On War

War as a real political instrument, a continuation of political dealings carried on by other means: that claim sits at the center of Clausewitz’s unfinished treatise, assembled from manuscripts he wrote between 1816 and 1830 and published by his widow Marie the year after his death. Eight books carry the argument from the nature of war through theory, strategy in general, the combat, military forces, defence, the attack, and the plan of war. Along the way he introduces the ideas soldiers still argue over: friction, the uncertainty that clouds every decision in the field, the culminating point beyond which an offensive weakens, defence as the stronger form of fighting, and the interplay of passion, chance, and reason. This is the J. J. Graham translation as revised by F. N. Maude.