[“We Don’t Get Better at All”—Relating to War]
Clausewitz’s Rules of War
118 We ask why dwell on the savagery of ancient wars, of all things, in this enlightened age? The answer is because we haven’t changed one bit. It’s exactly as it was before. I came out by the same door wherein I went. This is one of the great lessons of the Book of Mormon—that we don’t improve, we don’t get any better at all. Today most men are as dense as they have ever been, and no matter how far back you go in time, you’ll find people just as enlightened as any alive today. The picture never changes; the balance never changes. That’s a sweeping statement, but it’s true. It’s especially illustrated here in the case of war. We are talking about this, and we’re using Clausewitz whose work was published in 1833. He died in 1831, but he was in all the Napoleonic wars. He was important. During the last decade of his life, he was the head of the Kriegsschule, the great Prussian war school in Berlin that built up the tremendous Prussian war machine. He wrote this classic work which was in three volumes when it came out, On War, and he talks about it It’s as if Joseph Smith had studied it very carefully, but, as I said, 1833 was too late for him to get hold of it. So we can’t accuse him of that. This happens again and again, that Joseph is saved by the bell.
118 Well, anyway, let’s go back to our friend Clausewitz now and we’re quoting him, just as if he were quoting from our present chapter, Alma 48. “In the lower ranks the spirit of self-sacrifice is more required than in others.” You regulate the policy. The general is at a distance, and we expect others to sacrifice. Alma 49:10-11 Amalickiah did not come down out of the land of Nephi at the head of his army; “he did not care for the blood of his people.” He managed things back there like the modern major general. Such an attitude so shocks Moroni. When he writes to Pahoran [Alma 60:7], “Can you think to sit upon your thrones in a state of thoughtless stupor, while your enemies are spreading the work of death around you?” Yes, we can think of it; that’s the way we do things. We don’t care for the lives of those on the front—that’s true. After all, only 8 percent of the armed forces saw action in World War II, but the other 92 percent were necessary. All they were was a backup for the whole thing. The whole purpose of the army is that cutting edge—search and destroy. Everything else is a backup for that, so they’re all in it together. But they don’t consider the ones at the front.
119 Then he goes on with the third rule, good old Clausewitz: “We can never introduce a modifying principle into the philosophy of war without committing an absurdity.” War is war, you see. The point is, war is an act of force. There is no limit to the application of force. To talk about civilized warfare and rules of warfare is ridiculous. If you’re civilized, you don’t start swinging, scratching, biting, and gouging eyes and all that sort of thing. [In war] you do everything you can to hurt the other person—that’s the idea. You’re no longer discussing things. You’re no longer civilized at all, instead of continuing the discussion. And you try to kill the other person. There’s no limit to that. So he says, to introduce a modifying principle is an absurdity. You can’t modify it. There’s no limit to the application of force once that’s the policy.
119 Alma puts it very well when he says they had exhausted all resources and he says, “Whatever evil we cannot resist with our words, then let us resist them with our swords.” If words won’t cut it, then swords will cut it. Then when you start swinging swords, you’re not particular. You’re not careful not to hurt anybody. You’re all out. But he says hold out with the words as long as you can. “Whatever evil we cannot resist with our words, then let us resist them with our swords.” There are no more rules, and the Lord says the frequent expression, “Cursed shall be the land unto destruction” (Alma 45:16). It goes on and doesn’t stop until that.
120 He says, “War and peace are ideas which fundamentally can have no gradations.” You can’t say there’s a little war and a bigger war and a bigger war. Once it starts, it’s all out. And he goes on, “We must never lose sight of the absolute form of war.” War is an absolute. See, you don’t have it in degrees. You can’t have a little one, just as you can’t slightly murder a person, or a person can’t be slightly pregnant or something like that. It doesn’t go that way. You go all the way in these things. He says, “Rather the image of absolute war must constantly hover in the background.” It’s going to be absolute. And this is the Book of Mormon. After one of their great victories, in fact their greatest victory, Alma announced to the people [Alma 45:10-11], “I perceive that this very people, the Nephites, ... shall become extinct.” That’s putting it pretty strong. This sort of thing goes all the way.
So good old Clausewitz continues, “In pursuing the aim of war, there is only one means, combat.” As I said, it’s search and destroy; 92 percent are all backing it up. The whole effort is what happens on the front, the zone of contact there. “And all effects that are manifested in war have their origin in combat.” Well, that’s what it is, naturally. Moroni in combat returned the sword to Zerahemnah, who didn’t want to discuss it. Zerahemnah had surrendered but he was still defiant, so Moroni said, if you’re not going to talk, here’s your sword back; let’s continue to fight. That’s the only solution unless you choose to make the covenant. He invited him to take it back and continue, but Zerahemnah was doing it only as a trick, as we shall presently see. Unless you choose to make a covenant of peace, you just have to go on fighting. Military combat is the only effective way, the pursuance of only one means. “All effects,” says good old Clausewitz, “manifested in war have their origin in combat.” As Moroni handed Zerahemnah his sword back again in Alma 44:10-11, he said, “Behold, we will end the conflict.” If you don’t want to discuss it, we’ll end it, so we will fight it out. He invites him to do that.
120 Alma 44:8 Quoting Clausewitz, “The only reason for suspension of military action is to wait for a more favorable moment to attack.” Things aren’t going your way, so you want to stop fighting for a while and recoup your gains. When Zerahemnah put up his sword, he was merely waiting for a favorable time to strike back. He told Moroni quite frankly to hand him back his sword, and then he added, “We will not suffer ourselves to take an oath unto you, which we know that we shall break.” Zerahemnah was at least that honest. He said, I’m not going to take an oath because you know I’ll break it and I know I’ll break it And then he got his sword back. As soon as he got it back, he made a surprise lunge for [Moroni] before anybody was expecting it. He suspended action for a more favorable moment for attack. He held it up and they were discussing things. He took his sword back and wheeeeft. He took a pass at Moroni, and instantly Moroni’s bodyguard took a swab at him and cut off the top of his skull. And he went off and lived the rest of his life missing his roof. We don’t hear of him again. He may not have lived very long.
121 And again from Clausewitz: “The destruction of the enemy’s armed forces is the foundation stone of all actions in war, the ultimate support of all combinations.” As I say, your 92 percent is your backup. The ultimate support of all combinations is the destruction of the enemy’s armed forces. Well, that’s what it comes down to. That’s why military careers run in families. That’s almost invariably the rule as they reach high command. And they have no illusions, either. The best sermons you’ll ever hear against war and the cruelty and brutality of it come from generals. [General Maxwell] Taylor after every operation, would deplore what had happened and would say it was a ghastly thing. Why do we have to be into this? But this thing is passed down in the family, so it gets to be quite a respectable, taken-for-granted sort of thing. It doesn’t turn their stomachs anymore. It’s just the way you live. For a civilian to come in cold out of something else and suddenly see people gouging eyes out and things like that, it’s pretty horrifying. That’s the Vietnam experience, because they were brought in so suddenly.
121 So Clausewitz says, “The soldier is levied, clothed, armed, trained. He sleeps, eats, drinks, and marches for one purpose only, merely to fight at the right place and the right time.” That’s the only reason for his existence, just to fight at a particular time and place. He has the idea that’s his only purpose anyway. So you can see why the higher brass don’t care much. They live in considerable luxury, but the rest of them don’t.
122 Quoting Clausewitz again, “If we speak of destruction of the enemy’s forces, we must expressly point out that nothing obliges us to confine this idea to physical forces.” The whole thing is to break his will. If he’s willing to surrender, then the war’s over. That’s all you want, to have him do what you want him to do. Your will dominates over his. In the Prussian Kriegsschule and the German Generalstab the whole theory is will. It’s the German philosophy. The philosopher who took them to that more than anyone else was Treitscke (again, it’s one of those things I’ll think of in a second). But the Germans are always talking about will—the iron will, the will that dominates everything. Hitler was obsessed with that idea. It’s the German will, der deutsche Wille, that wins through in everything. The title of Schoepenhauer’s great work is The World as Will and Representation. The will is everything. He says the whole thing is to dominate the enemy’s will, and once you’ve done that, you’ve won. So the psychological part is very necessary. We try to break the enemy down psychologically as well, but of course it was Clausewitz who introduced the doctrine of Schrecklichkeit. This is marvelous in the Book of Mormon. This comes out beautifully. Remember how the Lamanites would get themselves up and paint their faces red, wear lambskins around their loins, shave their heads, and make themselves as ferocious as possible? He introduced Schrecklichkeit, which means making yourself as terrible as possible. Schrecklichkeit is to be terrible. Make yourself as terrible as possible. Intimidate the enemy. Do everything you can. This became an important German technique, important in the blitzkrieg. They had that war spirit; they loved it. Some people just love that sort of thing. It is “fun.” This is a thing that’s terrible to admit, but it is exhilarating. Compared with other things, there’s nothing like it. It’s a terrible thing to say, but it’s true. There must be another form of exhilaration. Of course, there is. Remember, “to be carnally minded is death; to be spiritually minded is life eternal.” This is being carnal-minded at its peak. Everything is physical, raw, and violent.
123 This Schrecklichkeitis a big thing. Making yourself an object of utter terror is beautifully described in the Book of Mormon on various occasions: Enos 1:20; Mosiah 10:8; Alma 3:4-5; and also the Gadiantons in their various trappings make themselves look very ferocious. They make themselves and their uniforms as hideous as possible, like the trappings of the barons of the Middle Ages, when they wanted to keep the peasants in their place. Like the Ku Klux Klan, they make themselves look hideous and mysterious. In the Middle Ages they’d get themselves up in these tremendous outfits and cover themselves completely with these enormous antlers or horns or wings—mostly antlers and horns. They would make themselves look absolutely hideous and were objects of terror when they’d ride through the land—to each other and everybody else. [They had] chivalric trappings because they were [members of] orders and mysteries. To wear that outfit you had to belong to a mystery, and that was your sign. The Teutonic order began with the temple—the Templars, the Hospitalers, the Knights of Rhodes, the Knights of Malta. Finally, up in the Baltic there’s the Jomsburg. They were all secret organizations, and they were all exceedingly rich. They all plundered, and they did all this sort of thing. They made a mystery and a cult of war. This is the point. But this part of it is still there, because they’re the only people that still wear special uniforms. They don’t dress like anybody else. They set themselves apart from the rest of society, and they don’t think like other people either. You don’t expect them to. Those things you expect of them.
124 There’s a fourth point, one on which Clausewitz lays a very heavy emphasis, namely this: “There is no other human activity that stands in such constant and universal contact with chance as does war.” That’s his main principle. “He who undertakes war must renounce every absolute certainty of result.” You never know how any operation is going to turn out.
125 We have some good examples in Alma 49. Notice the Lamanites were very clever. They had the Zoramite commanders. They knew everything that was going on. But they supposed they would be an easy prey for them. Notice [Alma 49:3-4]: “They supposed that it [the city of Ammonihah] would again become an easy prey for them, But behold, how great was their disappointment.” It didn’t turn out that way at all. “Behold, the Nephites had dug up a ridge of earth.” Verse 5: “Now at this time the chief captains of the Lamanites were astonished exceedingly.” Things weren’t going their way at all. Napoleon said, “A general must never be surprised.” Well, our generals are always being surprised, and so was Napoleon. Surprise is the main element. That’s what strategy is, to achieve surprise with overwhelming strength at a particular time and place when you’re not expected. There you have your chance. So they were exceedingly surprised at the greatness of their numbers.
125 Verse 6: “They had also prepared themselves with shields, and with breastplates.” Notice in the eighth verse: “But behold, to their utter astonishment, they were prepared for them, in a manner which never had been known among the children of Lehi.” There’s the genius of Moroni. He did something new. He did something surprising, and that’s what makes a great commander, to have ideas of his own and to think of something new. And that’s what makes the army such a drag, because they always fight the last war.
125,126 This is a good example of it in Helaman 1. Coriantumr marched right into the center of Zarahemla, the capital city of Bountiful, and took it, catching the Nephites off guard. He surprised the Nephites. But in the end, he caught himself in a trap. They had been expecting him on the outside, and they had a protective curtain around the city on the outside. So he was trapped once he got in there. He had to surrender; he had been surrounded. Everybody surprises everybody else. When he tried to get out of the land, he found that the Nephites had pulled all their defenses on the periphery, and he couldn’t get out. Everybody surprises everybody else in war; nobody is sure of anything. So he made this famous statement—these are all famous statements of Clausewitz: “Warfare is therefore a chameleon, a strange trinity [three things make it up]. It’s composed of first, the original violence of its essence; secondly, the hate and enmity which are to be regarded as blind natural impulse [see how important it was for Amalickiah to take a few months stirring up hate and natural passion for a war, because the people couldn’t get it otherwise]; and thirdly, the play of probabilities and chance which make a free activity of emotions.” In other words, war is a madhouse. They’re crazy scenes. Quoting Clausewitz again: “War, of all branches of activity, is most like a game of cards.” Again, only in Hollywood are we absolutely sure that the good guys will win. That’s the quintessential plot of the John Wayne [movie]—it’s vengeance, and he always catches up with the bad guys, and of the Green Berets and all those things. This is the theme. The second most famous phrase from Clausewitz (next to the one that “war is politics by other means”) is: “Three-fourths of the things upon which the action of war is calculated lie hidden in a fog of uncertainty.”