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Remember the second half of On War when Clausewitz just starts getting really nerdy about old Napoleonic tactics involving skirmishers and such? The Idealism philosophical book isn't useful for the tactical and operational scale. And the tactics he spends the second half on are hilariously out of date.
So I'm less passionate about the idea of the average military personnel pouring over the book than I am about the very idea of establishing On War's prestige in the eyes of the laymen. Sun Tzu has some name recognition and some people have even pretended to read his book. But Clausewitz is pretty much forgotten by the non-engaged public unless you are some kinda warnerd.
But the next time some genuinely asks me "I don't get it. why didn't we just nuke Afghanistan?" I wish I could use an argument from authority using quotes from Clausewitz. Since people think with crude heuristics and assumed knowledge (no condescension. we are all condemned to this) I wish his very basics could be expressed and then get a sage nod of 'well if Clausewitz said so then I guess so" simply because they recognize the name drop. I have managed to actually get normal people to take seriously that war has economic costs by pointing out Sun Tzu.
There's also an effort post somewhere about how obsessions' with winning in the operational sense undermines grasp of the strategic/political reality. You'd think the Nazi's won the war for all the gushing people still have over Rommel and the first year of Barbarossa.
Now that I think about it, this was probably the real reason for including Clausewitz in the Naval Academy curriculum. I definitely saw random O6+s namedropping Clausewitz to get us junior officers on board with their harebrained schemes.
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A fun fact about "Art of War" is that it's just one of many ancient Chinese military strategy books. Possibly the first, but far from the best or the most famous inside China. See for example: https://www.amazon.com/Seven-Military-Classics-Ancient-China/dp/1784289116 with stuff written by generals who were much more advanced and more successful. "Art of War" seems to have mostly become famous as part of the general burst of Orientalism along with Kung Fu and California Buddhism. It's sort of like if the only martial art that most people knew was "Billy Blank's Tai Bo workout."
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