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Clausewitz, On War

Clausewitz, On War. Pure War: Elimination or Complete Subjugation of the Enemy by Force Real War: All conditions and factors that impede or block the realization of “ Pure War ”

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Clausewitz, On War

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  1. Clausewitz, On War • Pure War: Elimination or Complete Subjugation of the Enemy by Force • Real War: All conditions and factors that impede or block the realization of “Pure War” • The political objectives of using force by the state is typically the principal constraint or limit to “Pure War” • “Pure War” as such is politically and morally without sense or meaning because all other human values, interests, or preferences are EXCLUDED

  2. A system of nation-states, each claiming a monopoly of violence under conditions in which no power or authority rules the system, has implicitly a tendency to move toward pure war if conflict arises between states. • Hobbes’s “War of all against all” is projected by Clausewitz from an individual or group level to state relations and conflict • Clausewitz: “pure war”: “Force . . . is the means of war; to impose our will on the enemy is its object. To secure that object we must render the enemy powerless; and that, in theory, is the true aim of warfare. That aim takes the place of the object, discarding it as something not actually part of war itself.”

  3. What Have We Learned • The state is the principal unit of political organization of the world’s diverse and divided populations • Each state claims to be sovereign: that is, it is the final authority over the population living within a defined territory over which it rules • The result is a state political system that is in anarchy, since there is NO central authority or world government that has either the authority or the coercive means to rule the states of the system

  4. What Are the Principal Properties of the Nation-State System • All states are sovereign • The system is anarchical • Conflicts between states can be resolved in many ways, but when all means of resolving differences fail, force is the final arbiter or means of resolving differences • Thus the nation-state system is in principle a warfare system

  5. What Are the Limits of the Use of Force between Individuals and Groups? • Hobbes: When conflict over values, interests, and preferences arise between individuals and groups and all means short of force have failed to resolve the differences, then force has a tendency to eliminate all limits on the use of force • The result is a “war of all against all”

  6. What Are the Limits of the Use of Force between States? • Clausewitz: War between states tends to move toward “Pure War” • The principal limit or constraint of movement toward this final endpoint are the political and moral objectives of the state

  7. An Historical Illustration of “Pure War” • The Peloponnesian Wars between Athens and Sparta • The Melian Dialogue Exemplifies the “logic” of “Pure War” when the rivals believe that their survival is threatened

  8. Classes 4-7: Contemporary Illustrations of Total or Pure War • Class 4: World War I • Class 5: World War II • Class 6: Cold War • Class 7: The Global War on Terror and the Limits of American Imperial Expansion

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