The Primacy of Politics in War

Abstract

The main purpose of this paper is to make a reflection on the war from the work both by Karl von Clausewitz and Raymond Aron. The hypothesis proposed herein is that a misunderstanding of the theories proposed by the Prussian General may have led to an erroneous recognition about him as father of some tactics employed by some totalitarian regimes of the 20th Century in order to crush their opponents. In an effort to corroborate this idea, the analysis will be based on two seminal sources, the Vom Kriege and Thinking about the war, Clausewitz, which will be supplemented by secondary literature comprising books and articles. It is worthy to remark that according to the definition given by Clausewitz on war, two conclusions are given: a) the consolidation of certain ideologies (such as Nazism, Fascism, and Socialism) or some other military attack ways (as nuclear weapons, in particular) during the first half of that century cannot be explained in the light of Clausewitzian theory; on the contrary, they respond to extremes he condemned by himself; and b) in the future, the only way to avoid that local and international conflicts that are unleashed on the world stage be approaching the limits of absolute war is to practice moderation (an essential political understanding) when making decisions related to the military leadership of the confrontation.