John Keegan Essay Research Paper War and

John Keegan Essay, Research Paper

War and Politics: Are both one in the same.

.I was not fated to be a warrior. Fate, nevertheless, cast my life among warriors.. .John Keegan

His home in England was near the main gathering point for the D-Day invasion. Along with his father.s service in World War I, Keegan felt himself drawn towards the military and it.s workings. Unfortunately Keegan was unable to serve in the British Military due to a childhood illness. Although Keegan was unable to serve his country, he was determined to find his way into some aspect of the military. With a degree at Oxford, Keegan became a military historian. This essay will take a look into Keegan.s work, A History of Warfare, and his thesis that war is not a continuation of politics. This essay will refute his thesis with evidence from Clausewitz, fallacies in Keegan.s novel and military conflicts over the past thirty years.

Keegan has dissected the workings of the military and the military soldier. In his novel A History of Warfare, Keegan disputes the Clausewitzen theory that war is the continuation of policy by other means. Keegan supports his theory by giving explanations of how Clausewitzen.s theory is invalid.

To understand Keegan.s position one must first be familiar with Clausewitz. Clausewitz was a Prussian regimental officer during the Napoleonic wars. Upon retirement, he wrote the book On War. The books main thesis was war is the continuation by policy by other means.

Keegan disagrees with Clausewitz by saying:

Such at statement implies the existence of states, of state interests and of rational calculation about how they may be achieved. Yet war antedates the state, diplomacy and strategy by many millennia. Clausewitz, a child of Aristotle, went no further than to say that a political animal is war making animal. Neither dared confront the thought that man is a thinking animal in whom the intellect directs the urge to hunt and the ability to kill.

Keegan suggests that war precedes states by many millenniums. First, Clausewitz.s thesis does not imply there must be existence of states. Perhaps the political entity of the state did not exist but tribal life did. The tribe is a political entity. The bible has many accounts of tribal warfare for political gain. It varies from Moses leaving Egypt to David defeating Goliath. Keegan also states that war precedes diplomacy and strategy as well. The bible also recounts many strategies and diplomacy between tribes and states. Some historians might object to the bible being a reliable source but no one can refute that what happened in the bible was not true or accurate.

We are cultural animals and it is the richness of our culture which allows us to accept our undoubted potentiality for violence but to believe nevertheless that its expression is a cultural aberration. History lessons remind us that the states in which we live, their institutions, even their laws, have come to us through conflict, often of the most bloodthirsty sort.

Keegan is referring to the statement made by Aristotle in which he said, .Man is a political animal.. Keegan said that Clausewitz is a child of Aristotle and he believes that a political animal is a war-making animal. Keegan refutes them by saying, .Neither dared confront the thought that man is a thinking animal in whom the intellect directs the urge to hunt and the ability to kill..

How can he say that he disagrees with Clausewitz.s theory when he himself claims that the states we live in now have come to be by conflict. Doesn.t that support Clausewitz.s theory. The point about neither Aristotle nor Clausewitz confront the fact that man is a thinking animal is a bit confusing. Yes man is a thinking animal and throughout history there has been countless rulers, dictators and emperors who have used war to gain political control. A prime example would be the conflict between Julius Caesar and Pompey. While Caesar was in Gaul waging war, he used agents to dominate politics in Rome. Caesar used politics and military strength to seize control of Rome and become the emperor. Man is a thinking animal and those in power, especially in the early years of history, were continually thinking on how to get more.

Keegan.s big fallacy is his statement; .Politics played no part in the conduct of the First World War worth mentioning.. He goes on to say;

The Germans, French, British and Russians found themselves apparently fighting war for war.s sake. The war.s political objects, difficult enough to define in the first place, were forgotten. Political restraints were overwhelmed, politicians who appealed to reason were execrated, and politics even in the liberal democracies was rapidly reduced to a mere justification of bigger battles, longer casualty lists, costlier budgets and overflowing human misery.

The Encarta Encyclopedia states the following;

The underlying causes of World War I were the spirit of intense nationalism that permeated Europe throughout the 19th and into the 20th century, the political and economic rivalry among the nations, and the establishment and maintenance in Europe after 1871 of large armaments and of two hostile military alliances. The fundamental causes of he conflict were rooted deeply in the European history of the previous century, particularly in the political and economic polici