When the destruction brought about by the Second World War is complete another set of destruction will set in. And it will be far more drastic, far more terrible than the destruction which we are now witnessing in the midst of this global war. The whole planet will be in the throes of revolution. And the fires will rage until the very foundations of the present world crumble.-Henry Miller in The Phoenix and the Ashes, Geoffrey Nash, George Ronald, Oxford, 1984, p.55.
Some of Carl Von Clausewitz’s observations on war have applied in this new ‘far more drastic, far more terrible’ destruction. Some military strategists argue that his was the first written effort to systematize the principles of conflict. His essays appeared from 1817 to 1828 and were published in On War(Princeton UP, 1976). He said “everything in strategy is simple but not easy”(p.656) and “there is no higher or simpler law...than keeping one’s forces concentrated.”(p.664). Both principles apply in this new style of war, but I must add the caveat that ‘forces’ are those that operate in the private theatre of one’s inner life. Here: prayer, higher powers, new Forces, detachment and character, not sheer numbers of troops, except in small concentrations of, say, nine to fifteen determine success in battle. -Ron Price, comment on Clausewitz’s On War.-Ron Price, Pioneering Over Four Epochs, Updated on 20 April 2010.
After that superficial propriety of mine
was given a good hard kick in the teeth
by raucous rock-and-roll which woke us up
from our day-dream of Mr Clean, Doris Day,
General Ike, no negroes or genitalia: the war
started and I had no idea that it had begun!!
I had just moved to Dundas at the time; it
was a little town in the Golden Horseshoe.
I call it pioneering now; that was in 1962!!
The battle has been on ever since on so
many fronts: running across two very wide
continents, caught in cross-fires that left me
bleeding raw, wounded, slowly recovered,
found the right prophylactic, taking it slowly
now, walking, hands in my pockets, and just
watching the fires burning, harrowing up the
souls of billions in an orgy of violence--such
complexity and confusion, bewildering and so
often a silent agony that insinutates itself into
the very soul, mind and spirit of men's children.
Ron Price
13 January 1996
Updated For Defence Talk Forum
On: 20/4/'10.
Some of Carl Von Clausewitz’s observations on war have applied in this new ‘far more drastic, far more terrible’ destruction. Some military strategists argue that his was the first written effort to systematize the principles of conflict. His essays appeared from 1817 to 1828 and were published in On War(Princeton UP, 1976). He said “everything in strategy is simple but not easy”(p.656) and “there is no higher or simpler law...than keeping one’s forces concentrated.”(p.664). Both principles apply in this new style of war, but I must add the caveat that ‘forces’ are those that operate in the private theatre of one’s inner life. Here: prayer, higher powers, new Forces, detachment and character, not sheer numbers of troops, except in small concentrations of, say, nine to fifteen determine success in battle. -Ron Price, comment on Clausewitz’s On War.-Ron Price, Pioneering Over Four Epochs, Updated on 20 April 2010.
After that superficial propriety of mine
was given a good hard kick in the teeth
by raucous rock-and-roll which woke us up
from our day-dream of Mr Clean, Doris Day,
General Ike, no negroes or genitalia: the war
started and I had no idea that it had begun!!
I had just moved to Dundas at the time; it
was a little town in the Golden Horseshoe.
I call it pioneering now; that was in 1962!!
The battle has been on ever since on so
many fronts: running across two very wide
continents, caught in cross-fires that left me
bleeding raw, wounded, slowly recovered,
found the right prophylactic, taking it slowly
now, walking, hands in my pockets, and just
watching the fires burning, harrowing up the
souls of billions in an orgy of violence--such
complexity and confusion, bewildering and so
often a silent agony that insinutates itself into
the very soul, mind and spirit of men's children.
Ron Price
13 January 1996
Updated For Defence Talk Forum
On: 20/4/'10.
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