Which strict limitation of the object within the means available to attain it is characteristic of Clausewitz's practical way of looking at things. In each plan, however, a vigorous offensive aiming at a decisive victory was to be adopted.
Preparation for War
The third place, in respect to its present-day importance, I assign to Clausewitz's clear statement that—
"If we have clearly understood the result of our reflections, then the activities belonging to war divide themselves into two principal classes, into such as are only preparations for war and into the war itself. This distinction must also be made in theory."
Nothing could be more clearly stated than this, or place in greater honour peace preparations. Like his doctrine of the importance of gaining public opinion in war, it is one of those almost prophetic utterances which make Clausewitz the germ of modern military evolution.
Clausewitz, unlike Jomini who did not, foresaw to a certain extent (probably owing to his employment in organizing the new Prussian short-service army after 1806) the nation-in-arms of the present day. And, since his time, the greater the forces which have to be prepared, the greater has become the value of preparation for war. It has been continually growing, till to-day it has obtained such overwhelming importance that one may almost say that a modern war is practically (or nearly so) decided before war breaks out, according to which nation has made the greatest and most thorough peace preparations.
Clausewitz elsewhere speaks of "every imaginable preparation." We may nowadays almost go so far as to say that preparation is war, and that that nation which is beaten in preparation is already beaten BEFORE the war breaks out.
A failure to understand this fact is a fundamental error at the root of the idea of war as held by civilians, for many of them think that speeches are a substitute for preparations.
It is plain that these three ideas of Clausewitz regarding the nature of war, its political nature, the distinction between wars with an unlimited object and a limited object, and preparations in peace-time, are as much matters for the statesman as for the soldier, and require study and reflection on the part of the former as much as on the part of the latter.