Carl Von Clausewitz's Analysis Of The Nature Of War

The nature of war from olden times till now has never changed. But the character of war is ever evolving as the means and methods used are constantly changing. Hybrid warfare was never new as in practice; any threat can be hybrid as long as it is not limited to a single form and dimension of warfare.

Carl von Clausewitz describes the nature of war in its unchanging essence: that is, those things that differentiate war (as a type of phenomenon) from other things. War’s nature is violent, interactive, and fundamentally political. Absent any of these elements, what you’re talking about is not war but something else.1 He further defines war as an “act of force to compel our enemy to do our will,” the object of which is the disarmament or, if …show more content…
As war is a political act that takes place in and among societies, its specific character will be shaped by those politics and those societies—by what Clausewitz called the “spirit of the age.”4Clausewitz framed his analysis of the war on the paradoxical trinity of people (representing primordial violence, passion, hate, and enmity); the military (representing the realm of probability and chance, courage and talent); and the government (representing the rational calculus, nexus between ends and means). Victory is only possible when the trinities of these factors are in equilibrium.5It is this reason why the character of war is ever-changing as both sides must adapt to the other’s strategies, actions, and the resulting consequences, in a process which ends only when the war does. Strategists on opposing sides, therefore, exercise power over the character of the war. Whoever takes the initiative and gains control has the greater ability to influence the character of the war to his advantage. The character of the war is never static because the strategies of the opposing belligerents are never inert. The character of any war may thus be as unpredictable as the strategy