Not really a book review per se, but an lengthy critique of John Keegans assault on Clausewitz for all you military types on the board. Having read loads of Keegans books, it's intereseting to finally discover the roots of his hatred for Dialectical thinking as applied to military history.
'War as an extension of Policy' is particularly relevant today as it helps you cut through all the propaganda being thrown about in the last few years.
Lengthy, but a good read:
http://www.clausewitz.com/CWZHOME/Keegan/KEEGWHOL.htm
Clausewitz Chairs Keegan, Liddell Hart
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Shlomart Ben Yisrael
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Sounds like the Clausewitz types have got their powdered wigs in a tussle over this Keegan fellow.
"Such a conclusion, however, reflects precisely the sort of Clausewitzian smugness that infuriates Keegan. He feels hemmed in by omnipresent—though very seldom identified—Clausewitzian scholars taking credit for every idea that works and denying responsibility for every one that fails. "Clausewitz—the Clausewitzians believe—arrived at a vision of war so eclectic, and an analysis of war so exact, that all its phenomena—glimpsed by the groundlings through a microscope, by the sage from an earth-girdling surveillance satellite—take their proper place, rank and relationship in his theory of how soldiers ought to act." "What [Clausewitzians] wrongly say is that those who succeed as strategists by what they regard as the light of their own judgment are Clausewitzians nonetheless, while those who fail, though consciously applying Clausewitzian principles, have misunderstood or misused them. What they ascribe to Clausewitz, then, is a possession of absolute truths—which would make strategy unique among the social sciences."*52"
Hmmmm....
"Such a conclusion, however, reflects precisely the sort of Clausewitzian smugness that infuriates Keegan. He feels hemmed in by omnipresent—though very seldom identified—Clausewitzian scholars taking credit for every idea that works and denying responsibility for every one that fails. "Clausewitz—the Clausewitzians believe—arrived at a vision of war so eclectic, and an analysis of war so exact, that all its phenomena—glimpsed by the groundlings through a microscope, by the sage from an earth-girdling surveillance satellite—take their proper place, rank and relationship in his theory of how soldiers ought to act." "What [Clausewitzians] wrongly say is that those who succeed as strategists by what they regard as the light of their own judgment are Clausewitzians nonetheless, while those who fail, though consciously applying Clausewitzian principles, have misunderstood or misused them. What they ascribe to Clausewitz, then, is a possession of absolute truths—which would make strategy unique among the social sciences."*52"
Hmmmm....
rock rock to the planet rock ... don't stop
Felix wrote:you've become very bitter since you became jewish......
Kierland drop-kicking Wolftard wrote: Aren’t you part of the silent generation?
Why don’t you just STFU.