A stub, on the frivolity of American realism

From an exchange with Sorn about Clausewitz;


Carrington:
I get the sense it is very, very difficult to be a Clausewitzian in an American context.


Sorn: That's because to Americans, war is geography by other means.

Or, as a professor of mine said a couple years back war is how americans learn geography.


Carrington_Ward 0 minutes ago in reply to Sorn
:-).

That does, in many ways, get at the heart of the issue: Clausewitz wrote having seen Prussia defeated and dismembered. Machiavelli wrote The Prince as a cover lettter and resume for the prince who had ordered him imprisoned and tortured.

Not only were they pragmatists, they knew firsthand the cost of failure.

It's hard to translate that experience and background to people for whom war is a way of learning (for once) your geography.