In 1947, the victors of World War II, formally abolished the state of Prussia—that gave rise to a unified Germany in the 1870s—but before it was relegated to the dustbin of history for good, one of its erstwhile Generals left an indelible intellectual stature when he elucidated the logic of war and generations of military men and women remained true disciples as his military doctrine is still relevant as it was three centuries ago. Carl von Clausewitz.
Consider this: Suppose two men each armed with swords fight in a vacuum where there is no friction at all, say it is a sealed off arena. They would fight till one of them is dead. Clausewitz calls this kind of conflict an “Ideal War.” Not so much a philosophical take as in the Platonic “Form” but war with no constraints what so ever. In “Real War”, however, war can never reach its full potential [as in the intrinsic objective of war is to defeat and annihilate the enemy] because, as he put it, friction is imposed or included where it impedes the maximum objective of war. Here, one would be curious enough to suspect that, Clausewitz might have borrowed the idea of friction from Newtonian mechanics where the “Law of Inertia” comes to mind. To be sure, friction in war setting—such as rain, muddy terrains and other hostile environmental factors, for instance. In Clausewitz’s time, horses were used for mobility in battles not of course armored vehicles.
The ultimate impediment or friction to war that would stop it from becoming an ideal war is politics and that is the single important Clausewitz’s contribution to the logic of war. In fact, he asserted that politics starts and ends war and hence his famous dictum, “War is the continuation of politics by other means.” War without the constraints of politics turns into a total war as it was the case in the two World Wars which costed over seventy million lives combined. When politics guides war, however, it becomes not only limited but logical and rational as well.
Generals Taddesse Werede and Tsadkan Gebretinsae have invariably clarified the notion that, any major offensive against the Ethiopian army [ወፍሪ ኣሉላ ኣባ ነጋ, for instance] was decided by the highest political body in Tigray [GoT] and political as well as diplomatic considerations were thought out before the decision was made to pull back from Debrebirhan to Mekele as well. This is a classic Clausewitzian as it gets and that was precisely the reason it was the right decision including in hindsight given the kind of tense situation hovering over the capital Addis Abeba.
Of late, there has been a concerted campaign including by Tigray opposition parties either out of naïveté or malicious intent to put a blame on GoT for an imagined political failure [I personally don’t see a real one] when they overlook the extraordinary meager resources GoT is working with including when it is practically cut off from the rest of the world. Moreover, rattled impatience is looming particularly over Tigrean diaspora when they want to see TDF marching towards Western Tigray in a heartbeat so to speak. But again, when TDF is actually ready to bring back what legally belongs to Tigray—Western Tigray—in the end, regional political realities including diplomatic necessities dictate when to break the siege including Western Tigray. Patience and timing play critical roles in weighing in political considerations and that is never lost in our otherwise competent military and political leaders. Again, as they say, patience is a virtue.
[…] Source: AigaNews […]