts. And when it comes to defeating fifth-gen enemies, “the old rules of warfare do not apply,” declared Marine Lt. Col. Stanton Coerr, writing in Marine Corps Gazette, a professional journal.

So the U.S. military and its government partners are writing new rules, and putting them to the test on the first of the fifth-generation battlefields emerging in Africa.

Fifth-gen enemies do not have traditional “centers of gravity” — armies, governments, factories, charismatic leaders — that can be destroyed by military attacks. By their mere survival, these enemies undermine the notion that nation-states, their ideals and their economies are viable in the modern world.

To the extent that 5GW can be characterized at all, I think both Axe and Coerr are incorrect here because the term “Fifth-Generation War” makes little sense except in relation to “4GW” and the strategic school of thought associated with William Lind, Col. Thomas X. Hammes and others in the circle of DNI. As Axe and Coerr use “5GW” it is indistinguishable from how Lind has described “4GW” since 1989. To follow the logic of the 4GW theory, as Hammes did in The Sling and the Stone: On War in the 21st Century
, 5GW would be the strategy and tactics that developed in opposition to 4GW as 3GW “Blitzkrieg” emerged from the “Stormtroop tactics” used to counter static and linear 2GW of the Western Front in WWI. Without this context “5GW” is just a placeholder term.

That said, the articles by Coerr and Axe are otherwise praiseworthy for bringing the many nuances and potential dangers of rapidly evolving irregular warfare and associated concepts to describe it, to the attention of a wider audience. That’s useful for generating further debate and bringing more sharp minds to the table.  Complex, “hybrid” wars of mixed regulars, insurgents, terrorists and criminals will be here for some time to come and the entire panopaly of the national security establishment needs to come to grips with that threat, regardless of what we ultimately choose to call it. Labels matter less than substance.

Dan of TDAXP, who has voiced his own skepticism about Coerr’s and Axe’s pieces, has issued a call for papers on behalf of Nimble Books to debate the scope and legitimacy of 5GW which will be assembled into an anthology on this subject. It would be nice to have those people who have writtten previously on fifth -generation war a list that includes Thomas P.M. Barnett, John Robb, Thomas X. Hammes, William Lind as well as myself, the cast of Dreaming5GW and others, contribute old or new pieces to that project. Let’s bring it all under one roof for interested readers instead of having posts and articles scattered all over the internet.

ADDENDUM:

Bibliography – The Timeline of 5GW Theory