3 ms·

As a war college graduate myself, I'd agree and disagree. Wars are ultimately won and lost in the terrain of the human mind. People are defeated when they bel

As a war college graduate myself, I'd agree and disagree. Wars are ultimately won and lost in the terrain of the human mind. People are defeated when they believe in their collective minds that fighting is no longer worth it. That's straight from Clausewitz. But militaries in wars ultimately create the conditions which facilitate those thoughts, and are the primary drivers of who wins and who loses. To say that the military aspect of a war is the "least interesting part" betrays an anti-military bias. But it is true that the military aspect of a war is not the only aspect which is necessary to understand how and why a war was won and lost, and its long-term effects on the belligerent nations.

AlbertCory 3y ago
Believe me, I don't have an anti-military bias. I read the stuff compulsively. I hosted an author at Google who wrote about Clausewitz (and if I hadn't, no one else would have and he wouldn't have come). I was thinking that the causes of the war, the unification of Germany as a result, the Paris Commune, and the lasting enmity in the French as a result of losing Alsace-Lorraine are all more "interesting."
- psunavy03 3y ago
  Fair enough. I'd agree that long-term, the causes and effects of a war matter more. They're just caused to occur largely (though not exclusively) by the effects on people's psyches of military action happening on the battlefield. Military history is an unpopular genre these days, and I think part of it is the whole "oh, you joined the military, you must have been stupid and had no other options" prejudice. Which is alive and well in well-educated places like here. My apologies. Who was the author? I'm curious. I took my courses via correspondence, and didn't have the chance to get a Masters (not that an MS in National Security and Strategic Studies would help in tech). But it always struck me how much Clausewitz is misinterpreted in popular culture as the "wars are politics by other means" guy, when he meant that as only one side of a Hegelian dialectic.
  - AlbertCory 3y ago
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8K312sz9to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8K312sz9to I also did a podcast for Operation Code: operationcode.org/podcast

AlbertCory 3y ago

Believe me, I don't have an anti-military bias. I read the stuff compulsively. I hosted an author at Google who wrote about Clausewitz (and if I hadn't, no one else would have and he wouldn't have come). I was thinking that the causes of the war, the unification of Germany as a result, the Paris Commune, and the lasting enmity in the French as a result of losing Alsace-Lorraine are all more "interesting."

psunavy03 3y ago
Fair enough. I'd agree that long-term, the causes and effects of a war matter more. They're just caused to occur largely (though not exclusively) by the effects on people's psyches of military action happening on the battlefield. Military history is an unpopular genre these days, and I think part of it is the whole "oh, you joined the military, you must have been stupid and had no other options" prejudice. Which is alive and well in well-educated places like here. My apologies. Who was the author? I'm curious. I took my courses via correspondence, and didn't have the chance to get a Masters (not that an MS in National Security and Strategic Studies would help in tech). But it always struck me how much Clausewitz is misinterpreted in popular culture as the "wars are politics by other means" guy, when he meant that as only one side of a Hegelian dialectic.
- AlbertCory 3y ago
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8K312sz9to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8K312sz9to I also did a podcast for Operation Code: operationcode.org/podcast