Is GNS a Paradoxical Trinity?

[glandis]

I forgot to mention, if you like Clausewitz analysis, my favorite is Echevarria's Clausewitz and Contemporary War.

Thanks for the recommendation. I actually hope NOT to think about Clausewitz too much, but if I run a war-oriented RPG session/campaign, I might decide I have to .... and of course no offense, I recognize this as a bit of a non-core, personal knee-jerk regarding GNS, but thinking about the paradoxical trinity parallels just drew me in.

And whatever Clausewitz may have meant, it is appealing to think that inserting a "CA" could yield a, um, "better least-bad" approach to war than ugly, naked politics-by-other-means, justified "total war", or the other (maybe-unavoidable) monstrosities sometimes associated with his theories.

-Gordon

[RangerEd]

Gordon,

One more post and then I'll let it go, but I want to offer a counter to the misrepresentation of Clausewitz that pervades many internet sources. On War was a deeply personal project to understand what in the hell Carl witnessed in his lifetime in the Napoleonic era. He never intended to publish. His wife did so after his death.

Furthermore, it was popular in his day to establish boundaries of a logical and careful argument by presenting the unrealistic extremes of a thing, then discussing where in the middle the thing might actually reside as a concept. When people read him for bumper-sticker phrases, they find the quote they want, usually in one of the unrealistic extremes, and stop reading his discussion. The monstrosities associated with his theories are often made by people that have not carefully considered the logic and intent of his writing.

Clausewitz discussed total war to prove it never actually exists. There are always limits to war and warfare. The limits beget an examination of what limits it. The logical analysis Clausewitz undertook led to the paradoxical trinity as the limit. The people have to be angry enough to go to war (enmity), power relationships have to support that anger (politik), and the army must exist to execute the policy of war demanded by the people (probability and chance). These are interdependent variables locked together by a system. By that model, there is no independent-dependent political science analysis, and therefore no entry point into the trinity.

Politics by other means is actually an expression of people (or Westphalian states) relating to one another through violence when all other options fail. Unfortunately, violence is a natural part of the human condition. As a thought experiment, should a husband stop at simply pleading with another man raping his wife, or is violence justified? Exhange husband and wife for states in conflict and ask again. Clausewitz treats war as a given human condition and does not present a theory that handles jus ad bellum (justice of war). That is a more difficult and tricky discussion.

You are probably pretty sick of this discussion, but I took the time to present these ideas so you wouldn't let half-baked catch phrases and people who don't understand his dialectic reasoning make you think Dead Carl was a warmonger. He was trying to understand the ugly thing, not advocate for it.

Thanks for the talk. I enjoy bouncing ideas around.

Belaboring your interest,
Ed

[Eero Tuovinen]

This Clausewitz stuff is pretty interesting, Ed. You should, like, write a game about it or something :D

[glandis]

Ed,

You very thoroughly detail what I expected/non-rigorously concluded to be the case. My "sometimes associated with his theories" was meant to imply both "I suspect it's not what he really meant/people have abused his words" and "I'm not an authority," but I do appreciate the detailed info.

Heh - looks like you've got a "Dead Carl wasn't a warmonger" trigger like I've got a "there's a sense in which G, N and S aren't *just* CA's" trigger! And Eero's right - of course this stuff should show up in a game. The question is, precisely how ...

-Gordon

[Ron Edwards]

Oh Gordon, of all people. Closed now!