On War

by Carl von Clausewitz

Hence we think that, according to the majority of ascertained facts, the following circumstances chiefly bring about the overthrow of the enemy.

1. Dispersion of his army if it forms, in some degree, a potential force.

2. Capture of the enemy’s capital city, if it is both the centre of the power of the State and the seat of political assemblies and actions.

3. An effectual blow against the principal ally, if he is more powerful than the enemy himself.

We have always hitherto supposed the enemy in war as a unity, which is allowable for considerations of a very general nature. But having said that the subjugation of the enemy lies in the overcoming his resistance, concentrated in the centre of gravity, we must lay aside this supposition and introduce the case, in which we have to deal with more than one opponent.

If two or more States combine against a third, that combination constitutes, in a political aspect, only one war, at the same time this political union has also its degrees.

The question is whether each State in the coalition possesses an independent interest in, and an independent force with which to prosecute, the war; or whether there is one amongst them on whose interests and forces those of the others lean for support. The more that the last is the case, the easier it is to look upon the different enemies as one alone, and the more readily we can simplify our principal enterprise to one great blow; and as long as this is in any way possible, it is the most thorough and complete means of success.

We may, therefore, establish it as a principle, that if we can conquer all our enemies by conquering one of them, the defeat of that one must be the aim of the war, because in that one we hit the common centre of gravity of the whole war.

There are very few cases in which this kind of conception is not admissible, and where this reduction of several centres of gravity to one cannot be made. But if this cannot be done, then indeed there is no alternative but to look upon the war as two or more separate wars, each of which has its own aim. As this case supposes the substantive independence of several enemies, consequently a great superiority of the whole, therefore in this case the overthrow of the enemy cannot, in general, come into question.

We now turn more particularly to the question, When is such an object possible and advisable?