I Read Books: A History Of Warfare

A History Of Warfare

John Keegan returns to some of his previous themes, attempting to answer the question, what is the nature of warfare? More importantly, here in the nuclear age, can we maybe stop before we all kill each other?

He takes as his starting point von Clausewitz’s famous maxim, “Warfare is the continuation of policy by other means.” He then breaks down what von Clausewitz meant, and why he made that his point, why his work was so seminal*, and the consequences (two world wars amongst other things). Then he goes back to what is called primitive warfare, though there is disagreement over whether it’s war until you actually have a definable army**.

Moving through modern tribal warfare to inspect evidence of pre-historical fighting and eventually reaching the historical period Keegan finds that wars were often formal affairs, and even more often did not result in enormous casualties for the reason that men aren’t actually all that interested in putting themselves at risk. More than that; styles of warfare grew out of culture. Von Clausewitz not only should have known better, he actually did. He had observed Cossacks during Napoleon’s Russian Campaign, harrying stragglers during the retreat, robbing them and killing them, but never attacking a formed body. This, “real war”, was a mere reflection of what ought to be being pursued, “true war”, in which every effort is put forth to pursue victory in the service of the state’s policy.

Hence, of course, World War One.

His overview is sometimes a little sketchy, as 6000 years of history must be in one volume. His conclusions seem solid though. Strongly recommended.

Read This: For a meditation on the nature of warfare, backed by evidence
Don’t Read This: You don’t want to know about people fighting

* Von Moltke, Chief of the Prussian General Staff during the Austro-Prussian and Franco-Prussian wars, mentioned that along with the Bible and Homer, he kept von Clausewitz’s On War with him at all times. In the rush to embrace the text after Prussia’s extraordinary victories, it was often ignored that von Clausewitz was director of the officer academy that von Moltke attended as a young man.

** Putting the cart before the horse, suggesting that war can only be fought by armies, hence require a state to raise such armies, a state that generates policies, bringing us back to von Clausewitz by default. Though in this case war is not part of human nature but an outgrowth of the state and hence amenable to being mitigated surely?