On War by Clausewitz Carl von & Michael Eliot Howard & Peter Paret

Author:Clausewitz, Carl von & Michael Eliot Howard & Peter Paret [Clausewitz, Carl von]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: 1989-05-31T22:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHT

Types of Resistance

The essence of defense lies in parrying the attack. This in turn implies waiting, which for us is the main feature of defense and also its chief advantage.

Since defense in war cannot simply consist of passive endurance, waiting will not be absolute either, but only relative. In terms of space, it relates to the country, the theater of operations, or the position; in terms of time, to the war, the campaign, or the battle. True these are not unalterable units, but the central points of certain areas that overlap and merge with one another. In practice, however, one must often be satisfied with merely arranging things into categories rather than strictly separating them; and those terms, in general usage, have become clearly enough defined to serve as nuclei around which other ideas may conveniently be gathered.

The defender of a country, therefore, merely awaits the attack on his country, the defender of a theater of war awaits the attack on that theater, and the defender of a position awaits the attack on that position. Once the enemy has attacked, any active and therefore more or less offensive move made by the defender does not invalidate the concept of defense, for its salient feature and chief advantage, waiting, has been established.

The concepts characteristic of time-war, campaign and battle—are parallel to those of space-country, theater of operations and position—and so bear the same relation to our subject.

Defense is thus composed of two distinct parts, waiting and acting. By linking the former to a definite object that precedes action, we have been able to merge the two into one whole. But a defensive action—especially a large-scale one such as a campaign or a war—will not, in terms of time, consist of two great phases, the first of which is pure waiting and the second pure action; it will alternate between these two conditions, so that waiting may run like a continuous thread through the whole period of defense.

The nature of the matter demands that so much importance should be attached to waiting. To be sure, earlier theorists never gave it the status of an independent concept, but in practice it has continuously served as a guideline, though for the most part men were not consciously aware of it. Waiting is such a fundamental feature of all warfare that war is hardly conceivable without it, and hence we shall often have occasion to revert to it by pointing out its effect in the dynamic play of forces.

We should now like to elucidate how the principle of waiting runs through the entire period of defense, and how the successive stages of defense originate in it.

In order to establish our ideas by means of a simpler example, we shall defer (till we reach the book on war plans) the defense of a country, a more diversified subject, and one that is more strongly influenced by political circumstances. On the other hand, defense in a position or in a battle is a tactical matter; only when it is completed can it serve as the starting point of strategic activity.

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