A History of Strategy

Everything in war is simple, but even the simplest things are complicated.
—Carl von Clausewitz

Martin van Creveld ranks high among military historians, and given the changes in technology since Napoleonic times, his work is a necessary supplement to Clausewitz. His reflections have influenced strategists and grand tacticians since his first books appeared, and as an Israeli historian, he has been in a unique position to observe the changing nature of modern warfare on both the grand strategic and tactical levels, particularly with regards to asymmetric warfare. Scholars and military planners ignore his thoughts at their peril.

I don’t entirely agree with him on the effectiveness of guerilla operations absent a sanctuary, or with his conclusions concerning Viet Nam, which I consider to be a victory won, then given up. And while the Iraq War was certainly unwise, I don't believe that it was necessarily unwinnable, as the U.S. military was given an impossible mission, then undermined by political errors made above their pay grade. That being said, if winning is defined as a nation being better off after the war than it was before, it is hard to see how winning in Iraq was ever possible. So perhaps we agree after all.

But whatever your position on modern conflicts might be, Martin van Creveld’s writings are worth reading and they are vital to reaching informed conclusions about the art of war.

Jerry Pournelle

Studio City, California

The origins of military thought are unknown. Since war is among the oldest of human activities, and long antedates the invention of writing, the earliest attempts to think it out have not survived. Presumably they took the form of poems which were sung or recited on suitable occasions. We do in fact know that many tribal societies have warlike songs. Composed by anonymous bards and often modified to fit subsequent events as they unfold, their purpose is to record glorious deeds that took place in the past, encourage the warriors on one’s own side, and frighten the enemy. And indeed the Homeric poems, like broadly similar ones in other cultures, appear to have originated in just such a collection of songs.

However insightful and however inspiring, poems do not military theory make. This volume, concentrating on systematic attempts to understand the nature of war and the ways in which it should be fought, will present the reader with a brief survey of the development of military theory from its origins to the present day. In doing so I have decided to prefer width over depth. The objective is not so much to analyze a few “great” writers—each of whom has been discussed many times—as to aim at a measure of comprehensiveness. Above all, I want to show the continuity of historical thought concerning the subject of war. Even so, given the very limited space available, some concessions had to be made. Obviously only a small selection of those who have turned their minds to the study of war could be included. The rest, particularly the vast number who have done so since 1945, will have to excuse me if I allow their writings to speak for themselves.

In this connection, the vexed question as to whether and how theory influenced action will be largely put aside. In a conference I once attended, one speaker claimed that World War II American “decision makers”—meaning senior civil servants and generals with research money to spend—treated the social scientists from whom they deigned to commission studies “as dogs treat lampposts.” Later it turned out that one of the scientists in question happened to be named Ruth Benedict. Ms. Benedict did not know Japanese, nor had she ever been to Japan. Her study of Japanese culture, written in 1943 and later published under the title
The Chrysanthemum and the Sword
, may or may not actually have influenced any particular decision made during the War. In fact it would be very hard to tell. More important, though, having sold by the hundreds of thousands, it did more to shape Western, American in particular, notions about Japan than almost any other work before or since. Certainly more than the vast majority of “decision makers” whose very names, moderately well known in their own time, have since been forgotten. Many of them would probably have been unable to put whatever ideas they had about Japan in coherent form even if they had tried.

The outline of the volume is as follows. Chapter 1 deals with the ancient Chinese military thinkers. Chapter 2 presents a brief outline of classical, Byzantine, and Western medieval military thought. Chapter 3 covers the period between 1500 and the end of the Seven Years War; Chapter 4, the immediate forerunners of Jomini and Clausewitz as well as those writers themselves. Chapter 5 discusses the rest of the nineteenth century up to 1914. Chapter 6 focuses on Mahan and Corbett as the only two writers on the theory of naval warfare (not to be confused with its history, on which there are many fine works) who are worth studying. Chapter 7 analyzes the period between the World Wars, including air warfare, armored warfare, the indirect approach, and total warfare. Finally, Chapter 8 outlines some of the debates about war that have taken place since 1945. Doing so, it focuses on nuclear strategy on the one hand and terrorism/guerrilla/insurgency on the other.

The plan for the original volume (
The Art of War: War and Military Thought
, Cassell, 2000) was conceived in consultation with the general editor, my late friend Mr. John Keegan, and the publishing director at Weidenfeld and Nicolson, Ms. Judith Flanders. In accord with them, I decided to keep it free of references so as to retain as much as possible of the limited space available for the text proper. Still the reader who is interested in pursuing the topic further will find a list of readings at the back. In this way, it is to be hoped, the demands of both brevity and scholarship can be reconciled.

As indicated in the introduction, the earliest known writings on the subject of war did not constitute theoretical treatises. Instead they took the form of narratives; poems that had been put down such as the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Homeric poems, or prose accounts commemorating individual campaigns and battles such as may be found inscribed on ancient Egyptian, Babylonian, and Assyrian monuments. Both the prose accounts and the poems were intended to record and glorify events which may or may not have taken place, but which, even in the case of the Epic of Gilgamesh with its array of gods and god-like heroes, may have contained some kernel of truth. In addition, the poems in particular served the purpose of inspiring the young to deeds of excellence.

In China, which is where our survey must start, a third type of writing on war developed and enjoyed prominence. China after the fall of the Chou (ca. 400 BC) was divided into a large number of warring principalities. Fighting each other tooth and nail, these principalities developed standing professional armies as well as expert generals. Between about 400 and 200 BC several of these generals appear to have put their methods down in writing. There were also various texts which were written by others and attributed to them by way of enhancing those texts’ authority. In some cases, including that of Sun Tzu, the greatest of their number, the generals may not have been historical figures, but rather legendary pegs upon which anonymous authors hung their own thoughts. This method is still often used in China today. To make one's case, one does not stress one's originality as a modern Westerner would do. On the contrary, one attributes what one is saying to someone who lived long ago and whose fame is greater than one's own.

Once composed or written, both martial poems and prose accounts of war constituted public possessions. They were recited, read, or even inscribed on stone. Not so the Chinese texts. Precisely because they claimed to lay bare the methods which famous generals used in order to gain their victories, these military manuscripts were treated as state secrets. Their nature is evident from their names: e.g. “T’ai Kung’s Six Secret Teachings,” “The Methods of the Ssuma,” “Three Strategies of Huang Shihkung” and the “Military Methods” attributed to Sun Pin. All these, as well as several others, were products of the period of the warring principalities. They tended to disappear into royal archives where they were only made available to the elect. Given that they were written on strips of bamboo and joined together by having strings passed through holes in them, there was plenty of occasion for them to fall into disorder over time. Only during medieval (Sung) times were seven of the surviving texts copied or printed on silk and disseminated, serving as textbooks on which the annual military examinations were based. One, by Sun Pin, disappeared altogether. It only came back to light in 1972 when a Han tomb was opened and a copy discovered.

Some of the texts that have come down to us are presented in the form of lectures given by commanders to the rulers whose forces they commanded. Or, in some cases, sought to command. For example, in Wu Tzu's address to the Marquis of Wei, he is described as having given his exposition over a glass of wine, while seated on a mat. Other texts consist of short, pungent phrases which had been stated by, or attributed to, some outstanding general and were then surrounded by the comments of others who expanded on his words, or illustrated them by the use of historical examples. In other cases, we can see a discussion unfolding as a ruler, by way of testing his would-be general, presents him with increasingly difficult questions to answer. The more of the material one reads, the more one feels that not all of it is meant to be taken seriously; some of it exhibits a rather playful character as questions, examples and attributions are piled on top of each other to comprise regular mental battles. To help the student keep the essentials in mind mnemonic devices are often employed, e.g. “the five principles,” “the six preservations,” “the nine maneuvers,” and the like.

Finally, the texts in question cannot be understood without bearing in mind the underlying way in which Chinese culture approaches war. War was neither a means in the hands of policy nor was it an end in itself. Instead it was regarded as an evil; albeit one that was sometimes made necessary by the imperfection of the world. “Weapons are instruments of ill omen” said Sun Tzu, the oldest and most famous general of all who may or may not have been a historical figure. “However vast the state, he who takes pleasure in the military will perish” added Sun Pin, reputed to have lived a century or so after Sun Tzu and to have been the latter’s direct descendant. As Wu Tzu told the Marquis of Wei in their first interview, “a ruler might not have a liking for military affairs. Still not to prepare for war was to fail in his duty—when the dead lie stiff and you grieve for them, you have not attained righteousness.” “War is of vital importance for the state,” said Sun Tzu. Therefore, “military affairs cannot be but investigated,” Sun Pin concluded.