For Foucault this was the exact opposite because after the Second World War, the war machine that was unleashed was due to the fact that the system of economic rationality had completely broken down and the organisational network of world trade ( world trade starting period 1870 ) and its accompanied trade settlement system had completely become untenable in which trust in the final payment settlement system had completely vanished, settlements of payment of trade were never met ; they were simply not paid, therefore initiating the military machine and the Carl von Clausewitz dream " War is the continuation of politics by other means " precipitating the systematic slaughtering of millions.

Soldiers before this time had written treatises on various military subjects, but none had undertaken a great philosophical examination of war on the scale of those written by Clausewitz and Leo Tolstoy, both of which were inspired by the events of the Napoleonic Era.

The concept of absolute war was a philosophical construct developed by the military theorist General Carl von Clausewitz.

In it, Clausewitz explained that absolute war is a philosophical abstraction -- a " logical fantasy "-- that is impossible in practice because it is not directed or constrained by political motives or concerns, nor limited by the practical constraints of time or space.

In 1815, the Russo-German Legion was integrated into the Prussian Army and Clausewitz re-entered Prussian service.

Clausewitz defined the ‘ order of battle ’ as “ that division and formation of the different arms into separate parts, or sections, of the whole Army, and that form of general position or disposition of those parts which is to be the norm throughout the whole campaign or war .”

* For translations of excerpts of both the Essai général de la Tactique and De la force publique into modern English, see Beatrice Heuser, The Strategy Makers: Thoughts on War and Society from Machiavelli to Clausewitz ( Santa Monica, CA: Greenwood / Praeger, 2010 ), ISBN 978-0-275-99826-4, pp. 147 – 170.

His works, however, were not translated into English for some time, hence the reputation of him held by professional military theorists in English-speaking countries has not reached the significance of Clausewitz, for example.

When moving into modern warfare, Delbrück showed his intellectual roots in Clausewitz.

* For a translation into modern English of his Theórica y prática de guerra ( Madrid: Pedro Madigal, 1595 ), Beatrice Heuser: The Strategy Makers: Thoughts on War and Society from Machiavelli to Clausewitz ( Santa Monica, CA: Greenwood / Praeger, 2010 ), pp. 87 – 102.

German military history had previously been influenced by Carl von Clausewitz, Alfred von Schlieffen and von Moltke the Elder, who were proponents of maneuver, mass, and envelopment.

Carl Philipp Gottfried von Clausewitz (; July 1, 1780 – November 16, 1831 ) was a Prussian soldier and military theorist who stressed the moral ( in modern terms, " psychological ") and political aspects of war.

Clausewitz entered the Prussian military service at the age of twelve as a Lance-Corporal, eventually attaining the rank of Major-General.

Clausewitz was a professional soldier who was involved in numerous military campaigns, but he is famous primarily as a military theorist interested in the examination of war.

Nonetheless, Clausewitz conceived of war as a political, social, and military phenomenon which might — depending on circumstances — involve the entire population of a nation at war.

In any case, Clausewitz saw military force as an instrument that states and other political actors use to pursue the ends of policy, in a dialectic between opposing wills, each with the aim of imposing his policies and will upon his enemy.

While Clausewitz was intensely aware of the value of intelligence at all levels, he was also very skeptical of the accuracy of much military intelligence: " Many intelligence reports in war are contradictory ; even more are false, and most are uncertain ....

All other forms of intrastate conflict, such as rebellion, are not accounted for because, in theoretical terms, Clausewitz could not account for warfare before the state ( However, near the end of his life, Clausewitz grew increasingly aware of the importance of non-state military actors.

Vom Kriege () is a book on war and military strategy by Prussian general Carl von Clausewitz ( 1780 – 1831 ), written mostly after the Napoleonic wars, between 1816 and 1830, and published posthumously by his wife in 1832.

Conversely, Clausewitz has also been seen as " The preeminent military and political strategist of limited war in modern times.

This military revolution was described and codified by Clausewitz.

In the 1832 treatise On War, Prussian military general and theoretician Carl von Clausewitz defined war as follows: " War is thus an act of force to compel our enemy to do our will.

* November 16 – Carl von Clausewitz, German military strategist ( b. 1780 )

* June 1 – Carl von Clausewitz, Prussian military strategist ( d. 1831 )

The father of modern strategic study, Carl von Clausewitz, defined military strategy as " the employment of battles to gain the end of war.

As Clausewitz stated, a successful military strategy may be a means to an end, but it is not an end in itself.

Clausewitz and Jomini are required reading for today's military professional officer.

In his seminal book On War the Prussian Major-General and leading expert on modern military strategy Carl von Clausewitz defined military strategy as " the employment of battles to gain the end of war.

Hence, Clausewitz placed political aims above military goals, ensuring civilian control of the military.

The Principles of War identified by Carl von Clausewitz in his essay Principles of War, and later enlarged in his book, On War have been influential on military thinking in the North Atlantic region.

Clausewitz had many aphorisms, of which the most famous is that " War is the continuation of Politik by other means " ( Politik being variously translated as ' policy ' or ' politics ,' terms with very different implications ), a description that has won wide acceptance.

It has been blamed for the level of destruction involved in the First and Second World Wars, but it seems rather that Clausewitz ( who did not actually use the term " total war ") had merely foreseen the inevitable development that started with the huge, patriotically motivated armies of the Napoleonic wars.

Clausewitz himself never saw the 20th-century states and armies to which Creveld refers — the states with which he himself was familiar were quite different.

A widely accepted definition is that given by Clausewitz, with war being " the continuation of politics by other means ".

The two most significant students of his work were Carl von Clausewitz, a Prussian with a background in philosophy, and Antoine-Henri Jomini, who had been one of Napoleon's staff officers.

In contrast to Clausewitz, Antoine-Henri Jomini dealt mainly with operational strategy, planning and intelligence, the conduct of the campaign, and " generalship " rather than " statesmanship ".

The book's significance is attested to by the fact that until the middle of 2008, it was included on the list of required reading for United States Army officers, and ( with Sun Tzu and Clausewitz ) the third non-American entry on the list.

He had to judge whether the moment was favorable for starting a war of liberation ; and, whatever might be the enthusiasm of his junior staff-officers, Yorck had no illusions as to the safety of his own head, and negotiated with Clausewitz.

In the latter part of the campaign he served against the Prussian contingent of General Yorck ( von Wartenburg ), with whom, through Clausewitz, he negotiated the celebrated convention of Tauroggen, serving thereafter with Yorck in the early part of the War of Liberation.

In 1831, soon after the outbreak of the Polish insurrection of 1830, he was appointed to the command of the Army of Observation on the Polish frontier, with Clausewitz as his chief-of-staff.

A disciple of Carl von Clausewitz, whose theory of war was more an effort to grasp its essential nature, rather than of Jomini, who expounded a system of rules, Moltke regarded strategy as a practical art of adapting means to ends, and had developed the methods of Napoleon in accordance with altered conditions of his age.

He made a distinction between two possible strategies in war: attrition and annihilation ( in German, Ermattungsstrategie and Niederwerfungsstrategie, respectively ), derived from Clausewitz's distinctions between strategies seeking limited objectives and strategies aimed at rendering one's opponent militarily helpless, the latter often confused with the concept of " Total War " ( a term Clausewitz did not use ) advocated by Ludendorff and rejected by Delbrück during WWI.

For example, Corbett did not hesitate to take issue with Clausewitz, Jomini or other continental strategists on the importance of the search for the decisive battle and the principle of concentration.

However, Corbett was interested in the diplomatic alliance systems and coalitions formed before and during a war, and he was concerned with the economic and financial dimensions of waging war as well as with the technological and material aspects of war, which were of no interest to Clausewitz.

He has also been a leading interpreter of the writings of the German military thinker Carl von Clausewitz, including preparing the leading translation of On War with the American historian Peter Paret.

This interpretation was later mis-accredited to the more renowned Carl von Clausewitz, initially by Helmuth von Moltke the Elder who supported arguments for strategies of annihilation with quotes from Clausewitz.

Brodie was also responsible, along with Michael Howard and Peter Paret, for making the writings of Carl von Clausewitz more accessible to the English-speaking world.

Clausewitz stated that the purpose of war is to make the opponent comply with the will of the nation or state.