Now, philanthropists may easily imagine there is a skilful method of disarming and overcoming an enemy without causing great bloodshed, and that this is the proper tendency of the Art of War. It takes the place of the final object, and puts it aside as something we can eliminate from our calculations. In order to attain this object fully, the enemy must be disarmed, and disarmament becomes therefore the immediate object of hostilities in theory. Violence, that is to say, physical force (for there is no moral force without the conception of States and Law), is therefore the means the compulsory submission of the enemy to our will is the ultimate object. Self-imposed restrictions, almost imperceptible and hardly worth mentioning, termed usages of International Law, accompany it without essentially impairing its power.
Violence arms itself with the inventions of Art and Science in order to contend against violence. War therefore is an act of violence intended to compel our opponent to fulfil our will. Each strives by physical force to compel the other to submit to his will: each endeavours to throw his adversary, and thus render him incapable of further resistance. If we would conceive as a unit the countless number of duels which make up a War, we shall do so best by supposing to ourselves two wrestlers. War is nothing but a duel on an extensive scale. We shall keep to the element of the thing itself, to a duel. We shall not enter into any of the abstruse definitions of War used by publicists. But it is necessary for us to commence with a glance at the nature of the whole, because it is particularly necessary that in the consideration of any of the parts their relation to the whole should be kept constantly in view. We propose to consider first the single elements of our subject, then each branch or part, and, last of all, the whole, in all its relations-therefore to advance from the simple to the complex. But however powerfully this may react on political views in particular cases, still it must always be regarded as only a modification of them for the political view is the object, War is the means, and the means must always include the object in our conception. That the tendencies and views of policy shall not be incompatible with these means, the Art of War in general and the Commander in each particular case may demand, and this claim is truly not a trifling one. All beyond this which is strictly peculiar to War relates merely to the peculiar nature of the means which it uses.
We see, therefore, that War is not merely a political act, but also a real political instrument, a continuation of political commerce, a carrying out of the same by other means. WAR IS A MERE CONTINUATION OF POLICY BY OTHER MEANS. This chapter contains Clausewitz's most famous saying about war, that it is the continuation of politics (policy) by other means. Maude, in Three Volumes (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & C., 1918). New and Revised edition with Introduction and Notes by Col. Source: Carl von Clausewitz, On War, trans.
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