In one sense, your checklist is whatever you wrote down before starting:
> Clausewitz also famously wrote, “No one starts a war—or rather, no one in his senses ought to do so—without first being clear in his mind what he intends to achieve by that war and how he intends to conduct it.”
You could also make a checklist of stuff like "reduce effectiveness of enemy's forces" and "minimize damage to your own ability to wage war" - but that's basics which any upperclassman at a military academy could recite, in regard to pretty much any war ever.
It's been 2 centuries since Clausewitz was writing about military theory. He's still widely read because his ideas are big-picture abstractions. Bridging the gap between his abstractions and what to do, with whatever current-day/recent-tech forces you happen to have - that's the job of your flag officers and their staffs. Though their "checklists" will keep changing, as the war progresses.
Well said. But I'm still left with the question - have we actually benefitted in any way from these two centuries of military theory? If anything, it seems to me that wars are less decisive, more prolonged and often more deadly than they've been in Clausewitz's time.
If we treat kinetic warfare as a game, I suppose you could argue that as in any other game, the more knowledgeable and more experienced the players are, the higher the likelihood of a draw. But then, seeing the harm that this is doing to the world, should we not see about changing the rules of war to reduce this likelihood and make things more decisive again, with the aim of reducing overall harm to civilians?
> have we actually benefitted in any way from these two centuries of military theory?
"How to win" theories - when correct - favor those with the motivation to take them seriously, and the smarts to apply them correctly. I hope that overlaps nicely (in Venn diagram terms) with your "we".
Plausibly, some wars have been prevented by military theory - because a nation analyzed their situation, and decided that starting a war would be a bad move.
> If anything, it seems to me that wars are less decisive, more prolonged and often more deadly than they've been in Clausewitz's time.
Human "games" are generally balanced, or darn close. Vs. very few modern wars were started by anyone who thought things were nicely balanced.
> ...should we not see about changing the rules...
If you mean military tech or practices aimed at cutting such harm - 'most every modern military is forever working on that.* If you mean treaties banning land mines, or napalm, or nerve gas, or whatever - when well done, those can be quite useful. But in game terms, they are (at most) just changing the costs (in economic, human, and political terms) of making a "break the treaty" move.
*Edit: Unfortunately, they're also working on some conflicting goals - like "require even more firepower for our enemies to defeat" and "apply even more firepower, to defeat our enemies".
Military theory struggles to provide serious benefit above trite things because the actual reality of war changes every single day.
The most successful military theory is still the extreme basics: Your troops will do better when they want to do war. You need to feed troops and give them plenty of ammo. Training matters.
Adapt or die
>But then, seeing the harm that this is doing to the world, should we not see about changing the rules of war to reduce this likelihood and make things more decisive again, with the aim of reducing overall harm to civilians?
Why would I follow your "rules of war" if it causes me to lose? There is no global authority to force anyone to follow rules, that's the whole point.
It seems to me that making wars longer and less decisive helps weaker parties. Would the Vietnamese have preferred a shorter and more decisive war against the US, or Ukraine against Russia?
Shorter and more decisive wars also encourages war. If there's the possibility of winning quickly and thoroughly then you might choose to start a war. If you know it's going to be a bloody and tedious affair no matter what, you probably won't.
The modern world is remarkably peaceful compared to centuries past. We're at the point where having an active war of conquest in Europe is utterly shocking. Imagine going back to 1925 and saying "I can't believe a European country is taking parts of another European country by force, it's nuts, nobody does that!" They used to call that "Tuesday." The same is true in much of the rest of the world. And why? A lot of it is because it just doesn't work very well anymore. Russia has had very little return for 3+ years of invading Ukraine. Israel has spent two years invading Gaza so far and annexing the territory looks unlikely regardless of the military outcome. War used to be something a country might plausibly benefit from starting in some situations. It's really hard to make that case now, and that's how I want it to be.
People really don't have an appreciation for how destructive dragging a "classical" army across the countryside actually is since it hasn't happened much since the advent of the railroad.
There's a reason it was considered newsworthy and bold when Sherman did it and he was incredibly restrained because he was operating in his own country.
> Clausewitz also famously wrote, “No one starts a war—or rather, no one in his senses ought to do so—without first being clear in his mind what he intends to achieve by that war and how he intends to conduct it.”
You could also make a checklist of stuff like "reduce effectiveness of enemy's forces" and "minimize damage to your own ability to wage war" - but that's basics which any upperclassman at a military academy could recite, in regard to pretty much any war ever.
It's been 2 centuries since Clausewitz was writing about military theory. He's still widely read because his ideas are big-picture abstractions. Bridging the gap between his abstractions and what to do, with whatever current-day/recent-tech forces you happen to have - that's the job of your flag officers and their staffs. Though their "checklists" will keep changing, as the war progresses.