What Is War?

War precipitates as the single most documented series of events in human history. War's pattern has bred civilizations and destroyed them. The greatest leaders and most successful tacticians and generals were immortalized, being carved into stone and documented with the written word. Their triumphs and the demise of their enemies have been passed down through generations in this medium; thus, the overall concept of war held by great warriors and their historians reveals the importance of the relationship between the people, the government and its leaders, and the generals in combat.

Of all the writings, Clausewitz's formula for war fits this thesis the best. Clausewitz defines war as, "...an act of violence to compel our opponent to fulfill our will," and to fulfill the state's will, in Clausewitz opinion, the state must have the full cooperation of the people, government, and the military. He states that if any break amongst the three exists, the war campaign will fail and the state will be destroyed by the more unified enemy. Sun Tzu's Art of War reiterates this idea by stressing that the government, acting in the best interest of the people, must be able to communicate well with its military in order to prevent the military in losing faith in the campaign, that war decisions must be made by competent generals and not by those in political authority in the government. The full cooperation between the people, government, and military results in the three entities acting as one. Thucydides in his account of Pericles' Funeral Speech suggests the Athenians achieved their greatness by working as one. Athens existed as a "free state," an "assembly of citizens," a "democracy" where the Athenian citizens made up the population, the citizens made up the government, and the citizens filled the ranks of the military. Accordingly, when a foreigner attacked Athens, or when a city rebelled from the empire, Athens as one entity would respond. On how a state should respond, Clausewitz exclaims, "...that he who uses force unsparingly," will obtain superiority over his opponent; however, Clausewitz adds that nations who do not slaughter prisoners and the enemy's civilians have a greater intellectual understanding of carrying out war. Likewise, Clausewitz would support Diodotus in The Mytilenean Debate. Diodotus relents Cleon's emotionally charged proposition to slay the Mytilenean men and prisoners, taking their women and children as slaves. Instead Diodotus postulates that the most fulfilling way to force their will onto their opponent would be to accept them into their empire and use them and their land for Athens' benefit. Athens' unified people, through the government and military, best support Clausewitz formula for war and prove his definition for war through the military acting on the will of the government and people.

Alex Roland's approach

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