Military leaders role - Essay Example

Critical Review In this essay I have discussed and compared the ideas and arguments of the various in relation to the military leader's role in defining national interests and military objectives in war. Sun Tzu, Machiavelli, and Clausewitz have differing views on the attributes of a good military leader. Whereas in my view Machiavelli has made a rather weak case of the use of evil and adverse power to keep the military ruler in power it is hard to say that he is not being objective or a realist. However it is hard to reconcile with his views in the 21st century. Sun Tzu has a praiseworthy approach when he propounds the attributes of a good military leader and it seems he is able to state his case in the best way possible. In my view Clausewitz has also given some interesting views which have allegations of bias against them. In the paragraphs below I have analysed the approaches of all these military leaders and whether or not their ideas can be reconciled with each other as well as my own views on the issue. Clausewitz For Clausewitz, by the time he was writing his book "On War" his thoughts on war had evolved towards notions like "War is a continuation of politics with an admixture of other means" and that there could be different ways and means of warfare. Here the concern is particularly towards his views on the practical uses of military history to and his "critical analysis" where he distinguished carefully between the historian and the military critic, despite his admission that both roles were often complementary.According to Clausewitz for a military historian there had to be a use of the critical analysis which would involve the tracing of effects back to their causes which would be essentially an investigation into what military steps were taken and whether they were effective at a tactical,operational,strategic and political level. Before I revisit Clausewitz on his notions of a military leader it would be fair to discuss what Machiavelli and Sun Tzu have to say about the military leader's role in defining national interests and military objectives in war. Machiavelli Machiavelli is much known for his book "The Prince" in which he has described how a prince or in other terms a military leader can keep his control on his jurisdiction.For him control is particularly a difficult matter for a new prince whose status is not established by lineage or popular consent amongst the masses. The new prince or military leader would have a hard time creating a stabilized framework of power. Many times the prince will have to do carry out unpleasant, perhaps evil things to carry out his task. Machiavelli has refrained from discussing the ideal price or leader .Instead he gives examples as to which of the military leaders/princes were successful in establishing their rule and most of these examples are drawn from his own analysis of history. As a renaissance writer he uses an amount of classical historical examples. At first sight his ideas seems to hard to swallow as he seems to endorse any evil act by such rulers to gain power and control. A more profound understanding of his views however indicates that he has actually qualified such measures with restrictions like philosophical view that any evil action can be justified if it is done for a good purpose. The work faced much negative criticism even in its time and was banned by the Catholic church. For Machiavelli a good military leader would know how to use good and evil as instruments of power. Essentially he was trying to promote a more practical approach lined with pragmatism. However realism is a bitter medicine and many people including myself find the idea of an undemocratically elected military leader abhorrent and dysfunctional. Such a military leader would invariably not be able to strike any balance between good or evil and keep tilting towards evil whenever his survival is threatened. An example is the current military crisis in South Asia particularly Bangladesh and Pakistan. Machiavelli approves of brute power and patronism to preserve the status quo of the military leaders rule. Sun Tzu Coming to what Sun Tzu has to say, this ancient Chinese sage has often been offered as the anti thesis of Clausewitz and his work belongs to the "Warring States" period of Chinese history (453-221 B.C.). His book is one of the most prominent Chinese military classics and has had a massive influence on the modern Japanese and Chinese military philosophies particularly the ideas of Mao Zedong and subsequent academics writing about military warfare. Sun Tzu's theory differs with Clausewitz in the sense that he supports the "bloodless battle" i.e. that a good military leader will win without warfare and disapproves of long wars .This assertion goes contrary to Clausewitz's assertion in his book "On War" who has placed a huge emphasis on military combat.. In actuality, Sun Tzu and Clausewitz are more complementary than contrary as they both emphasise on the "subordination of military to political considerations" certainly parallel Clausewitz's and stress more on lowering the enemy's morale. Although Sun Tzu does discuss combat strategies the bulk of his work is about psychological warfare and political tactics for the so called "bloodless struggle". Both writers however retain a different approach to the balance of power mechanism. Sun Tzu was in the favour of global unity through peaceful politics despite the fact that in his time China was faced with disunity at the national level (Warring States period).On the other hand Clausewitz found the whole idea of a united Europe politically impossible. Clausewitz Revisited Karl von Clausewitz (1780 -1831) defined war as "an act of violence to compel our opponent to fulfil our will". For him the "trinity" of "primordial violence, hatred and enmity; political purpose and effect; as well as the play of chance and probability" (or otherwise termed the irrational, rational and non-rational forces) and the interaction of this trinity within itself decides outcomes of wars. Although like Sun Tzu he was in the favour of political and military leaders cooperating, he supported the view of a "managed public opinion" and the military leaders displaying their genius by overcoming any rebellions and resorting to moral and psychological warfare. He pointed out that the enemy's centre of gravity be destroyed through decisive warfare. According to Clausewitz a good military leader should "... aim for the great object to achieve the utmost concentration of force ... in order to annihilate the enemy in a major decisive battle and to destroy the ability of the enemy state to resist". Clausewitz makes a good point of asserting that war is a social phenomenon .The theory is however timeless and has had a durable influence on modern war strategy. The Vietnam war was strongly influenced by Clausewitz's theory and it had a strong intellectual influence on Prussian, French and British military thought before World War I. Critics have also often said that Clausewitz holds no relevance to the nuclear age. However it can argued that his notions of an absolute war are strongly supported by the nuclear age. On the other with the complete death and destruction by the nuclear bomb there is little left for " continuation of policy by other means". The theory has nevertheless provided a more meaning framework for guiding the behaviour of the military general during the nuclear age. Despite his popular theory there are a number of objections which can be raised to it. His theory according to academics seems to suffer from the defects of national prejudice and is also accused of being too flexible and subject to convenient distortion by artists, scientists, or the military. There is an alleged bias in the favour of "defensive war" in his works and he is not averse to even the ideas of a civil war. Conclusion It can be seen that where Machiavelli's views touch the extreme end of logic and are hardly digestible and Sun Tzu disapproves of physical warfare, the more modern and balanced views seem to come from Clausewitz despite repeated criticism about his emphasis on physical warfare often as a sole means of achieving absolute control by the military leader. BIBLIOGRAPHY 1. Clausewitz, Carl von. On War.1989, (Edited and Translated by Michael Howard and Peter Paret.)Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1989. 2. Machiavelli, Niccolo, The Prince, 2006, Translated by W.K. Marriot. The Project Gutenberg, 2006 (also available at www.gutenberg.org/files/1232/1232-h/1232-h.htm) 3. Sun Tzu. The Art of War, 1971, Translated by Samuel B. Griffith. Oxford: Oxford University Press _____________________________________________________ Read More