Ken
AUGUST 11, 1938
Question: What is War?
Answer: War is an act of violence intended to compel our opponent to fulfill our will.
Question: What is the primary aim of war?
Answer: The primary aim of war is to disarm the enemy.
Question: What are the necessary steps to achieve this?
Answer: First; the military power must be destroyed, that is, reduced to such a state that it will not be able to carry on the war. Second; the country must be conquered. For out of the country a new military force may be formed. Third; the will of the enemy must be subdued.
Question: Are there any ways of imposing our will on the enemy without fulfilling these three conditions?
Answer: Yes. There is invasion, that is the occupation of the enemy’s territory, not with a view to keeping it, but in order to levy contributions on it, or to devastate it.
Question: Can a country which remains on the defensive hope to win a war?
Answer: Yes. This negative intention, which constitutes the principle of the pure defensive, is also the natural means of overcoming the enemy by the duration of the combat, that is of wearing him out. If then, the negative purpose, that is the concentration of all the means into a state of pure resistance, affords a superiority in the contest, and if this advantage is sufficient to balance whatever superiority in numbers the adversary may have, then the mere duration of the contest will suffice gradually to bring the loss of force on the part of the adversary to a point at which the political object can no longer be an equivalent, a point at which, therefore, he must give up the contest. We see then that this class of means, the wearing out of the enemy, includes the great number of cases in which the weaker resists the stronger.
Frederick the Great, during the Seven Years’ War, was never strong enough to overthrow the Austrian monarchy. If he had tried to do so after the fashion of Charles the 12th, he would inevitably have had to succumb himself. But after his skillful application of the system of husbanding his resources had shown the powers allied against him, through a seven years’ struggle, that the actual expenditure of strength far exceeded what they had at first anticipated, they made peace.
The answers are all by Clausewitz, who knew the answers very well. They make dry, hard reading, but there is so much nonsense written, thought and spoken about war that it is necessary to go back to the old Einstein of battles to see the military precedent by which the Spanish Republic continues to fight. If you study those two paragraphs by Clausewitz on the power of the defensive, you will see why there will be war in Spain for a long time.
There has been war in Spain, now, for two years. There has been war in China for a year. War is due in Europe by next summer at the latest.
It nearly came on May 21. It is possible that it will come now, in August. Or it may be delayed until next summer. But it is coming.
Now what is war again? We say war is murder, that it is inexcusable, that it is indefensible, that no objective can justify an offensive war. But what does Clausewitz say? He calls war “a continuation of state policy by other means.”
Just when will this new war come? You may be sure that every detail of the starting of it is planned now. But just when is it coming?
“If two parties have armed themselves for strife, then a feeling of animosity must have moved them to it. As long now as they continue armed, that is, do not come to terms of peace, this feeling must exist. And it can only be brought to a standstill by either side by one single motive alone, which is, that he waits for a more favorable moment for action.
That is Clausewitz again.
“The Statesman, who, knowing his instrument to be ready, and seeing war inevitable, hesitates to strike first, is guilty of a crime against his country.”
That is by Von Der Goltz. And that is something to read over.
There is a great demand now by Mr. Neville Chamberlain and the mouthpieces of his policy in our state department, that we should be realists.
Why not be realists? Not Chamberlain realists, who are merely the exponents of a stop-gap British policy which will be scrapped as soon as the British are armed, but American realists.
There is going to be war in Europe. What are we going to do about it as realists?
First, we want to stay out of it. We have nothing to gain in a European war except the temporary prosperity it will bring.
One way to stay out is to have nothing to do with it, not sell war materials to either side. And if you do that the British and the pro-British state department boys will be pulling you into it just the same; only it will not be for sordid ends, it will be on the highest and noblest humanitarian grounds. The other side will be working on us too; but the British are the most skillful and the most plausible.
The Germans have a genius for irritating people, for offending nations and for supplying pretexts. The Hohenzollerns were bad enough, but the Nazis will be worse, and where there was one Lusitania the last time you can figure on half a dozen this time. You can’t expect the savages that bombed Guernica and the civilian population of Barcelona to resist a crack at the Normandie and the Queen Mary. So when war comes Americans will have to try American ships for a change. Or else make up their minds to fight for the French Line and for Cunard.
No. If you are going to be a realist you have to make up your mind beforehand whether you are going to go to war or not. There will be plenty of pretexts to get us in. And there is going to be a war.
So let us make up our minds to stay out. But why stay out and go broke? If we are realists why not sell to both sides, anything they want, anything we can manufacture? But sell it all for cash. Nothing should be sold for credit, so that we will be dragged in to help one side win so they can pay us what they owe us, and then go through the whole farce of war debts again.
There is going to be a war in Europe. Why not make something out of it if we are realists? But all sales should be for cash and the cash should be gold.
Then, to ensure our not being dragged in, nothing should be shipped to any belligerent country in American ships. Nor should any American ships carry war materials. Let the belligerent countries who can buy, send their own ships, pay cash for what they buy, and then, if their ships are sunk, it is their lookout. The more that are sunk the better.
At that point we sell them ships, also for cash; good, fast-built, cheap bottoms such as we turned out during the last war. All these we sell and build for cash. Cash down with the order; the ship the property of the country that buys it from the minute that the keels are laid.
Then when the Gestapo lads sabotage and burn ship-yards we do not go to war about that either. We are insured, see. The more sabotage the better. And if their liners are sunk too, we will build them some others too; for cash.
Let the gentlemen of Europe fight and, if they pay cash, see how long it will last. Why not be realists, Mr. Chamberlain? Why not be realists? Or don’t you want to play?