A falácia dos Ministérios

Do livro “Da Guerra”
  15. The concept of an operational or strategic “center of gravity” is in essence a probabilistic tool to reduce the inevitable complexities and swirling uncertainties of war to a manageable level. Maintaining our focus on a small number of key factors (preferably just one) does not reduce the “fog of war,” it simply makes it less distracting. Identifying those factors, as anyone who has tried it soon learns, is a creative rather than a purely rational process.  

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CONCLUSIONS Many readers find Clausewitzian theory to be frustratingly complex. The standard which Clausewitz set for satisfactory theory is, however, difficult to argue with: that it not conflict with reality. A theory that accurately depicts the complexities of war is thus necessarily complex (which is not to say that every complex theory is necessarily correct). It is also important to note that Clausewitz saw his theory as a basis for study, not as doctrine.Despite the oft-noted fact that On War is an unfinished work, the ideas Clausewitz expressed in it are remarkably well integrated. If we pick up and follow any one major thread of his argument, we will eventually find it firmly connected to each of the other key ideas. It would be a mistake, therefore, to approach the trinity concept as a discrete, bite-sized nugget of wisdom that can somehow be extracted from the larger work. The trinity establishes a dialectical relationship between the dominant tendencies of war that are revealed by analysis in the rest of the book; it combines the elements that make war such a complex phenomenon. One can identify all of Clausewitz’s most profound insights with one or another element of the trinity. The component dealing with violence and emotion (irrational forces) relates directly to his discussion of moral forces in war and the proposition that war is distinguished from other forms of human interaction by its resort to organized violence. The component dealing with chance and probability (non­rational forces) reflects his ideas about the role of military genius and the creative spirit in dealing with the fog and friction of war; operational ideas like the “center of gravity”*15 also relate to this aspect of the trinity. The component dealing with war’s subordination to policy (rational forces) relates to his ideas about the relationship between ends and means, war as the continuation of policy, and the dichotomy between “real war” (whether limited or unlimited) and “absolute war.” Thus we can see that, in this one, briefly described concept, Clausewitz unified many of the ideas he developed over thirty-plus years of studying the nature of war: It represents his thinking at its most mature and sophisticated level. Clausewitz subtitled the section where he introduces the concept as “The Consequences for Theory,” and it is the last section of Chapter One, Book One, the only part of the book Clausewitz considered finished (and probably the last part he wrote before he died). The trinity is therefore best understood as the theoretical capstone of Clausewitz’s entire work. A thoughtful reading of the relevant passage in On War, combined with a willingness to integrate the points made there with the rest of the philosopher’s argument, will make this clear. It is the trinity’s capacity to encompass so much of the nature of war, and so much of Clausewitzian theory, that makes it such a valuable, if complex, analytical tool.To reduce the original trinitarian concept to an allegedly obsolete social paradigm of “people, army, and government,” as Clausewitz’s recent critics have done, is not merely an oversimplification and a distortion of its meaning: It is fundamentally missing the point of this great body of military theory. It would be a tragic mistake to accept the consequences of that error. Our military educators’ often annoying fixation on Clausewitz’s work has brought a much-needed professional sophistication to the thinking of America’s military institutions in the generation since Vietnam, and there is nothing better on the horizon.*16      

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The alternative way to define the composition of this “remarkable trinity” is to use the relevant passage in On War itself: 28. The Consequences for Theory War is more than a true chameleon that slightly adapts its characteristics to the given case. As a total phenomenon its dominant tendencies always make war a remarkable trinity–composed of primordial violence, hatred, and enmity, which are to be regarded as a blind natural force; of the play of chance and probability within which the creative spirit is free to roam; and of its element of subordination, as an instrument of policy, which makes it subject to reason alone.The first of these three aspects mainly concerns the people; the second the commander and his army; the third the government. The passions that are to be kindled in war must already be inherent in the people; the scope which the play of courage and talent will enjoy in the realm of probability and chance depends on the particular character of the commander and the army; but the political aims are the business of government alone.These three tendencies are like three different codes of law, deep-rooted in their subject and yet variable in their relationship to one another. A theory that ignores any one of them or seeks to fix an arbitrary relationship between them would conflict with reality to such an extent that for this reason alone it would be totally useless.Our task therefore is to develop a theory that maintains a balance between these three tendencies, like an object suspended between three magnets.*8 **********************************************

3. The government is paired mainly with the rational force of calculation–policy is, ideally, driven by reason. This corresponds to the famous argument that “war is an instrument of policy.” Clausewitz knew perfectly well, however, that this ideal of rational policy is not always met: “That [policy] can err, subserve the ambitions, private interests, and vanity of those in power, is neither here nor there…. here we can only treat policy as representative of all interests of the community.”*10We stress the word “mainly”*11 because it is clear that each of the three categories that constitute the actual trinity affects all of these human actors to some quite variable extent. The army’s officers and men and the political leaders are also, to varying degrees in different societies, members of “the people.” In democratic societies, at least, the people are expected to play a role in rational decision making, whereas political leaders are as often driven by personal needs as by rational calculation of their societies’ practical requirements. Events on the army’s battlefields have a tremendous influence both on the people and on the political leadership, while popular and political factors, in turn, affect the army’s performance.Thus, when Clausewitz speaks of war as a “total phenomenon,” he is not talking about war in the abstract (“absolute war”), nor about war “in theory.” He is talking about real war, war as we actually experience it, and he is describing just why it is that war is so dynamic, so unpredictable, so kaleidoscopic in its appearance. The concluding simile in our excerpt from On War is a nearly exact analogy: Clausewitz is saying that theory must be, as war is, “like an object suspended among three magnets.” He is referring to the observed scientific fact that such a pendulum, once set swinging among three centers of attraction, behaves in a nonlinear manner–it never establishes a repeating pattern. As it enters a phase of its arc in which it is more strongly affected by one force than the others, it gains a momentum which carries it on into zones where the other forces can begin to exert their powers more strongly. The actual path of the suspended object is never determined by one force alone but by the interaction between them, which is forever and unavoidably shifting.The trinity also provides us with clues as to what Clausewitz meant by his famous phrase, “war is a continuation [fortsetzung] of politics by other means.” This oft-quoted sentence contains two very different messages because of the dual meaning of the German word he used: Politik. That one word encompasses the two quite different English words “policy” and “politics.” The policy aspects he discusses are those connected with the trinity’s element of rational calculation. Politics, on the other hand, encompasses the whole trinity: Politics is a struggle for power between opposing forces–political events and outcomes are rarely if ever the product of any single actor’s conscious intentions. Politics, as any intelligent watcher of the evening news soon realizes, is a chaotic process involving competing personalities (whose individual actions may indeed have a rational basis), chance and friction, and popular emotion. (Is the candidate’s most brilliant speech blown off the airwaves by a natural disaster in the countryside? Will his embarrassing slip of the tongue get picked up by the evening news? Can a widespread “throw-the-bums out” mentality engulf even the most responsible politician?) The “remarkable trinity” is, in fact, Clausewitz’s description of the psychological environment of politics, of which “war is a continuation.” The only element of this political trinity that makes it unique to war is that the emotions discussed are those that might incline people to violence, whereas politics in general will involve the full range of human feelings. Thus Clausewitz tells us that the conscious conduct of war (strategy, etc.) should be a continuation of rational calculation and policy, but also that war inevitably originates and exists within the chaotic, unpredictable realm of politics.The trinity metaphor, as given here, therefore serves to sum up much of Clausewitz’s approach to war. In itself, however, Clausewitz’s description of the interaction between the elements of the trinity leaves out the fact, strongly emphasized elsewhere in On War, that war is always an interaction between opposing groups. That is, this trinity exists on all sides of any conflict, thus further complicating the picture.An approach to theory which denies or minimizes the role of any of these forces or the interaction between them is, therefore, by definition wrong. The soldier who expects the events of war to unfold in any other way–particularly in a rational, orderly way–is doomed to be surprised, disappointed, and frustrated as events keep forever spinning off on unpredictable trajectories.

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