Clausewitz on Small War, edited and translated by Daase, Christopher and Davis, James W.

Abstract

For those familiar with Clausewitz’s writings on small wars, mostly written in the form of a series of lectures delivered at the Prussian War College in 1810 and 1811 under the title “Lectures on Small War,” these writings have offered insight into insurgency, terrorism, and partisan warfare for over two hundred years. However, given that these writings were not translated into English from the original German until the current volume, that was a very small group indeed. Many acted as if On War was Clausewitz’s ultimate academic achievement and, because it only contains a brief chapter on people’s war, such must have been far from Clausewitz’s thinking. The present volume by Daase and Davis not only now provides us with an excellent English translation of these lectures, but they also put to death the faulty assumption that Clausewitz was uninterested, if not downright unacquainted, with small wars and insurrections. Besides the writings of Clausewitz himself, which includes in addition to the lectures the Bekenntnisdenkschrift (or Testimonials) of 1812 plus the chapter on “The Arming of the People” (Volksbewaffnung) from On War, the credit for putting the myth of Clausewitz’s disregard for small war to rest goes equally to James Davis, whose introductory chapter not only puts Clausewitz in context, but also articulates the most important aspects of the writings collected here and how they relate to insurgency, terrorism, partisan warfare, and even special operations (which are seen as critical but secondary to the main military effort). Those who have over the years disregarded Clausewitz as irrelevant to the modern age will have to rethink their positions and argue their points anew, for Clausewitz certainly wrote clearly and masterfully on issues such as the interrelationship between national identity and war, the economic logic of warfare, and low-intensity conflict and asymmetric conflict. As Davis puts it, “the near exclusive focus of Anglo-Saxon scholars on the unfinished work On War obscures the true breadth of Clausewitz’s strategic thought, which extends to the prosecution of wars of national liberation, guerrilla-style warfare, light-