Clearly, war could embrace combatants other than uniformed regulars. And he was very familiar with the war in Spain where Napoleon’s army had struggled against a combination of partisans, irregular troops and the armies of England, Portugal and Spain itself. He knew more of the Vendée uprising in which lightly-armed peasants fought against France’s revolutionary regime from 1793-96. He knew of the American War of Independence when irregular forces played a significant role in defeating the British (though he does not mention the conflict in On War). Most of the references to fighting in On War are to clashes between national armies under the command of a state.īut Clausewitz recognised that war could be more complex. Combat, Clausewitz says, ‘is not a contest between individuals’ but between soldiers who are ‘recruited, clothed, armed and trained’ to be able to ‘fight at the right place and the right time’. Second, ‘serious means’ refers to fighting by soldiers as part of a state’s military organisation. Individuals and groups other than states do not normally wage war. There are two requirements.įirst, war entails ‘a clash between major interests.’ For Clausewitz it is the interests of states that constitute the ‘serious end’. War, Clausewitz insists, must be ‘a serious means to a serious end’. Human beings fight and kill one another in many ways and for many reasons without this necessarily constituting ‘war’. Nor does he include murders, gang-fights, riots, massacres and the like in his definition. Wrestling may be ‘fighting of a kind’ but it is not war. Obviously, Clausewitz does not equate all fighting with war. No armchair theorist, Clausewitz was actively engaged in combat on at least 20 occasions between 17, and received a bayonet wound to the head in May 1813. On War has over 600 references to battle ( Schlacht – which also means slaughter in German). It is the spilling of blood that makes war ‘a special activity, different and separate from any other pursued by man’. ‘There is only one means in war: combat’ ( das Gefecht). ‘War is nothing but a duel on a larger scale’ – a physical contest between people, each using force ‘to compel our enemy to do our will’. One is bottom-up, focusing on the very practical business of war, namely fighting and killing the other is top-down and begins by imagining war in its most abstract form.Ĭlausewitz goes ‘straight to the heart of the matter’. In Book I of On War Clausewitz tackles the problem of definition in two distinct ways. So how does Clausewitz define war? What are the boundaries of that definition? What are its limitations, if any, in the contemporary world? Send us feedback about these examples.Any book on the nature of war needs to identify its subject. These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'resistible.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. 2018 The mini-banshees, which sell for $50, were resistible to Jeff Lange, who visited during a Pandora preview for annual passholders. Jeff McDonald, San Antonio Express-News, 22 Jan. 2019 In that, Tuesday’s game sets up to be a classic collision between a moveable object and a resistible force. 2020 Offense was a resistible force defense was a movable object. 2021 This is a case of very resistible force meets immovable object. Branagh, understandably enchanted, dotes on him in close-ups that are a bit too close and a bit too long. 2022 He’s played by Jude Hill, an endearing young actor with outsize ardor who’s resistible only during two or three moments when Mr. 2023 Yet the resistible force is about to meet the movable object given Cincinnati has surrendered 127.3 yards per game and 5.9 per carry in the playoffs. Recent Examples on the Web Probably because, for many voters, The Whale was all too resistible.
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