Clausewitz and the Gestalt of War

Abstract

War features unpredictability, incompleteness and instability. It is composed of a complex web of interconnected constituents in which friction poses a serious challenge. Clausewitz regarded war an integrated and holistic activity with having one gestalt as a functional unit. The term gestalt comes from German and stands for shape. It refers to the concept of wholeness with properties that cannot be summed up by their parts and do not equal a simple summation. Unpredictability helps us see war as a phenomenon that cannot be compounded from the actions of the constituent parts. War can be described with a certain precision, but this precision is not necessarily relevant to the parts. The gestalt of war accords with the observation that war does not always allow for logical, direct and traceable connections between causes and effects.