Clausewitz and escalation: Classical perspective on nuclear strategy

No Western strategist is held in higher regard than Carl von Clausewitz. Clausewitz's great work Vom Kriege (On War) is one of the most studied books of Western literature.1 Although Clausewitz wrote long before the age of modern military technology, one might think that the destructiveness of modern technology would make insights about war, derived from Clausewitz, all the more significant. 2 Further, since nuclear war would be the most destructive of all wars, perhaps destructive of modern civilization, the application of Clausewitz's thinking to problems of nuclear strategy is all the more imperative.