Infinity Journal Volume 6, Issue 4, Summer 2019

Volume 6, Issue 4, Summer 2019 Infinity Journal Page 19 As Clausewitz scholars well know, Prussia’s renowned theorist never used the word paradoxical to describe his trinitarian concept of war’s nature. The adjective paradoxical was added by Michael Howard and Peter Paret as a translation of the German word “ wünderliche ” (wondrous) in their 1976 English edition of On War ; they subsequently replaced paradoxical with the more suitable word “remarkable” in the revised edition that appeared in 1989.[i] However, many thousands of copies of the unrevised editions of On War remain in circulation. Consequently, the adjective paradoxical stubbornly persists as a descriptor of Clausewitz’s trinity. An uncomfortable number of students, for instance, use it in seminar discussions (until corrected).Moreover, even though Clausewitz scholars consciously avoid the word, they routinely describe the trinity in paradoxical terms, as if its elements—reason, passion, and chance—always work at cross purposes to one another.[ii] In effect, the meaning of the word paradoxical often informs how we see the trinity, even if we deliberately avoid using the adjective itself. An important reason for this confusion is the long Western philosophical and literary traditions of representing reason and passion as natural opposites. Furthermore, our liberal- democratic assumptions presume balancing power among the government, the populace, and the military— the institutions to which Clausewitz loosely associated the elements of reason,passion,and chance—will always remain a problem. We have no reason to believe Howard and Paret thought differently.Additionally,military strategists have come to see the role of chance and probability as damaging to even the best laid plans.One of the points about OnWar that Howard wished to get across to policymakers, he has openly remarked, was how difficult friction makes everything in war. [iii] In short, regarding the trinity as paradoxical in nature, if not in name, seems eminently justifiable. Unlike us,however,Clausewitz belonged to amovement within German Romanticism that sought to create a conceptual space in which reason and passion might coexist.[iv] History often portrays the Enlightenment and German Romanticism as fundamentally and irretrievably opposed to one another. But that representation is superficial and misleading. A great deal of Romanticism had to do with reconciling opposites through dialectical interactions. Nor were Clausewitz and the others who sought to reform the Prussian army after its defeat at the hands of Napoleon in 1806/1807 (Heinrich Freiherr vom und zum Stein, Hermann Boyen, Gerhard von Scharnhorst, August von Gneisenau, Carl von Grolman, among others) liberal democrats, despite recent efforts to cast them as such. The society to which they belonged was not a free one in the liberal-democratic sense; nor did they wish to overthrow their king, Frederick William III, to establish such a society as the French had done. What they wanted, instead, was to fuse the monarchy, the army, and the public together into a unified nation state.[v] And they wanted to do so primarily for the sake of achieving greater military efficiency and effectiveness, rather than spreading the revolutionary ideals of liberty, equality, and fraternity. Nor did they see chance only as a disruptive force; it was, after all, a realm within which “the creative spirit is free to roam,” according to Clausewitz.[vi] To project our assumptions and values onto the reformers, therefore, though inevitable to some extent, is to distort both their ideas and their aims. More to the point, our projections have restricted our ability to understand Clausewitz’s trinity. To remedy that, we must not only shun the adjective Antulio J. Echevarria II US Army War College Professor Antulio J. Echevarria II is currently the Editor-in- Chief of the US Army War College Press, which includes Parameters . He is a graduate of the US Military Academy, the US Army Command and General Staff College, and the US Army War College. He holds a doctorate in modern history from Princeton University, and is the author of five books,including AfterClausewitz (Kansas2001), Clausewitz and Contemporary War (Oxford 2007), Reconsidering the American Way of War (Georgetown 2014), and Military Strategy: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford 2017), as well as nearly one hundred articles and monographs on strategic thinking, military theory, and military history. He completed a NATO Fulbright Fellowship in 2000-2001, and was Visiting Research Fellow at Oxford University in 2011- 12; he formerly held the US Army War College Elihu Root Chair of Military Studies. He is completing a book on the American way of thinking about war. To cite this Article: Echevarria J. II., Antulio,“When the Clausewitzian Trinity is Not Paradoxical”, Infinity Journal , Volume 6, Issue 4, summer 2019, pages 19-22. When the Clausewitzian Trinity is Not Paradoxical By Karl Wilhelm Wach - http://www.nodulo.org/ec/2007/n066p13.htm , Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=11621308