Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Introduction
- 1 History and the Future
- 2 Thucydides and Clausewitz
- 3 Clausewitz out, Computers in: Military Culture and Technological Hubris
- 4 Changing the Principles of War?
- 5 Military Culture Does Matter
- 6 History and Strategic Planning
- 7 Thoughts on Red Teaming
- 8 The Distant Framework of War
- 9 The Problem of German Military Effectiveness, 1900–1945
- 10 Reflections on the Combined Bomber Offensive
- 11 The Air War in the Gulf
- 12 Thoughts on British Intelligence in World War II and the Implications for Intelligence in the Twenty-First Century
- 13 The Meaning of World War II
- Index
- References
2 - Thucydides and Clausewitz
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 October 2011
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Introduction
- 1 History and the Future
- 2 Thucydides and Clausewitz
- 3 Clausewitz out, Computers in: Military Culture and Technological Hubris
- 4 Changing the Principles of War?
- 5 Military Culture Does Matter
- 6 History and Strategic Planning
- 7 Thoughts on Red Teaming
- 8 The Distant Framework of War
- 9 The Problem of German Military Effectiveness, 1900–1945
- 10 Reflections on the Combined Bomber Offensive
- 11 The Air War in the Gulf
- 12 Thoughts on British Intelligence in World War II and the Implications for Intelligence in the Twenty-First Century
- 13 The Meaning of World War II
- Index
- References
Summary
We stand at the dawn of a new era in world history. The truisms and certainties of the past 60 years have disappeared in the crumbling of the Berlin Wall and collapse of the Soviet Union. How to think about the world in the new century is a crying need in a time of uncertainty, ambiguity, and flux. We can hold on to the theories and assumptions about the world, national security, and war, which have marked the efforts of those involved in political science and international relations over past decades. But such theoretical approaches have had their difficulties – not the least being that not a single one predicted even two years before it happened an event as monumental as the collapse of the Soviet Union.
But to reject such theories requires that one have something to put in their place, and, here, historians have abdicated even the debate. The result has been to turn the study of current and future problems over to those who, if they do not reject history outright, are happy to rampage through the past with scant attention to its context or complexity. And in their search for absolutes and answers, they have only served to muddy the water for those who wish to gain some feel for war, power, and international relations in the coming century.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- War, Strategy, and Military Effectiveness , pp. 45 - 60Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2011