Jomini on the Nature of War – Part III – The Founder of Modern Strategy

This post continues from Jomini on the Nature of War: Part I Introduction here and Part II The Burgeoning Military Theorist here. Please note links in blue lead to additional information on those topics.

Baron Antoine-Henri de Jomini, who was a product of the Napoleonic era, attempted to make warfare “scientific.”^[i] According to Shy, this led him to reduce the study of war “…to a preoccupation with ‘strategy’ – a set of prescriptive techniques for military analysis and planning that has continued to dominate thinking on the subject.”^[ii]

“…His general approach to the problem of war, abstracting it from its political and social context, emphasizing decision-making rules and operations results, turning warfare into a huge game of chess, has been surprisingly durable. Jomini more than Clausewitz, deserves the dubious title of founder of modern strategy.”^[iii]

The core of Jomini’s theory of warfare, which he set down as a young man in 1803, was that:

• “strategy is the key to warfare
•  all strategy is controlled by invariable scientific principles
•  these principles prescribe offensive action to mass forces against weaker enemy forces at some decisive point in strategy is to lead to victory.”^[iv]

What is a decisive point?

One whose attack or capture would imperil or seriously weaken the enemy.^[v] 

More in next post….

[i, ii, iii, iv, v] John Shy, “Jomini,” in Makers of Modern Strategy from Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age, ed. Peter Paret (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986), 144 – 146.