Word: clausewitz
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...their rhetoric and military programs on war fighting at the expense of deterrence, rearmament at the expense of arms control. Most policymakers in the Administration acknowledge that war fighting makes sense (and rather shaky sense at that) only as an extension of deterrence #151; deterrence by other means, as Clausewitz might have put it. In its rearmament pro gram, however, the Administration has concentrated too much on the development of more big-ticket nuclear weapons and not enough on building up conventional forces. If America's conventional defenses were stronger, they would constitute a more credible deterrent to Soviet aggression...
...after the missiles are fired, would there be anything?and anyone?left? Should nuclear weapons be regarded simply as new and more destructive instruments for waging war? And thereby, in Karl von Clausewitz's famous phrase, continuing politics by other means? Some strategists, including a number who are either members of or consultants to the Reagan Administration, believe that with proper improvements in American defenses, the U.S. could wage and win a nuclear war. Despite the disclaimers of their leaders, some Soviet strategists almost certainly believe their country could do the same thing. Other specialists, both American and Soviet...
Fallows uses dozens of examples to illustrate the dangers of trying to build "magic weapons," be they missiles with so many computers they will virtually assure victory or "super" tanks that corner like 40-ton Ferraris. War, he quotes Clausewitz, is both unpredictable and filled with "friction"--everything from bad weather to equipment breakdowns. As a result, planners should stress adaptability. Instead, the "prevailing ethic of modern American defense...is the managerial view of the military," which translates to "the desire to make defense a more straight-forward and efficient business, by applying the disciplines of economics and management...
...many citizens are determined to have it their way-preferably at government expense-that suggests a breakdown in followership. "There seems to be no disposition to follow leaders," said Bunting. "Clausewitz once said that the most dangerous situation in a military campaign was a thwarted offensive. We are living now in a time of thwarted offensive. I mean the offensive of mind, of intellect; it follows very largely from the arousals of expectations during the Kennedy Administration...
...sometimes truculently, toward a redefinition of its influence, military and otherwise, in the world. The U.S. has taken on a certain bristle, a tendency that was evident last week in Senate debate over the defense budget. In the Mayaguez incident, Gerald Ford, indebted more to McLuhan than to Clausewitz, struck off an image of American decisiveness after years in the Asian morass. Ford also hastened to Europe to reassure the NATO allies of America's steadfastness (see THE WORLD...