It looks obvious

Every time that I’m thinking about Clausewitz’s famous observation that the war is “merely continuation of politics by other means” I realize how shallow and unsophisticated was his military theories after the napoleonic wars. Personally I always preferred Tolstoy, which have finer understanding of the chaotic nature of large scales wars, and the limits of central command to control it and effect its outcome. But this definition, regardless of its obvious limitation, enjoyed an immense influence on modern thinking

In its narrow definitions military activities should be subjected to political goals and the military planning should be subordinated to the civilian ruler and its strategic goals. Even Clausewitz’s followers had problem with this definition, and as early as 1880’s. They argued should diplomacy suspended during military operations, how close is the control of the civilian authorities during war and in planning to it and if the military command should take over the control during war time. Even now we are often facing the argument that the Senate should not dictate to the commanders in the field - which demonstrate the blurry nature of the relations between politics and political goals and military operations.

But the graver mistake is the large believe in the ability of military organization to achieve more than capturing area, defending area and destroying enemy forces. It is often tempting to use the military forces, mostly when the army is efficient and well managed, to do more than the tasks if holding and area and destroy enemy forces. I have some familiarity with some of the theoretic intellectual work that attempted to transform military forces into modern organizations that are capable to achieve more than the their limited historical rolls. I can understand the temptation - the organization already exist, and people tend to believe that sophistication and skillful use of it can help in achieving complicated results.

Historical evidence,however, suggest the opposite. Using power, rather than the implied threat of using it, has it limitations. In any attempt of using massive military force to achieve sophisticated goals in the modern age had very limited results - mostly failure. These limitations seems to amplify when a superpower failed to use its diplomatic tools and maneuvering and choose to intervene directly in conflicts. So it was for the American in Korea, Vietnam and now in the Middle-East and so it was for the Soviets in Afghanistan and in the Middle-East in 1969-1970. Counter-intuitive is the example of Eisenhower that was able to position the US in much stronger position, isolate the soviets and built American supremacy - mostly by limiting American direct involvement in regional conflicts.

The urge for non-intervention in the manners envisioned by some of the American founding fathers is unrealistic, it was unrealistic already then and its is unrealistic now. However the practical practice of limited intervention, for very short periods and with very limited scope is the more effective and wiser approach.