Editing Martin van Creveld (section)

==Books==
Van Creveld is the author of thirty-three books on military history, strategy, and other topics, of which ''Command in War'' (1985), ''Supplying War: Logistics from Wallenstein to Patton'' (1977, 2nd edition 2004), ''The Transformation of War'' (1991), ''The Sword and the Olive'' (1998) and ''The Rise and Decline of the State'' (1999) are among the best known. Van Creveld has lectured or taught at numerous civilian and military institutes of higher learning all over the world.{{citation needed|date=August 2022}}

===The Transformation of War===
Of particular significance was his 1991 book ''The Transformation of War: The Most Radical Reinterpretation of Armed Conflict Since Clausewitz'' (UK: ''On Future War''), which was translated into French, German (including a new German edition in 2004), Russian, and Spanish. In this treatise on military theory, van Creveld develops what he calls his ''non-trinitarian'' theory of warfare, which he juxtaposes to the famous work by [[Carl von Clausewitz|Clausewitz]], ''[[Vom Kriege]] (''[[On War]]'')''.<ref>Major K. M. French [[United States Marine Corps]], [http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/report/1992/FKM.htm "Clausewitz vs. the Scholar: van Creveld's Expanded Theory Of War"].</ref> Van Creveld argued that Clausewitz's famous "trinity of people, army, and government" <ref> Clausewitz, Carl von. ''[[On War]]'' (1832–34). Book 1, Chapter 1, Paragraph 28 (p.89 in the Howard/Paret translation).</ref> was an obsolete socio-political construct centered exclusively on the state, which was rapidly passing from the scene as the key player in war. Clausewitz's entire approach to warfare was thus inapplicable to the study of the new variety of conflicts that face the modern analyst, which typically involve one or more non-state actors. Claiming that he had therefore constructed a new "non-Clausewitzian" model for modern warfare, van Creveld proposed that there were five key issues in any war:
# By whom war is fought – whether by states or by non-state actors
# What war is all about – the relationships between the actors, and between them and the non-combatants
# How war is fought – issues of strategy and tactics
# What war is fought for – whether to enhance national power or as an end to itself
# Why war is fought – the motivations of the individual soldier

In making this argument, van Creveld joined a trinity of his own, comprising van Creveld, British political scientist [[Mary Kaldor]], and British military  historian [[John Keegan#Criticism|John Keegan]], often collectively referred to as the leadership of the "New Wars" scholars. Central to the "New Wars" model were several additional criticisms of Clausewitz.They suggested that Clausewitz's best-known aphorism, that war is a continuation of politics by other means, is not only irrelevant today but also inapplicable historically.<ref>See for instance John Keegan, ''A History of Warfare'' (New York: Knopf, 1993), ''passim''.</ref>  

Concerning the "trinitarian" issues, historian Daniel Moran replied that 'The most egregious misrepresentation of Clausewitz's famous metaphor must be that of Martin van Creveld, who has declared Clausewitz to be an apostle of Trinitarian War, by which he means, incomprehensibly, a war of 'state against state and army against army,' from which the influence of the people is entirely excluded."<ref>Daniel Moran, "Clausewitz on Waterloo: Napoleon at Bay", in Carl von Clausewitz and Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, ''On Waterloo: Clausewitz, Wellington, and the Campaign of 1815'', ed./trans. Christopher Bassford, Daniel Moran, and Gregory W. Pedlow (Clausewitz.com, 2010), p. 242, n. 11.</ref> That is, Moran was pointing out that van Creveld had excluded "the people" from Clausewitz's thinking even while alleging that "the people" constituted one-third of the trinitarian concept he was refuting. In his paper '[https://clausewitzstudies.org/mobile/trinity8.htm Tiptoe Through the Trinity, or, The Strange Persistence of Trinitarian Warfare],' Christopher Bassford demonstrated that the actual components of Clausewitz's trinity are:

1) primordial violence, hatred, and enmity, which are to be regarded as a blind natural force;

2) the play of chance and probability, within which the creative spirit is free to roam; and

3) its element of subordination, as an instrument of policy, which makes it subject to rational calculation (or, as in a later version of the paper, "mere intellect"). 

Continuing his critique, Bassford noted that 

<blockquote>"One need only ''read'' the paragraph in which Clausewitz defined his Trinity to see that the words 'people,' 'army,' and 'government' appear nowhere at all in the list of the Trinity's components.... Creveld's and Keegan's assault on Clausewitz's trinity is not only a classic 'blow into the air,' i.e., an assault on a position Clausewitz doesn't occupy. It is also a pointless attack on a concept that is quite useful in its own right. In any case, their failure to read the actual wording of the theory they so vociferously attack, and to grasp its deep relevance to the phenomena they describe, is hard to credit."<ref name=TipToe /></blockquote>

For a broader critique of the "New Wars" writers' treatment of Clausewitz, see Bart Schuurman (University of Utrecht), ''[https://press.armywarcollege.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2515&context=parameters Clausewitz and the 'New Wars' Scholars],'' ''Parameters'', Spring 2010, pp.89-100. See also the sixteen essays presented in ''Clausewitz in the Twenty-First Century'' edited by [[Hew Strachan]] and Andreas Herberg-Rothe.<ref>{{cite book |editor1-first= Hew |editor1-last= Strachan |editor2-first= Andreas |editor2-last= Herberg-Rothe |title= Clausewitz in the Twenty-First Century: Proceedings of a March, 2005 conference at Oxford |publisher= Oxford University Press |year= 2007 }}</ref>

The "New Wars" literature proved useful in identifying some of the general characteristics of wars in the post-WWII and especially the immediate post-Cold War eras. Van Creveld noted that many of the wars fought after 1945 were [[low-intensity conflict]]s (LICs) which powerful states ended up losing. The book argued that we are seeing a decline of the nation-state, without a comparable decline in organized violence. Moreover, in his view, armies consistently train and equip to fight a conventional war, rather than the LICs they are most likely to face. Consequently, it is imperative that nation-states change the training of their armed forces and rethink their weapon procurement programs.{{citation needed|date=August 2022}} In a commander's quest for certainty in battlefield information, van Creveld popularized the term "directed telescope" to describe the use of specially selected and trusted officers as special agents or observers for the commander".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://usacac.army.mil/cac2/cgsc/carl/resources/csi/Griffin/GRIFFIN.asp |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101107150759/http://usacac.army.mil/cac2/cgsc/carl/resources/csi/Griffin/GRIFFIN.asp |url-status=dead |archive-date=7 November 2010 |title=Directed Telescope |publisher=Army.mil |access-date=2012-02-17}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|title=The 33 Strategies of War |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LqbbUBHK8b4C&pg=PA65 |page=65 |first=Robert|last=Greene |year=2010 |publisher=Profile Books |isbn=978-1-84765-142-6|quote=...is what the military historian Martin van Creveld calls "a directed telescope": people in various parts of the chain [of command], and elsewhere, to give you instant information from the battlefield."}}</ref>

The book's contemporary influence is attested to by the fact that, until the middle of 2008, it was included on the list of required reading for [[United States Army]] officers, and (with [[Sun Tzu]] and Clausewitz) the third non-American entry on the list.<ref name="guardian2005">Brian Whitaker, [https://www.theguardian.com/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1653454,00.html "Nowhere to run"], 29 November, ''[[The Guardian]]'', 2005</ref> After the counter-blast from actual scholars of Clausewitz, however, the "New Wars" critique of his work and its influence largely disintegrated. The idea that states were no longer key players became increasingly irrelevant in the face of renewed competition among the Great Powers after the rise of China and growing international hostility to what was widely seen as Chinese economic warfare against the West.

===The Privileged Sex===
In addition to his books on military history, van Creveld has written several books on other issues. The most prominent of these is perhaps his anti-feminist polemic ''The Privileged Sex'' (2013). In the book, van Creveld argues that the systematical oppression of women (as claimed by [[feminist]]s) is a myth unsupported by any serious data and that women tend to enjoy more social protections and privileges than do men.<ref>{{cite book|last1=van Crefeld|first1=Martin|title=The Privileged Sex|date=2013|publisher=Createspace|isbn=978-1484983126}}</ref>