Forget Clausewitz

The modern study of war originates in many ways in Carl von Clausewitz classic On War. One of Clausewitz most influential positions is the idea that war is political, summed up in the statement that ‘war is the continuation of politics by other means.’ Traditional approaches to war often draw on this idea to outline how tactics and operations work as means to strategic and political ends. Critical approaches on the other hand, have instead invoked Michel Foucault’s idea that ‘politics is the continuation of war by other means,’ enabling an understanding for how politics relate to a struggle of life and death. This paper outlines a critique of both ideas by drawing on Jean Baudrillard’s discussion of the Gulf-war. It argues that taking the link between war and politics for granted produces a reality which in many ways reflects and reifies war as a mode of politics, or politics as a mode of war. The text ends by arguing that if we are to think war seriously and critically we need to think it beyond politics, and a starting point to do so is to forget Clausewitz.