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Journal of Military and Strategic Studies
Journal of Military and Strategic Studies
The Ross Ellis Annual Memorial Lecture in Military and Strategic Studies
The Instrumentality of Armed Force and the Role of the Canadian Army
By Dr. John English
Abstract
What I would like to talk about today is the instrumentality of armed force and the role of Canada’s army. As you know, Carl von Clausewitz was the first to develop a comprehensive theory of war as “a true political instrument, a continuation of political intercourse, carried on with other means.” I am also of the view that he argued this precisely because it was the only way to make sense of the wanton destruction wrought by war. From his study of the Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648), which heaped more devastation upon Germany than any other conflict up to World War II, he was probably well aware that war had a natural tendency to run to extremes. In any case, he went on to conclude that only “[state] policy converts the overwhelmingly destructive element of war into a mere instrument.”