Theoretical Grounding for Temporality in Warfare

Abstract

One should not unquestioningly adopt this maxim by Carl von Clausewitz. Military history of the antiquity is useless only if one searches for detailed information on execution of battles. It is beneficial for students of the art of war who seek to penetrate the veil of time and see what could be learned from antiquity and how these lessons could be adopted and adapted to suit warfare of our times. As Dupuy (1987, p. xxii) argued, war is an observational science like astronomy. For the soldier the best laboratory is military history. Russian military tradition has relied heavily on historical operational analyses. Analytical study of the past was considered essential for predicting future developments in warfare (Adamsky 2010, p. 33). As Svechin (1992, p. 279) put it, “Work on military history and the art of war can improve our capabilities of drawing up good plans.” For Napoleon (1987, p. 81–82) tactics could be learned from treatises, but knowledge of strategy isIf one cannot learn command of armies in praxis, the other option is to peruse how the “great captains” led their troops. The aspiring commander needs to model himself upon these examples and hopefully “learn to reject all maxims foreign to the principles of these great commanders.” (Napoleon 1987, p.82). Napoleon didn’t mean that war should be carried out by copying past history. His argument was that the basic principles of warfare remain intact.