Busting the Icon

Abstract

Carl von Clausewitz has had a massive influence on military officers. One faculty member at a US war college had spent most of his academic life teaching Clausewitz and would brook no contrary word. Whatever the occasion, he had a quote from On War to bolster his argument. The result was a skewed interpretation of what Clausewitz was attempting to inform, and this tended to push students into a group-think mentality. Some people, in and out of uniform, take their Clausewitz very seriously, so this chapter is an attempt to restore a balance. It looks at what Clausewitz wrote, but also what military leaders and civilian pundits thought he meant in the two centuries since.