Busting the Icon
Busting the Icon
Restoring Balance to the Influence of Clausewitz
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.
Keywords: Carl von Clausewitz, On War, theory of war, bloody battle, decisive battle, Napoleonic wars, center of gravity
Kentucky Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs , and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us .
