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The author makes his most poignant statement when he concludes, "…Nothing has such a depressing influence on the soldier, as the sound of the enemy's cannon afresh as the moment when, after a forced march he seeks some rest…" and falls into the "…law of the enemy" (158).
Author John Nagl points out that the strategies promoted by Antoine-Henri Jomini -- another well-known and respected military theorist -- and Clausewitz have been confused. Jomini had a prescription for "…the annihilation of the opponent's force as the best route to victory," a strategy which has "often and mistakenly" been attributed to General Clausewitz (Nagl, 2002, p. 18). Clausewitz was more likely to suggest that a political objective should be sought than that "anything was always the best route to victory" (Nagl, 18). Nagl asserts that Jomini "personally disliked" Clausewitz and thought Clausewitz's strategies were "rubbish" (Nagl, 18). In fact, by the end of his life, Clausewitz had embraced "a much more nuanced view of warfare than always prescribing the destruction of the enemy forces," which was more of a Jominian idea, misattributed to Clausewitz by Moltke" (Nagl, 18).
In conclusion, the one key difference between the two strategies is that conventional warfare counts on large standing armies...
territory to be conquered; but unconventional warfare can be waged by a few suicide terrorists, for example, in a little boat approaching the U.S.S. Cole (in 2009) and blowing themselves up while blasting a hole in the Cole, killing 17 Americans and injuring 39. It is clear that the Obama Administration is moving away from large standing armies and conventional strategies. Indeed, the recent successful use of drone aircraft to kill terrorist leaders, and the use of a small force of Navy SEALS to kill bin Laden, shows that the U.S. is indeed adjusting to "unconventional" or as Major Elek refers to it, "low intensity warfare."
Works Cited
Clausewitz, Carl Von. 2009. On War (Reprint). Rockville, MD: Wildside Press LLC.
Elek, Deborah E. 1994. Unconventional Warfare and the Principles of War. Small Wars Journal,
Retrieved January 8, 2012, from http://www.smallwarsjournal.com/documents/elek.pdf.
Nagl, John A. 2002. Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam: Learning to Eat
Soup with a Knife. Chicago, IL: Greenwood Publishing Group.
Rothstein, Hy S. 2006. Afghanistan and the Troubled Future of Unconventional Warfare.
Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press.
Works Cited
Clausewitz, Carl Von. 2009. On War (Reprint). Rockville, MD: Wildside Press LLC.
Elek, Deborah E. 1994. Unconventional Warfare and the Principles of War. Small Wars Journal,
Retrieved January 8, 2012, from http://www.smallwarsjournal.com/documents/elek.pdf.
Nagl, John A. 2002. Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam: Learning to Eat
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