[Aktungbby]

Originally Posted by BigWalleye

If you are going to quote Von Clausewitz, you should at least quote him in full:

"Everything in war is simple, but the simplest thing is difficult."

When quoted in its entirety, it makes sense.

True enough! The quote is so well known I took some liberties. Partly as I believe Von C. was putting it Dryly himself... as with Napoleon Bonaparte, Clausewitz was a decided land animal and only finished Book One-my well thumbed-dogeared Howard/Paret translation on my shelf-before dying of cholera, 1831.; His wife cobbled together the rest of his notes-seven more books- and released it as ON WAR-1832 and lived off the proceeds?. As with Napoleon, who lost strategically to Lord Nelson at Aboukir and Trafalgar, ending any hope of domination world-wide in 1805, ON WAR never grasps the necessity of control of the seas... as per Mahan's Influence of Sea Power on History -1890. "Clausewitz's thinking was based on his experience as a Prussian war planner/observer concerned with how to use popular forces in an insurrectionary struggle against the much-superior French forces which occupied Prussia after 1806—how, in short, to wage a "Spanish War in Germany." That his treatise, while an important study, can have been tied/cobbled to the plans of a (Prussian) nation state (von Moltke) for two world wars involving a losing offset-warfare U-boat campaign against greatly superior forces on the strategic seas, while conducting a two front tactical land war, is the great travesty and complete waste of the 20th century. The von Schlieffen Plan: of the 'last man on the right's sleeve 'sweeping the channel coast' in WWI failed to properly consider the control of all that water to the right (ADM Jellicoe-1916)...to be articulated twentyfive years later more simply: Operation SEALION- "And Hitler was unsure of the operation from the beginning. He confided in Admiral Raeder, "On land I am a hero. At sea I am a coward."" As with Bonaparte, this outlook cost Germany the war for the second time... If "warfare is a continuation of politics by other means"-(von C's other quote of note) it helps to have the means (a lot more cents?) and not make the same mistakes twice!! imho