War Is An Act Of Violence

This is Clausewitz's formulation of war as an act of will imposed on an opponent — the opening definition in Book I, Chapter 1 of On War. He goes on to argue that because both sides seek to compel the other, war tends toward an abstract extreme of absolute violence, though political purpose and practical limitations always restrain it short of that extreme. The definition was radical in its time for stripping away the ceremonial and chivalric traditions that still clung to 18th-century warfare and presenting war in its essential, coercive nature.