>Tactical brilliance could not guarantee strategic clarity—and each gain came at political and moral cost.
sums up what is wrong with modern conflict --- the abandonment of the moral high ground and a failure to take into account the will of people and their right to self-determination which Jomini (who had displaced Clausewitz after his inculcation at West Point as part of the brutal lessens the U.S. learned in Vietnam) failed to consider, and which Clausewitz took to heart and studied deeply, and thought long on.
It wasn't that long ago that the collapse of the Soviet Union was viewed as "the end of history" and a global acknowledgement that liberal democracy was the means of government most widely accepted --- hopefully articles such as this will be a guidepost to getting back on that track --- every moral failure simply recruits others to fight on the opposite side.
It actually had the gall to finish with:
> Clausewitz offers no checklist for success in cities, but rather something more valuable. What he offers is a way to think clearly ...
I'm pretty sure that a checklist for success would have been more valuable.
Quoting again from the author's closing remarks:
> Victory in this environment requires more than technological superiority. It demands clarity of purpose, coherence between means and ends, disciplined execution, and moral restraint—the very fundamentals Clausewitz insisted upon. These are not optional in the urban century. They are decisive.
But that's so vague that I can't help but again yell "But what is decisive?!", "What should the commanders/politicians do in practice?". It's almost astrology in how it doesn't say anything objectionable.
It simply depends. No situation is unique.
Israels strategy towards tunnels for example is to blow up and level everything. Ukraine does not deem that acceptable to the russian tunnels inside Ukraine.
I was hoping that being "the chair of urban warfare studies at the Modern War Institute" [0], the author could offer some actual advice on strategy. Or what is the institute for? Hopefully not just for writing essays.
As for Israel's strategy towards tunnels, I actually have no understanding of what's going on there, but I can just say that whatever they're doing has not been effective in achieving a decisive victory, and is thus ipso facto not a good strategy. So I'm wondering what would have a good strategy have been. The author now has two years of hindsight - could he not use that time and information to offer some alternative approach?
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Spencer_(military_officer...
> Clausewitz also famously wrote, “No one starts a war—or rather, no one in his senses ought to do so—without first being clear in his mind what he intends to achieve by that war and how he intends to conduct it.”
You could also make a checklist of stuff like "reduce effectiveness of enemy's forces" and "minimize damage to your own ability to wage war" - but that's basics which any upperclassman at a military academy could recite, in regard to pretty much any war ever.
It's been 2 centuries since Clausewitz was writing about military theory. He's still widely read because his ideas are big-picture abstractions. Bridging the gap between his abstractions and what to do, with whatever current-day/recent-tech forces you happen to have - that's the job of your flag officers and their staffs. Though their "checklists" will keep changing, as the war progresses.
Consider the old adage:
>Never do something which you wouldn't want your grandparents to read about in a newspaper, or to discuss with them over Sunday dinner.
By extension, a military force should:
>Never do anything which when shown on the evening news would result in a Congressional inquiry (or a War Crimes Tribunal).
As I see it, the only way that we can have "Rules of War" is by proving that a war can be won while maintaining them. Otherwise (and unless you have a magic wand to make humans non-aggressive), these rules are worse than useless, because they limit the more ethical side, while making them lose to the less ethical.
I would have liked some more unpacking of how this disconnect would have been interpreted by Clausewitz.
It also struck me that as an outsider to these conflicts, I assume that the combatants are acting rationally from the perspective of the adage (“No one starts a war—or rather, no one in his senses ought to do so—without first being clear in his mind what he intends to achieve by that war and how he intends to conduct it“) and I judge the morality based on the inferred intent. That would also have been interesting to unpack…
iammjm•1h ago
I have a sense that articles like these is why a lot of people think the "academics" are completely disconnected from the reality.
falcor84•1h ago
iammjm•46m ago
Also, we are talking about the most technologically advanced war that ever took place, where the iteration cycles are measured with weeks. The Russo-Ukrainian war of the beginning of 2022 looked very different from what it currently is. For the actual modern urban warfare see the cities I mentioned.
falcor84•31m ago
I would then ask you about your mention of:
> turning Bakhmut, Vovchansk, Toretsk, Chasiv Yar et al. to _literal_ rubble
Leaving aside the horrible ethics. Would you say that this was an intentional strategic approach by the Russian leaders, as a mechanism of avoiding the difficulty of urban warfare, or an unintended side-effect of trying to conduct urban warfare?
jcranmer•55m ago
It should also be noted that, objectively, Russia's war has not been a success. It also has not been a failure, except in the grand strategic sense of provoking the realignment and reinvigorating of NATO it was meant to prevent.
rzwitserloot•14m ago
I have absolutely no idea what Russia was expecting from their three day special military operation, currently on 3 years, 7 months, and 2 weeks. But surely whatever they were thinking, if I could go back in time and paint them a picture of how the situation is today, they'd jump out the window (or be 'helped' out of them, as appears to be a popular pastime in Moscow this decade). This has to be on the levels quite near 'worst than our worst case scenario'.
I think Von clausewitz's revenge on the russian plan for Ukraine hasn't even begun yet. If Russia ends up wanting to turn lands they currently occupy in lands they annexed (a land that is productive and well on its way to just being culturally subsumed), the cost of that operation will be even larger than the astronomical cost they are paying to gain them: Their utter disregard for Clausewitzian planning means it'll be one heck of an insurgency.
Unfortunately, Russia is one of the most ruthless countries in this regard and will simply massively replace the population, starve it out, or otherwise eliminate any odds of low morale amongst the populace or active insurgency by simply replacing the entire population.
But that also destroys all inherent economic productivity other than natural resources. Russia already has plenty of land and plenty of resources; what they need is more people in general and productive, creative members of society in particular, neither of which you can make happen by starving a population that hates you for how you fought that war and still holds out hope they can drive you out.
jimbohn•32m ago