Clauswitz or SunTzu ?

[Shahed]

Greetings All http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

You are a student of military strategy at a leading military university.

You are asked which one of the two theories of Clauswitz and Sun Tzu, you prefer as a guide to the conduct of historical and modern military operation.

You do not have the choice of merging theory, you must choose ONE.

Which one would you choose, please state why ?
Thank you and look forward to reading your replies.

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[ichi]

I would choose Sun Tzu, since his ideas are, in my opinion, more oriented toward how to conduct military operations against another military force, while Clausewitz describes actions of one political force over another.

Clausewitz has been beaten up pretty bad by logicians and socio-military pundits. His idea of war against the supporting population is truely that of Total War, but history has shown that there is a huge distinction between a society's ability to resist and their will to resist. Pogroms and ethnic cleaning have almost always resulted in an increase in the resistance of the society, its allies, and even neutrals.

I like Sun Tzu for his simplicity - attack when/where the enemy is weak, retreat when he is strong. Both Clausewitz and Sun Tzu preach deception.

Sun Tzu focuses on fighting between armies. This would be my preference, to not have to kill women and children to destroy the support and morale of the enemy. But given the new state of war, that of cultural war, this may need rethinking.

I still would believe that it is preferable to destroy the machine, and not to destroy the people under it.

ichi

[HopAlongBunny]

Sun Tzu for how to put a man with a gun on the enemy's territory.

Mao or Ghandi for how to actually win the war :)

[PseRamesses]

Quote[/b] (ichi @ April 26 2004,23:41)]I would choose Sun Tzu, since his ideas are, in my opinion, more oriented toward how to conduct military operations against another military force, while Clausewitz describes actions of one political force over another.
I like Sun Tzu for his simplicity - attack when/where the enemy is weak, retreat when he is strong.
Sun Tzu focuses on fighting between armies. This would be my preference, to not have to kill women and children to destroy the support and morale of the enemy. But given the new state of war, that of cultural war, this may need rethinking.

I still would believe that it is preferable to destroy the machine, and not to destroy the people under it.

ichi
Hear, hear I absolutely concur. Sun Tzu is the master and Clausewitz´ a mere wannabe

[Ranges]

Let's put it this way.. SUn Tzu describes campaigns and battles more than wars in their entirety.

Von Clausewitz offers a theory on the how, and indeed why of war, and applies that to decisions on the battlefield.

So generally speaking, for describing war, i'd choose Von Clausewitz..

Besides, Clausewitz is a tiny bit more up to date on the hardware.. A very tiny bit ;)

[Aymar de Bois Mauri]

Quote[/b] (PseRamesses @ April 27 2004,07:50)]
Quote[/b] (ichi @ April 26 2004,23:41)]I would choose Sun Tzu, since his ideas are, in my opinion, more oriented toward how to conduct military operations against another military force, while Clausewitz describes actions of one political force over another.
I like Sun Tzu for his simplicity - attack when/where the enemy is weak, retreat when he is strong.
Sun Tzu focuses on fighting between armies. This would be my preference, to not have to kill women and children to destroy the support and morale of the enemy. But given the new state of war, that of cultural war, this may need rethinking.

I still would believe that it is preferable to destroy the machine, and not to destroy the people under it.

ichi
Hear, hear I absolutely concur. Sun Tzu is the master and Clausewitz´ a mere wannabe
Correct. Sun Tzu is the philosopher of war. Clauzewitz is just a good analyst (unfortunatelly very connected to certain dogmas adopted in his era).

Sun Tzu's teachings concern basic principles of conduct in war. They are general and always apliable. Clausewitz analysys, IMHO, are more specific and of less general use, therefore being prone to failure on changing situations.

[PseRamesses]

Quote[/b] (Aymar de Bois Mauri @ April 27 2004,08:04)]Sun Tzu's teachings concern basic principles of conduct in war. They are general and always apliable.
Simplicity always rule

[Bezalel]

One says it all again (/me shakes fist at ichi).

[mfberg]

Sun Tzu and Niccolo Machiavelli, my heroes. Of course I had to read Clauzewitz for a class http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-book2.gif and Sun Tzu just for enjoyment. (I keep it by my bedside).

mfberg

[Bezalel]

Machiavelli is the man.

[meravelha]

I vote for von Clauswitz even if he is difficult to read.

His articulation of the concept of 'friction' was a profound insight into the conduct of operations that eluded all authors before him. The efforts and strategies to overcome friction at every point in a campaign provide solid intellectual framework for discussing all the anecdotal 'rules' of warfare. Sun Tzu is, by comparison, content to list strategies rather than explain them.

Also, in his discussion of the seige of Mantua, he constructs a most useful dialectic whereby the answer to a single question (was Bonaparte right in raising the seige) depends entirely on the level from which the question is asked. Asked from the lowest level of operations it was wrong, asked from a higher level it was the right thing to do, asked from a higher level again it was wrong, from a still higher level right, and so on.

It is this reasoning that connects even tactical decisions to higher strategic and ultimately political rationality. It is the basis of his focus on 'single effort'.

[Sun Tzui]

Sun Tzu definately
*looks at own username and grins*

For all the reasons explained by ichi, subscribed in full by yours truly.

I am currently reading Clawswitz, and find it lacking clarity and depth

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[Apocalyp$e]

Try to politik, before you smoke 'em-like Sun Tzu,
and do unto these snitches before it's done to you.

[Doug-Thompson]

Sun Tzu, because he got to finish his book.

Clausewitz was severely misunderstood by -- of all people -- the German General Staff. They took Clausewitz as an argument for total war, when it was actually an argument against that. There's an excellent book on the topic but I read it many years ago. I think it was called German Military Theory and the Battle of Annihilation.

[Ludens]

Quote[/b] (Aymar de Bois Mauri @ April 27 2004,15:04)]Correct. Sun Tzu is the philosopher of war. Clauzewitz is just a good analyst (unfortunatelly very connected to certain dogmas adopted in his era).
Actually, Clausewitz did not agree with the 'mathematical' tactics of the German military academies of his time. He was quite a new thinker. But otherwise I agree to what you say. Sun Tzu captured the basis for war in a few chapters. Von Clausewitz got a lot of the details, but used a tremendous amount of paper.

[eksadiss]

I prefur Sun Tzu

[Dhepee]

I have read excerpts of both for a class but have not undertaken a thorough study of either. The impression that I came away with was that Sun Tzu was the more universally applicable of the two. Clauswitz, although he tried not to be, seemed to rooted in the Napoleonic era. Sun Tzu's principles were articulated in a way that made them more universal.

In this class, which was on the First World War, it was the professor's belief that because the German General Staff (GGS) relied to a certain degree on Clauswitz they were blinkered to the new realities of war and were intellectually still thinking in terms of Napoleonic era maneuver warfare. The blame for this cannot rest solely on Clauswitz's theories but it does illustrate that in relying on any theory or set of theories that is too deeply rooted in its own time is dangerous as times change. Sun Tzu's theories while of a time were not in the time and can be applied generally applied to a modern theory of war.

There is of course a limitation to this, no theory can provide a complete answer to a strategic problem, at best it provides guideposts from which to work, which Sun Tzu does better than Clauswitz. The real success or failure lies with the ability of a general to use whatever guideposts he has and to then apply them as best he can to the situation on the ground.