Clausewitzian Friction and Future WarSince the end of the U.S.-Soviet Cold War, there has been growing discussion of the possibility that technological advances in the means of combat would produce ftmdamental changes in how future wars will be fought. A number of observers have suggested that the nature of war itself would be transformed. Some proponents of this view have gone so far as to predict that these changes would include great reductions in, if not the outright elimination of, the various impediments to timely and effective action in war for which the Prussian theorist and soldier Carl von Clausewitz (1780-1831) introduced the term "friction." Friction in war, of course, has a long historical lineage. It predates Clausewitz by centuries and has remained a stubbornly recurring factor in combat outcomes right down to the 1991 Gulf War. In looking to the future, a seminal question is whether Clausewitzian friction would succumb to the changes in leading-edge warfare that may lie ahead, or whether such impediments reflect more enduring aspects of war that technology can but marginally affect. It is this question that the present essay will examine. |
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ACEVAL AIMVAL air combat Air Power Survey air-to-air combat aircraft AMRAAM OUE behavior Blind Watchmaker bombing campaign Carl von Clausewitz chance chaos chaotic chapter Clausewitzian friction Coalition air Coalition's combat processes commanders conflict Darwin Dawkins decision-cycle Defense Desert Storm dispersed eliminate engagement outcomes essay evidence evolution evolutionary biology fighter French frictional imbalance frictional impediments future German Gulf War Air human ibid initial intelligence interaction Iraq's Iraqi Israeli JTIDS Keaney Kriege Laplace logistic mapping Lorentz magnitude Marie von Brühl mathematical Michael Howard military missile National nonlinear dynamics nuclear October operations option sets Osirak Peter Paret physical pilots Poincaré possibility space predictable Princeton University Press problem Republican Guard Richard Dawkins Scharnhorst sets in possibility side situation awareness slide sources strategic surprise surprise attack tacit knowledge tactical targets technological advances theory U.S. Air Force U.S. Army U.S. Government Printing uncertainties unified concept unpredictability War's warfare Washington weapons World York
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Page 111 - Given for one instant an intelligence which could comprehend all the forces by which nature is animated and the respective situation of the beings who compose it — an intelligence sufficiently vast to submit these data to analysis — it would embrace in the same formula the movements of the greatest bodies of the universe and those of the lightest atom ; for it, nothing would be uncertain and the future, as the past, would be present to its eyes.
Page 48 - Your primary object will be the progressive destruction and dislocation of the German military, industrial, and economic system, and the undermining of the morale of the German people to a point •where their capacity for armed resistance is fatally weakened.
Page 83 - IF IT could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down.
Page 114 - A very slight cause, which escapes us, determines a considerable effect which we can not help seeing, and then we say this effect is due to chance. If we could know exactly the laws of nature and the situation of the universe at the initial instant, we should be able to predict exactly the situation of this same universe at a subsequent instant. But even when the natural laws should have no further secret for us, we could know the initial situation only approximately. If that permits us to foresee...
Page 19 - The people became a participant in war; instead of governments and armies as heretofore, the full weight of the nation was thrown into the balance.
Page 24 - Kind-hearted people might of course think there was some ingenious way to disarm or defeat an enemy without too much bloodshed, and might imagine this is the true goal of the art of war. Pleasant as it sounds, it is a fallacy that must be exposed: war is such a dangerous business that mistakes which come from kindness are the very worst
Page 114 - ... laws. But it is not always so; it may happen that small differences in the initial conditions produce very great ones in the final phenomena. A small error in the former will produce an enormous error in the latter. Prediction becomes impossible, and we have the fortuitous phenomenon.
Page 81 - I have now recapitulated the facts and considerations which have thoroughly convinced me that species have been modified, during a long course of descent. This has been effected chiefly through the natural selection of numerous successive, slight, favourable variations; aided in an important manner by the inherited effects of the use and disuse of parts; and in an unimportant manner, that is in relation to adaptive structures, whether past or present, by the direct action of external conditions,...
Page 81 - This has been effected chiefly through the natural selection of numerous successive, slight, favorable variations ; aided in an important manner by the inherited effects of the use and disuse of parts ; and in an unimportant manner, *''ri: is, in relation to adaptive structures, whether past or present, by the direct action of external conditions, and by variations which seem to us in our ignorance to arise spontaneously.
Page 13 - In short, absolute, so-called mathematical, factors never find a firm basis in military calculations. From the very start there is an interplay of possibilities, probabilities, good luck and bad that weaves its way throughout the length and breadth of the tapestry. In the whole range of human activities, war most closely resembles a game of cards.