Clausewitz asserts that war has two natures: objective and subjective. The former
comprises those qualities common to all warfare in all periods. He states unequivo-
cally that ‘all wars are things of the same nature’ (p. 606). Furthermore, he explains that
‘war, though conditioned by the particular characteristics of states and their armed forces,
must contain some more general – indeed, a universal – element with which every
theorist ought above all to be concerned’ (p. 593). In contrast to its objective or universal
and eternal nature, war also has a subjective nature, comprising the actual, dynamically
changeable, highly variable detail of historical warfare. In the language of today,
Clausewitz’s objective nature of war translates simply enough to mean what it says: the
very nature of war. But his second nature of war, the subjective, translates into what now
is called the characterof war. So, following the Prussian, the strategic history of the past
200 years has encompassed war of many kinds, but with a nature that is constant in its
essential features. In addition, those years have recorded wars of nearly every imaginable
kind whose characters have been more or less unique, as well as sometimes radically
distinctive from previous strategic experience.
The preceding paragraph might appear to focus on an unimportant distinction, but in
truth the difference between war’s enduring nature and its dynamic character is vital.
Clausewitz sometimes comes close to suggesting that even war’s objective nature is vari-
able (pp. 8 7– 8 ). However, to interpret him in that way would be an error. Nevertheless,
often he does emphasize war’s variability and diversity rather than its constancy. That
fact, though, does not alter the authority of the theory which outlines the key constituents
of war’s permanent nature. What are those enduring constituents?
A useful way to grasp Clausewitz’s theory of war’s permanent nature is to approach
the matter as he did, which is to say holistically (pp. 75, 607). The most important of
his ideas about the nature of war are the remarkable (or paradoxical) trinity of violence,
enmity and passion, chance and opportunity, and reason (p. 8 9); the climate of war, com-
prising ‘danger, exertion, uncertainty, and chance’ (p. 104); and friction, which accounts
for the difference between ‘real war’ and ‘war on paper’ (p. 119). To these central pillars
of his theory – the trinity, the climate of war and friction – one should add his ideas on
the fog of war (pp. 101, 140); on the importance of moral qualities in military leaders
(pp. 103–4); on the thesis that belligerents have a centre of gravity (p. 595); and on the
distinctions between, yet interdependence of, the policy logic and the grammar of war
(p. 606).
The heart of Clausewitz’s theory is his proposition that all war is driven by the
ever-changing unstable relations among the trinity of passion and enmity, chance and
creativity, and policy reason. Famously, he wrote, ‘Our task therefore is to develop a
theory that maintains a balance between these three tendencies, like an object suspended
between three magnets’ (p. 8 9). Clausewitz did not exactly equate passion with the
people, chance and creativity with the army and its commander, and reason with the
government, but he did grant that the three aspects of war did, respectively, mainly
concern those agencies. While noting the logic of the Clausewitzian trinity, it is necessary
to avoid an inflexible and mutually exclusive understanding of their relations. For
example, policy may be the responsibility of the government, but in the modern world it
is likely to be influenced by a public opinion that could prove volatile. Also, policy can
be moved by the military commanders who are shaping strategy, in a process of dialogue
with politicians.
24 War, peace and international relations