PART TWO: FUNDAMENTAL STRATEGIC CONCEPTS SECTION A: STRATEGISTS AND THEIR IDEAS ON WAR

INTRODUCTION

Samuel B. Gardiner

Few men occupy themselves in the higher problems of war. They pass their lives drilling troops and believe that this is the only branch of the military art. When they arrive at the command of armies, they are totally ignorant, and in default of knowing what should be done, they do what they know.

Maurice Comte de Saxe (1669-1750)

We begin with the theory of war. On the surface, nothing seems as contradictory as theory and war. War is courage. War is leadership. War is cunning. But is there a theory of war? When we restructured the curriculum of the National War College, we built much of what resulted on the assumption that not only is there meaningful theory of war but that it is extremely important for American military and civilian policy makers to think in terms of theory of war.

The readings selected for this section cover over 2,000 years of writings on warfare. The ideas on warfare range from writers who concentrated on the political aspects of war to those who thought more in terms of the best application of force. The ideas range from those who saw the solutions to the problems of war in very simple terms to those who argued for seeing war as a very complex activity requiring complex solutions. And they range from those who saw technology as having no impact on the basic truths of war to those who saw technology as having such an impact that it generated the need to completely rethink ways of waging war.

These readings have been selected not just because they cover the range of historical thinking about the theory of war but because they provide some insight into the various dimensions of war.

Political objective. It seems ridiculous to say that war should have a purpose, that there should be a reason for fighting. But history is full of examples of wars fought for weak or poorly defined reasons. It is because of this that we select as the first dimension of our study of war the political objective.

The most important work on the object of war, On War, was written by the Prussian General Karl von Clausewitz. Clausewitz wrote: "When whole communities go to war... the reason always lies in some political object. War, therefore,

Samuel B. Gardiner, Colonel, USAF, is a Professor in the Department of Military Strategy at the National War College. His specialty is the Art of War in Joint and Combined Operations. He has held operational planning positions in Southeast Asia, at the Pentagon, and with the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers, Europe.

is an act of policy. . . . Policy will permeate all military operations, and, insofar as their violent nature will permit, it will have a continuous influence on them.... The political object is the goal, war is the means of reaching it, and means can never be considered in isolation from their purpose."

We have also included an edited work by Marshal of the Soviet Union V.D. Sokolovskiy which addresses the political objective from the Soviet point of view. Lenin read Clausewitz thoroughly. It is not surprising, therefore, to find close parallels between the Soviet view of the object of war and Clausewitz. Lenin's marginal note on his copy of On War reads, "politics is the reason, and war is only the tool, not the other way around. Consequently, it remains only to subordinate the military point of view to the political.”

Military objective. Although you will find a general agreement by the authors selected on the dimension of the political objective, that is certainly not the case for the second dimension, the military objective. Most would accept that the military objective should follow from the political objective, but they offer many alternatives on what the military objective should be.

In the selection from The Art of War, written probably by Sun Tzu around 500 BC, we see the argument that supreme excellence in war consists of breaking the enemy's resistence without fighting. For him, the military objective should be the enemy's will.

Clausewitz also provided an extremely important concept for the military objective. He said that the military objective should be the enemy's "center of gravity." He explained how this will vary with the enemy but that the aim should be to "reduce (the enemy) to such a state as not to be able to prosecute the war." For Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan, one of the great American military thinkers, the military objective should be the enemy's navy. In the reading from his work, the thread of his argument is that the destruction of the enemy navy would lead to the destruction of the whole system of colonial and other dependencies.

B. H. Liddell Hart disagreed with Clausewitz, or at least with the ideas he believed people accepted from Clausewitz that led to such carnage in World War I. He argued in the piece included that the military objective should not necessarily be the overthrow of the enemy's military power. The military objective may be to seize territory to retain or use for bargaining during peace negotiations.

We have included a piece from Sir Julian Corbett. He, like Mahan, believed that command of the sea must be the military objective and is achieved by the destruction of the enemy's fleet. There is a very close parallel here to the air power advocates, such as the Italian, Douhet. For him, the military objective was destruction of the material and moral resistence of the people, and that was achieved by gaining control of the air.

Military Strategy. The third dimension of our study of war is military strategy, the employment of armed forces to achieve the military and political objectives. As with the military objective, we have selected a full spectrum of thoughts on how to employ armed forces to achieve objectives.

In the selection from Sun Tzu there is a categorization of strategy that can be applied to all of the alternative military strategies that have been suggested. He said that strategy can be based either on the direct attack or on the indirect attack. His preference was certainly for the indirect attack, arguing that you should maneuver until you are certain of victory.

From Mahan, you will see a strategy that follows from his military objective, the destruction of the enemy's fleet. He argued that you must control the sea, which he believed could only be done by a concentration of force able to drive the enemy naval and merchant ships from the seas. You accomplish this with overbearing power.

Liddell Hart was a proponent of the indirect approach in military strategy. You will see in the selection from his work his emphasis on movement and surprise. He argued that perfection in strategy would be to produce a decision without any serious fighting.

Another strategy is presented in the selection from Douhet. Remembering that for him the military objective was the enemy's capacity and will, he argued that you achieve the objective by attacking vital industrial and population centers. To be able to attack these centers, you must first engage the enemy air forces in the air and then destroy his forces and their bases on the ground.

In the article selected from Sokolovskiy, you will see the Soviet view of strategy. For them strategy is a science, and there are objective laws which apply impartially to both sides in a conflict. From Lenin they have gotten the concept that war is a test of the material and spiritual resources of a nation. Wars are won by those who have greater resources, the greater source of forces and support among the masses.

You will see other strategy alternatives presented in other selections. As you read all the selections, you should look for the connections the authors make between the political objective, the military objective, and the military strategy. They cannot be separated. Even if it is not stated, a military strategy will be based upon a concept of a military objective with the assumption that that military objective will achieve a political objective or an implied political objective. Social Dimension. The fourth dimension of war that we use in our studies is the social dimension. It is sometimes called the will of the people, and the Soviets call it the spiritual resource of the nation. As with the other dimensions, the readings selected address this dimension in different ways. Almost all the authors believed that this is an important dimension. As has been mentioned before, Douhet believed that the will of the people was so important that it should be the military objective.

Other Dimensions. In our study of war at the National War College, we look at four dimensions in addition to the ones that have already been mentioned: intelligence, genius, logistics, and technology. Although each will be addressed in detail in the readings in the next section of this part, we have included an article here by Michael Howard in which he argues for expanding our view of strategy, to look at additional dimensions.

Before you begin the readings, we offer a word of caution. They are not light. You will find that you will want to spend time with them, to think about what the authors have said, and to go back and reread parts. We have given you the dimensions of war as a guide to make the comparisons of the authors easier.

V

Excerpts from SUN TZU: THE ART OF WAR

Translated by Samuel B. Griffith

SUN TZU ON WAR

The opening verse of Sun Tzu's classic is the basic clue to his philosophy. War is a grave concern of the state; it must be thoroughly studied. Here is recognitionand for the first time-that armed strife is not a transitory aberration but a recurrent conscious act and therefore susceptible to rational analysis.

Sun Tzu believed that the moral strength and intellectual faculty of man were decisive in war, and that if these were properly applied war could be waged with certain success. Never to be undertaken thoughtlessly or recklessly, war was to be preceded by measures designed to make it easy to win. The master conqueror frustrated his enemy's plans and broke up his alliances. He created cleavages between sovereign and minister, superiors and inferiors, commanders and subordinates. His spies and agents were active everywhere, gathering information, sowing dissension, and nurturing subversion. The enemy was isolated and demoralized; his will to resist broken. Thus without battle his army was conquered, his cities taken, and his state overthrown. Only when the enemy could not be overcome by these means was there recourse to armed force, which was to be applied so that victory was gained:

(a) in the shortest possible time;

(b) at the least possible cost in lives and effort;

(c) with infliction on the enemy of the fewest possible casualties.

National unity was deemed by Sun Tzu to be an essential requirement of victorious war. This could be attained only under a government which was devoted to the people's welfare and did not oppress them. Sun Hsing-yen was justified in observing that Sun Tzu's theories were based on 'benevolence and righteousness'. By relating war to the immediate political context, that is to alliances or the lack of them, and to unity and stability on the home front and high morale in the army as contrasted with disunity in the enemy country and low morale in his army, Sun Tzu attempted to establish a realistic basis for a rational appraisal of relative power. His perception that mental, moral, physical, and circumstantial factors operate in war demonstrates a remarkable acuity. Few military writers, including those most esteemed in the West, have stated this proposition as clearly as did Sun Tzu some twenty-three hundred years ago. Although Sun Tzu may

Sun Tzu has not been positively identified by historians. It is agreed, however, that The Art of War is not a compilation, but was written between 400 and 320 B.C. by an individual with considerable practical experience in war. Reproduced from Sun Tzu: The Art of War translated by Samuel B. Griffith, Oxford University Press 1963, by permission of Oxford University Press.

not have been the first to realize that armed force is the ultimate arbiter of inter-state conflicts, he was the first to put the physical clash in proper perspective. Sun Tzu was aware of the economic implications of war. His references to inflated prices, rates of wastage, difficulties of supply, and the inevitable burdens laid upon the people show that he recognized the importance of these factors which until fairly recently have been frequently neglected.

Sun Tzu appreciated the difference between what we today define as 'national strategy' and 'military strategy.' This comes out in his discussion of the assessment of relative strengths in chapter i. Here he names five 'matters' to be deliberated in the temple councils. These are human (morale and generalship), physical (terrain and weather), and doctrinal. Only if superiority in these is clearly indicated did the council proceed to its calculations relative to numerical strengths (which Sun Tzu did not deem decisive); quality of troops; discipline; equity in the administration of rewards and punishments; and training.

Finally, his ancient writer did not conceive the object of military action to be the annihilation of the enemy's army, the destruction of his cities, and the wastage of his countryside. 'Weapons are ominous tools to be used only when there is no alternative.'

Tzu-lu, a disciple of Confucius, once discussed war with the Master:

Tzu-lu said, Supposing you had command of the Three Hosts, whom would you take to help you? The Master said, The man who was ready to beard a tiger or rush a river without caring whether he lived or died—that sort of man I should not take. I should certainly take someone who approached difficulties with due caution and who preferred to succeed by strategy.'

All warfare is based on deception. A skilled general must be master of the complementary arts of simulation and dissimulation; while creating shapes to confuse and delude the enemy he conceals his true dispositions and ultimate intent. When capable he feigns incapacity; when near he makes it appear that he is far away; when far away, that he is near. Moving as intangibly as a ghost in the starlight, he is obscure, inaudible. His primary target is the mind of the opposing commander; the victorious situation, a product of his creative imagination. Sun Tzu realized that an indispensable preliminary to battle was to attack the mind of the enemy.

The expert approaches his objective indirectly. By selection of a devious and distant route he may march a thousand li without opposition and take his enemy unaware. Such a commander prizes above all freedom of action. He abhors a static situation and therefore attacks cities only when there is no alternative. Sieges, wasteful both of lives and time, entail abdication of the initiative.

The wise general cannot be manipulated. He may withdraw, but when he does, moves so swiftly that he cannot be overtaken. His retirements are designed to entice the enemy, to unbalance him, and to create a situation favourable for a decisive counter-stroke. They are, paradoxically, offensive. He conducts a war of movement; he marches with divine swiftness; his blows fall like thunderbolts 'from the nine-layered heavens'. He creates conditions certain to produce a quick decision; for him victory is the object of war, not lengthy operations however brilliantly conducted. He knows that prolonged campaigns drain the treasury and

Analects, book vii, trans. Waley, p. 124.