The CNN Effect and War

Abstract

Prussian military thinker Carl Von Clausewitz is considered the father of modern strategy, based on his 1832 posthumous publication, On War (Vom Kriege). In this classic text, he described war as a remarkable and paradoxical trinity based on three components: popular passions, operational instruments, and political objectives. The first of these relates primarily to the people, the second to the military, and the third to the government. There is debate in the strategy literature on the interpretation of the trinity and the relationship of these three elements. Although some thinkers such as Villacres and Bassford¹ suggest that the trinity refers to the different forces within a military campaign, others such as Summers Jr.² and Van Creveld³ claim that it describes the actors that constitute the social structure of war. This study adopts the latter interpretation of the Clausewitzian trinity.⁴ In war, all three domains—the people, the military, and the government— are critical to the success of a campaign and the outcome of each area will have profound implications for the others.