On War: Clausetwitz: Non-linearity and complexity:

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Thoughtful piece. Some very nice insights.

[Csargo]

Read the introduction and will probably come back tomorrow and read the rest. It's late and I'm tired.

[Agent Miles]

"An army of rabbits led by a lion will always overcome an army of lions led by a rabbit." Napoleon

Beyerchen’s paper from 1992 is just another interpretation of Clausewitz. Remember, Clausewitz wrote “about wars” (the literal translation of vom kriege) aiming at a select audience of world leaders, and so is Beyerchen in his paper. Clausewitz describes international conflict as sort of a Gordian Knot and war is perceived as the solution that Alexander used to solve the riddle of untying that knot, i.e., one swift blow of the sword. Clausewitz describes the dangers in this perception and Beyerchen reiterates it in light of chaos theory. Again, the audience for this advice is our national leadership. War is still a dangerous gamble and our success still depends on whether the members of our leadership are lions or rabbits.