War On The Peace [Reader Post]

It took me much longer than normal to grasp the fundamentals of reading, but once I figured it out, I was off and running. My father had a fairly decent library that was heavy into the older classics. When I had a perplexing problem, he would think for a minute and walk over to the book case. After scanning the rows of books he would pull out Aristotle or Milton and tell me my answer was in those pages, end of discussion.

This time I was involved in a war that had been declared on me and I was losing. A wolverine had decided to take a piece of beaver tail from a 220 Connibear trap and became incensed when the steel jaws closed down on his muzzle and foreleg. Of course the medium sized trap was too small for a wolverine, but instead of leaving and never falling for such a trap again, he destroyed the trap by bending it into a tangled mess.

This was a new one on me, I went on to my next set and the trap was tripped by digging snow and tossing it on the trigger mechanism until the trap went off. He then destroyed that trap by bending it until it would never function correctly. You see if I put it in the forge to straighten the steel, the temper in the springs and the jaws would be destroyed and the trap would be useless. At the next set I had caught a pine marten and the wolverine ate half the marten before destroying another trap. This was becoming an expensive day. I spent the night at my old trap cabin, but it wasn’t a very good night. I’d never heard of a wolverine killing a human, but any animal that can back down a grizzly can surely kill a human. I half slept with my rifle in the bunk with me. The next morning I followed another trail home and had a fairly decent catch of fur, although it was only half of what it should have been.

That night, I told my dad about the wolverine and asked if he had any suggestions. He looked at me as if I were simple minded and walked over to the bookcase. He pulled out this giant book, handed it to me and told me I had a war and this book was written by the expert on war.

Knowing better than to question my father, I was looking at the over 700 page book On War by Karl von Clausewitz in disbelief. A man who was a veteran of the Napoleonic Wars was going to teach me how to trap a smart wolverine? I wanted to say something, but that was out of the question. He laid a book by Marx and another by Lenin on the table and he said for cross reference and when I finished the three books I would be ready to kill the wolverine and that there was no need to go back out on the trap line until I had read all three. This was like a prison sentence, I started reading right away.

Becoming engaged in the different books, I saw some peculiarities and similarities. Clausewitz stressed that war is a continuation of politics by other means, Lenin and his followers held that politics was a continuation of war by other means.

Now in terms of an enraged wolverine, I think he considered the use of a trap with a piece of beaver tail as bait was dirty politics and he was going to war against me. Thus Clausewitz was correct and Lenin was just inverting another man’s theory and presenting it as original, an example of dirty politics.

Now, I was becoming interested. Karl Phillip von Clausewitz was born in Burg, Prussia in 1780. His first battle was at the age of twelve and he spent the next thirty-nine years in continuous military service of his country. Most of his service was against Napoleon. After Waterloo and Napoleon’s final defeat, Clausewitz became director of the War Academy in Berlin and wrote On War. He died in 1831 of Cholera while serving in Breslau, Poland.

Clausewitz defines war: war’s essence is a duel on a large scale, each side seeks to incapacitate the other and render him unable to offer further resistance, thus we compel him to do our will.

Although, I did this study to kill a wolverine, I realize now that President Obama would do well to learn the fundamentals of war. For instance Clausewitz states, war is never an isolated act and war never spreads immediately. Opponents can form opinions of each other from what the opponent is and what he does, not from what he theoretically should be and do.

At this point I knew my enemy was intent on robbing and destroying my means of making a living, if he could catch me without my rifle he would kill me.
This seems to be the same philosophy of Alqueda and the Taleban, fifty years later. Moreover, human organizations always fall short of the absolute best and these deficiencies on both sides become a modifying factor. Now the wolverine with his keen senses had an advantage over me, yet he had a flaw and I must find that flaw and exploit it. The US military has a flaw, the flaw is a Commander in Chief who is not committed nor does he know how to be a war time president. Will our enemies exploit our weakness? Time will tell. Our enemy has many weaknesses, many of them are illiterate and their discipline is based on a willingness to die in accomplishing a mission, therefore their trained professionals are an ever decreasing pool. Their willingness to compromise the lives and safety of civilians will no doubt work against them in the loyalty of Afghan people. I am sure our military is aware of many more weaknesses, despite the indifference of the president.

The idea of an equilibrium is false, there is only a suspension of action until a more favorable moment arises. The wolverine was probably watching me from afar and knew that if he could catch me without my rifle, he could kill me easily. Our enemies wait for an opportune moment to spring a trap and kill our soldiers or our civilians, of that we can be sure.

You must never allow the vanquished to regroup and prepare for action. The wolverine knew to keep his distance from me, he had no idea that I would retire to the ranch house to re-supply and figure a new strategy. Our enemy seems to have recovered from his initial defeat and is now posing a greater threat.

To win a war there are three areas that must be destroyed or neutralized, the military force must be destroyed, the country must be conquered or from out of that country fresh military groups will be raised, and the will of the enemy to continue fighting must be broken. Eventually the enemy’s will is the foremost aspect of victory, for the population of the vanquished must turn away from resistance for victory to be complete.

I intended to kill my enemy and until another wolverine moved into the territory, the victory would be complete. Now that I see the way Obama intends to direct a war, I am not sure we can ever have complete victory with a lasting peace.

“The nature of war is diverse.” I assumed my little war fell into this category and certainly Obama’s war, is not totally unique, the dynamics of Obama makes it unique. “The greater and more powerful the motives for war, the more they affect the whole existence of the nations involved, and the more tensions will precede war, the more closely will war conform to its abstract conception. It will be more closely concerned with the destruction of the enemy- the military and the political aim will more closely coincide- and will tend to be more purely military and less political. The weaker the motives and the tensions, the less will the natural tendency of its military element- the tendency to violence- coincide with the directives of policy. The nature of a war tends to be governed by the motives which produce it.”

Although my war seemed to be total war. Obama’s War seems to have become confused on his end and invariably that has an effect in the trenches.

Although my war was total with complete destruction or having your opponent leave the country; Clausewitz maintained that complete destruction of the enemy meant that the enemy forces were no longer in a position to continue fighting. To conduct a peace under conditions that were anything less would be futile and disappointing to both sides!

Clausewitz maintained that the Chief Moral Powers are the talents of the commander, the military virtue of the army, and its national feeling. With McChrystal, no one has doubts; but our Commander in Chief is Obama and everyone has doubts with Obama’s competency.

On military virtue Clausewitz explained, “An army that maintains its formations under the heaviest fire, is never shaken by imaginary fears, and resists with all its might any that are well-founded, which, proud in its sense of victories, never loses its sense of obedience, its respect for and confidence in its leaders, even in the depression of defeat; an army with its physical powers strengthened by privation and exertion; an army which regards its toils as a means to victory, not as a curse, and which is always reminded of its duties and virtues by one single idea: the honor of its arms-such an army is imbued with true military spirit.”

These words inspired me to attack my enemy with honor and dignity. Our military, without a doubt is the most well trained and most competently led military that has ever taken to the field of battle.

At this point, I realized my plan of attack. With a sled and three dogs for protection and speed, I became the hunter instead of the hunted. I backtracked on the same line I came in on and sure enough, all my snares and traps were destroyed. There was no use in resetting the traps, I was looking for the perfect ambush. Within a couple of hours I arrived at what used to be my trap cabin: it was completely destroyed, even the walls had logs pulled out of position and with all my personal belongings sprayed with a powerful scent that was disgusting even to a trapper. I set the cabin on fire and continued on, the fire might have him confused, but he was determined to get me so I didn’t think it would slow him down.

I now understood his modus, he would follow me and destroy all my possessions. Thankfully, he decided not to raid the ranch house, the dogs probably made him employ discretion rather than valor. I started working up another line collecting fur and freshening traps and suddenly I saw the perfect ambush.

A thirty inch diameter spruce had fallen between two other good sized trees. I unpacked my one man cross cut saw and cut the fallen tree a few feet from
the two trees that had trapped the tree between them. I then used the saw to make saw cuts across the grain or tree every three or four inched inches down eight feet of the log from the cut end. I then used my axe to knock and plane the top side of the log into a flat surface. I then sawed an eight foot section from the top of the tree and made one side flat in the same manner. I then rolled the eight foot log over to the base of the tree trapped between the two live trees. I lifted one end at a time on to the base log so that both flat pieces were together. The two surfaces weren’t perfect but they didn’t have to be smooth surfaces like from a saw mill.

I then began to make the most difficult part, a mechanical figure four mechanism out of wood sticks, it employs three sticks notched to form a figure the figure four. Since it is holding up several hundred pounds it is easily tripped bringing the log down with lethal force. I am sure this trap has been used since man first came to North America twenty thousand years ago. It is called a dead fall and is the safest way to kill a bear especially a grizzly; but right now I needed to kill a very intelligent and mean wolverine.

When the trap was set, I carefully set a generous portion of beaver carcass beneath the figure four and set a 110 Connibear out in front of the dead fall as a decoy.

My dogs and I continued up to the Coldbrook and made camp with a tarp lean to or what we called a wickiup. The dogs knew that something was going on for me to worry so much over a trap. Consequently, our camp was subdued with the dogs watching my every move.

We awoke slowly and started moving and warming up with a breakfast of coffee, huckleberry pancakes, and moose sausage. The dogs ate dried White fish with dried dog food and sausage grease as a tasty sauce. This extra special breakfast picked up their spirits, but they still reflected my somber and vigilant attitude. They probably didn’t know the nature of our enemy or even that an enemy was near and that he was much more equipped to do battle than we were, especially in a surprise attack without my rifle in my hands. It’s true my dogs would fight to the death, but the wolverine is the only animal that can make the mighty grizzly back away and the grizzly will kill big black bears for sport when they aren’t even hungry.

We loaded up and back tracked to the dead fall and there he was. His rage was gone forever, for he was dead. I reverently removed him from the deadly trap and admired the strong bear like body with savage claws and teeth, that never submitted or showed fear to anything. He was a worthy opponent, but it was over now, I felt a sense of loss and sadness.

I mushed the dogs straight home, because I was done for the day. I wanted to show my dad this magnificent animal and thank him for giving me Clausewitz to get my priorities right to engage in war. I feel fairly confident that most of our field grade officers have read Clausewitz, but I think Obama and his crew would benefit immensely from learning about war before attempting to direct a war.

Although the original translations of Clausewitz are detailed and stilted, I recommend, War, Politics and Power, a condensation of Clausewitz by Colonel G. Summers, Jr.