(Military Times) Op-Ed: Van Creveld Writes Another Big Book

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Van Creveld Writes Another Big Book
William Lind | September 25, 2008

All of Martin van Creveld's books are worth reading, but a few are "big books,” books so important that anyone interested in war must read them. To date, his big books include The Transformation of War, The Rise and Decline of the State and Fighting Power. Van Creveld's latest book has just come out, and it is a very big book indeed. Titled The Culture of War, it targets, hits and obliterates Clausewitz's assertion that war is merely the continuation of politics by other means.

Like John Boyd, van Creveld has engaged in a running feud with Clausewitz. I happen to think Clausewitz still offers much of value, as do many things Prussian. But as Boyd often said, we have learned a few things since Clausewitz's day.

The Culture of War offers one of the most important lessons. War exists not to serve the interests of states, it argues, or anything else. Rather, it is a fundamental part of human nature and culture. No human culture is imaginable that excludes war. At the same time, war and those who fight it develop their own cultures, cultures which shape how war is carried on far more powerfully than do rational calculations of military effectiveness.

~snip~

Both of these extremes hold lessons for today's U.S. military. The inward-focused culture of the Second Generation that dominates the American armed forces has generated an ever-widening disconnect with the nature of the modern battlefield. That contradiction lies at the heart of the American failures in Iraq and Afghanistan. At the same time, like the Bundeswehr, the U.S. armed forces are under political assault by forces that care nothing for preserving the necessary culture of war. The forced insertion of large numbers of women into the American military is one example. If the next administration opens the combat arms to women and also demands the recruitment of homosexuals, the damage to the culture of war may be vast. The kind of men who fight often join the military to validate their manhood. They cannot do that in armed services heavily peopled with women and homosexuals.

Just as van Creveld's book The Transformation of War warns that war is changing, The Culture of War cautions that some things do not change. The culture of war must contain certain elements, elements common to successful militaries throughout history. If ideologies or other political or social forces outlaw some of those elements, the consequence will not be the end of war. War will be carried on by other means, by gangs, militias, tribes and terrorists who are not subject to political correctness and can embody in full the culture of war. From that perspective, Creveld's The Transformation of War and The Culture of War are two volumes of the same work.


Rest of article at: http://www.military.com/opinion/0,15202,176082,00.html?wh=news