Blog THIS

Let me apologize preemptively to all the other barkeeps; the latest "improvement" in Blogger is like an electric fan; if you look at it one way, it sucks. But if you look at it the other way, it blows. For one thing, I cannot get the damn thing to recognize a hard return - that's why all the little RPVs in the preceding post - it was the only way to separate my paragraphs!

Aha! I think I've found it - you need to go over to the right side of the page, pull open the "Options" tab, and tell the stupid bastard to "Press "Enter" for line breaks". Cunning plan, Blogger! Who the fuck doesn't use a carriage return for, y'know, a fucking "carriage return"?

Oh, and good luck posting centered pictures and left-justified text! The pics will pull your text over and center-justify it. Slick, eh?

Oh, and I like the little "location" feature - you wanna "share" your location, just in case your ex-wife, a process server, stalker, random psycho, armed troll, or some whacko who just hates your opinion on Krispy Kreme Honeybuns can find you? That's a fine idea, Blogger!

Hopefully Blogger will get its head out of its fourth point of contact soon, or we may need to discuss moving to another platform.

We shall see.

Once an Eagle

It's said that in history events repeat themselves; the first time as tragedy, the second as farce.

So I have absolutely no fucking idea what else to call this; this is the "Welcome Message" from the bipartisan "Unmanned Systems Caucus".,

The wonderful thing about this is all the RightSpeak we're seeing here; "We are this industry's voice on Capitol Hill" (After all, constituents are so...so last week...), and - my personal favorite - "This is an exciting and existing technology that will...improve our lives as public acceptance progresses."

Now don't get me wrong; I've been where I wanted me some CAS, and RPVs, UAVs, drones - call 'em what you will - are a hell of a cheap, affordable way to put airframes overhead most quick smart. I'll never say a bad word about 'em...

EXCEPT where a bunch of damn Congresscritters turn on their knees to become industry shills, for a technology that is, no matter how much ancillary use people like Mapquest and the U.S. Forest Service Service get out of it, highly susceptible to misuse as a surveillance device and a way of waging aerial war on everyone from muj to Mexicans. Eisenhower once warned us about the unholy axis of military and industry - but he was warned not to include in his text the most crucial and venal axle in that "complex" - the damn Congress. And yet, here it is, in it's most ugly form. Sweet Jesus.

But as public acceptance progresses...meaning that as we get more and more accustomed to people watching us - whether from aerial platforms or from everywhere else - and we become more comfortable with a "security state"...will we care? Or will we simply be too cautious to care out loud, lest something overhead overhear us..?

So in the Libyan fable it is told That once an eagle, stricken with a dart, Said, when he saw the fashion of the shaft, "With our own feathers, not by others' hands, Are we now smitten." ~ Aeschylus

"Technology and War" - The View from 1939

I'm currently reading a book entitled The Failure of Technology, written by Friedrich Georg Jünger. It was written during the summer of 1939, but then only published after the war in 1946, since the publisher didn't wish to risk government disapproval, which would have been obvious. An English translation came out in 1947. Friedrich Georg was a brother of the writer Ernst Jünger.

Below is the chapter on technology and war. Notice that there is mention of Clausewitz and a short analysis. Jünger has some interesting things to say about technology and its social effects. I'm working on a post on strategy within a disintegrating society and provide this post/chapter as context for my own upcoming post. This chapter brings up some disturbing questions. One which comes to mind is how would we define "total war" today? Jünger most likely picked up the concept from the writings of Erich Ludendorff.

--

TECHNOLOGY AND WAR

IT IS AN axiom of the natural sciences that the laws of nature are stable, unchangeable, and of perman­ent mechanical validity. Faith in scientific progress strangely enough presupposes the existence of laws which are completely exempt from any kind of prog­ress. These laws are indispensable to the natural sciences as rigid and dependable substrata. The law of causality, for instance, states that the same causes must always produce the same effects.

The scientist who voices a doubt in the validity of the law of causality is obviously attacking the foundation on which the whole Babylonian tower of scientific knowledge rests. He who raises the question whether all this knowledge is worth know­ing likewise attacks these foundations. This very question is outside the scientific field, for we are breaking through the sacred precincts of science if we are not content with its obvious and wonderful results. We undermine these foundations if we ask what insights really are gained by scientific dis­ coveries, what good they do us, and where mankind will be once science has achieved its goal.

Here we approach the ultimate illusion which attaches to scientific progress. Obviously the strive­ing for rationalization must come to an end at some time . Obviously it attains its end once that state of perfection has been reached for which it is striv­ing so untiringly. For the idea of unending progress is absurd and inane, because the infinite motion that rapIdity and forcefulness of technical rationalization it presupposes is contradictory. It is exactly the rapidity and forcefulness of technological rationalization which indicate that we are approaching a finale, an ultImate stage of technology where everything tech­nical attains the same degree of perfection long since achieved in the tools of handicrafts. Perhaps the moment when this will come about is not far off,
but it would be idle to speculate on this.

In any case, this is the great moment which is the main theme of the utopists, the moment upon which they concentrate their hopes. We often meet with the idea that all of mankind's sufferings, all the sacrifices that must be endured for the sake of tech­ nical progress will be compensated for at the end. Such theories of reward, however, while quite right and proper to homo religiosus, have nothing to do with technology. It is not the beginning but the end that has to bear the burden. It would be more fitting to see in these sacrifices and sufferings, the price of man's thirst for power.

The absolute notions of harmony with a state of technical perfection or to suppose a political and social idyll where it can never be found is sheer pipe­ dreaming. Those dreams of leisure, freedom, and wealth created by technical progress are utopian, and so are the ideas of peace, well-being and happiness in future times. They are utopian because they combine what cannot be combined. The ma­chine is not a godhead lavishing cornucopias of happiness, and an era of the machine does not lead to a peaceful and charming idyll. At all times the power proffered by technology has exacted, and for­ever will exact, a high price; the price of the blood and sinew of human hecatombs who in one way or another get caught in the cogs and wheels of that vast engine. The price is being paid by the leaden monotony of factory and business life that is now reaching its peak; by mechanical work for one's living; by the operator's dependence upon the auto­matic tool. The price is paid by the devastation of spiritual life which grows in step with mechanization. We would do well, indeed, to say good-bye to all illusions about the blessings forthcoming from technology, but most of all to that illusion of peaceful happiness it is supposed to bring. Technology has not the wherewithal to bring back Eden.

Indeed, the shape of things to come is vastly different. Since technology is based upon the mining of resources and since its progress spells the progressive pillage of the earth, it is obvious that in a state of perfection it will practice the most complete and the most intensive exploitation on a planetary scale, a mining of all its resources in the most ra­tional manner. This sapping and mining is bound to produce losses which must become increasingly unbearable. The devastations of this pillage are not limited to the exhaustion of mines, of oil wells and other resources. Neither this nor the reckless exhaustion of the topsoil which spreads erosion and the sinking of water tables will be decisive in them­selves, although - in America, for instance - these warning signals are already looming big.

What will spell the end is rather the total char­ acter of these losses which include the human beings within the technical organizations. It becomes con­ stantly more evident that the sum total of the tech­nological efforts and investments overtaxes human capacities, that the sheer weight of the mechanical burden is getting too heavy, that once technology has reached perfection, it will not be long before modem man collapses. Symptoms of this over­burdening are already evident in the mental and the physical spasms of this day and age, the contortions of which betray the high pressure under which we live. Everywhere in the world we see forced, over­ taxing efforts. They are bound to be followed by the reaction that invariably comes after excesses of will power and nervous overstrain: exhaustion,­ apathy, and dull depression.

In this overstraining we also find the key to an understanding of the ideas and plans for total mo­bilization and total war. Whatever their opponents may object, these ideas make perfectly good sense, inasmuch as they outline with precision the situation in which we find ourselves. For this reason they deserve an attention and a respect demanded by any momentous thoughts which do not shrink from logi­cal consequences no matter how grave they may be. The objections raised against total mobilization and total war significantly fail to hit at the crux of the matter.

What is the meaning of total mobilization and total conduct of war? How does total war differ from other wars? Clausewitz, the leading war theorist of the nineteenth century, never described such a war. True, in his definition of war he remarks that there is a tendency toward the extreme use of force and that there are no inherent limits to such use. He mentions specifically three reciprocal elements in war as conducive to extremes. But in the same breath he also speaks of the forces which modify and moderate the extreme and absolute concepts of war; the human relations, for instance, which actually continue between the belligerents even in war. His ideas of war, in other words, show plainly that they belong to a time which could have no clear concepts of the colossal growth of technical organization. The Napoleonic wars could still give no hint of this potential. What Clausewitz assumes as basic in waging war is the use of limited means for limited ends. But total war presupposes total technical organization. By its very concept, total war rejects all limitations of means and purposes. Its total not only in its preparation, its strategic and tactical means and ends; it is total above aU in its mentality of ruthless extermination which no longer recognizes any barriers.This destructive mentality is the counterpart of technological progress. It develops in the exact proportion in which technology itself breaks down all barriers of space and develops a destructive potential which is unJimited.

Even total war, however, has its modifications; even its inherent trend toward the extremes of vio­lence is subjected to limitations and restraints. One such limitation lies in the fact that a war which is waged by every means must lead also to the exhaus­tion of every resource, provided that a certain bal­ance of strength exists between the opponents. By definition, total mobilization or total war abolishes all and every reserve since no reserve remains un­touched. There are neither stores nor funds that remain intact or inviolate, nothing immobile even that does not get mobilized, no inalienable owner­ship that does not get disowned.

For proper understanding of these developments, we must consider the over-all situation of modem man. What characterizes the situation in the mechanized war of the industrial worker or the soldier who is, in fact, a worker, as is everybody who lives in a state of advanced industrialization?

The situation of the worker is signalized by his dependence on machinery and organization. It is signalized by the absence of reserves on which he could fall back. He is reduced to the sale of his bare working capacity, and he must sell it unceas­ingly and unstintingly if he wants to live. He has no funds to guarantee him peace of mind, leisure, or even an extended vacation. This already existing pattern of so-called normal, civilian life, simply gets incorporated into the pattern of total war. In it all human and material resources are drafted, mobilized, and brought into action. Plainly, there is a reverse side to this process, namely, the total consumption caused by total war. Such a war is by no means a spontaneous, voluntary mass uprising where enthusiasm makes up for primitive technical equipment. It is a struggle between technically highly developed organizations which show all the mechanical, automatic features characteristic of an advanced stage of technology. That is why the most important goal of modern war is to smash the technical potential of the opponent.

Technical progress and conduct of war today are merging. We have reached a state of affairs where the technical potential of a state is the determining factor in the event of war. Superior technology means victory, inferior technology means defeat; that is the briefest possible formula to which a definite phase of technical progress can be reduced. This equation forces all modem states, with relent­lessly increasing mechanical compulsion, to support, to speed up, and to push to the utmost the drive for technical perfection. For its own self-preservation, the modern state has to promote, and subject every­thing possible to, technical automatism . Since the technical potential is decisive in war, it is actually a form of armament. Technical progress now drops the economic mask it had been wearing in the early days of technical organization. Technically organized work becomes preparation for war; its connection with war becomes constantly more unmistakable.

Nothing can prevent this. It is conceivable that war can be prevented in a specific case. But it is inconceivable that, in the event of war, the state would refrain from using to the full its technical potential. The incessant pointing to this potential, the propagandist efforts to make it look formidable and terrifying, are parts of modern political tactics even in so-called peace. It also becomes clear why states depart more and more from the old law of nations which requested a formal declaration of war. The stigma of being termed "aggressor" is outweighed too far by the advantage of high preparedness coupled with surprise attack made possible by the technical potential.

Just as a technically organized economy becomes more and more a war economy, so technology de­velops more and more into a war technology; it reveals ever more clearly its armament character. In our dynamic age, technology steps up its pillage of world resources; but while it devours material for war preparation, it reduces at the same time our living standards. It shakes off all fetters of economic laws and finances its organization by methods which constantly increase the burdens on the workers.

The question of just what is gained by total war is, not limited to specialists. That question is raised by the consideration that the total consumption demanded by a total war may well consume whatever gains result even from the winning of the war. What must be anticipated is a condition where there is neither victor nor vanquished, but only general exhaustion. Are we still in a position where we can hope for a gain? Or is the call for total war proof in itself that the fight for sheer survival has begun? In other words: Has technical progress reached a stage where its consumption has grown so tremendous that of necessity it must radically change the territorial and political organization of all states?

Friedrich Georg Jünger, Spring 1939

We Are Zimmerman

The “difference … between man and other forms of life”
is that man has invented what he calls
“morality’ and ‘reason’ to justify what he is doing. …”
--Patriotic Gore, Edmund Wilson

If you have the facts, argue the facts;
If you have the law, argue the law;
If you have neither, pound the table really loudly
--old lawyer's adage

The range of what we think and do
is limited by what we fail to notice.
And because we fail to notice
that we fail to notice,
there is little we can do to change;
until we notice how failing to notice
shapes our thoughts and deeds
--R.D. Laing

War is the spectacular and bloody projection
of our everyday life, is it not?
War is merely an outward expression
of our inward state,
an enlargement of our daily action
--The Causes of War, J. Krishnamurti
_________________

The U.S. serves as the neighborhood watchman of the world, proudly and without apology. We figure we are the Good Guys for trying to keep order and teach the heathens a better way. Unfortunately, since they often behave in ways antithetical to our neatly arrayed protocol and are full of tribal enmity and such, they get killed sometimes.

This neighborhood watchism of the U.S. is related to the outsized news coverage of a discrete tragic event which occurred in late February in a small town in Central Florida, a story which has quickly fired up most of the blogosphere.

We are outraged as a nation over the death of a single young black American shot by a supposedly self-appointed "neighborhood watchman." We know nothing beyond this fact, and the loud and persistent calls to bring Zimmerman to justice hinge on the following claims:

• Trayvon Martin (TM) ™ did not present a mortal threat, therefore the killing was a criminal act

• TM ™ was just a convenient target for Zimmerman's (Z) fantasy of being an American Super Hero

• Firearms are too readily used in our society

All of these are clearly articulated presumptions of a civilized society and a liberal democracy -- all life is valuable, to include that of the most heinous criminals and low-life serial killers. The U.S. is a nation of law, and no individual transcends these precepts.

If TM ™ was not a threat to Z or to anyone's life, then his shooting was not justifiable and not in accordance with our societal values. However, into the simplicity of the legality of the issue creeps the fact that we are NOT a post-racial society, and we are a violent one pretending to be otherwise.

Returning to our neighborhood watchman analogy, If TM ™ was killed illegally, then so too every Afghan, Iraqi and Pakistani whom we killed simply for being Afghan, Iraqi or Pakistani, for we just as assuredly racially-profiled them, too. It's quite simple on that level: We are hypocrites because get morally outraged over one act of supposedly inappropriate violence while supporting a national policy of inappropriate violence.

Yet we project our collective moral outrage and guilt upon Z for his willingness to apply deadly force in what we interpret as an illegal use of violence while we as a nation habitually murder the moral equivalent of TM ™ every day of the week in the Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©), and do so without any self-mortification. And without the slightest irony, we figure if we stamp him (Z) out, we can gain some sort of vindication and atone for our transgressions. We love our martyrs, and if that were to happen, we would get a two-fer in the TM ™ saga.

The U.S. was on board with invading Afghanistan and Iraq and 10 years later is still killing people who posed no lethal threat to our national or personal well-being. Yet surely the Iraqis were simply trying to buy some Skittles and iced tea (biscuits and kaffir?) with rags and not hoodies on their heads, and we killed them as frivolously as Z. supposedly did an unarmed young man.

While the Afghanis never entered the sanctum sanctorum of our protected personal lives -- the sacred gated community -- they did enter the symbolic sanctuary of our sacred financial and business lives when their supposed charges attacked the Twin Towers in 9-11-01. As a result of that violation and intrusion, our taxes and lack of outrage have allowed the U.S. to "go Zimmerman" on tens of thousands of hadjis.

We are all Zimmerman.

Adwa 1896

The GRT "decisive battle" for March: Adwa (Adowa) 29 FEB-1 MAR 1896.Not included in the bestselling volume "Great Italian Military Victories".Colonialism gets its conge'...

The Big Picture

The Big Picture? I would define it as looking at a problem/situation, whether historical or current, as a "whole", that is within a rich and complex (especially political) context. For some reason Americans, in general, don't seem to be very good at this. The reason why we don't excel at this particular skill could have something to do with the way our political parties developed in the 19th Century, the whole Walter Karp argument of "US Nation" versus "US Republic". A specific example of this inability to deal effectively with our own complex social reality is our dubious assumption that Democrats and Republicans represent the ying and yang, the two sides of the coin, the one and the other, of American politics. They don't. Never have. Rather two shop-worn labels behind which various elite and moneyed interests congregate. When was the last real big political shakeup in the US? Nineteen thirty-two? Karp would say 1892 . . . and what followed that was a manufactured war of imperialist pretenses.

I'm not going to attempt to reproduce Karp's argument here, his prose is much better than mine, but rather simply point out that there does seem to exist an almost "genetic" American tendency to avoid the everyday political reality in favor of emphasizing assumed ideological "virtue", although we would be loath to label it "ideological". In other words we focus on the pretty wrapping but don't worry about what is actually inside the box or where it came from or what it took to get it. The important thing is how it makes us feel . . .

And of course, like any other political community in the world, we like to feel good about ourselves and what we do/have done. One blatant example of this are the names given various policies to make them seem something which they arguably are not, such as "Operation Iraqi Freedom", the "Patriot Act", or anything containing the word "strategy". Whenever one sees a label like this it is a sure indication that the level of bamboozling is high and that our great-grandchildren will probably be cursing us for our stupidity, but then what could be more American than constantly scamming and fleecing the "rubes" or rather playing the rube? It's essentially the national pastime at least among our political and economic elite.

And it's probably always been so, at least in terms of our domestic politics (which of course drive our foreign policies in different ways). The difference today is that contrary to the past we don't seem to have a certain number, a minimum percentage of the public who can yell "wait a minute there!" and bring enough of the masses to their senses so that the scam doesn't get completely out of hand. Or is it rather that minimum number no longer has a podium from which to be heard, all the hoopla concerning the Facebook world to the contrary?

Perhaps we need to promote a different way of looking at the world, recapture the real meaning of "strategy".

So, first let's start with my definition of strategy which has been presented before:

Focused adaptation of divergent sources of power assisted by control over time in pursuit of a political purpose through methodological theoretical construct (strategic theory) with the aim of creating strategic effect/a strategic dynamic greater than the sum of the individual power sources. For the strong political community, strategy can be an option, for the weak it is a necessity.

Then let's consider how these various sources of power or considerations fit together. As I mentioned in the previous thread, I think the great Clausewitzian Aleksandr Svechin puts the "whole perspective" well:

Every question the strategist must resolve is extremely simple, but a correct answer requires a great depth of understanding of the situation of the war as a whole; theory can only emphasize the diversity of possible solutions as a function of different conditions. But a strategist cannot limit himself to correct answers for each question individually. The answer to one strategic question will only be correct when it is in harmony with the answers to other strategic questions. We have put harmony in the preparations of a nation for war at the forefront, but it is no less important in the leadership of a war, only the characteristics of harmony in this case are immeasurably more subtle. This coordination, this achievement of harmony, is the essence of strategy and it forces us to classify practical work on strategy as an art.
Strategy, p 306

Which brings us back to "the big picture", but to get what I'm driving at we need a suitable example . . . and perhaps the best example that comes to mind is the current debate about the Vietnam War. The latest round of this seemingly endless discussion involves the trashing of a familiar historical figure associated with the US defeat in Vietnam, General Westmoreland. Colonel Gian Gentile has responded effectively imo.

I am no expert on this subject. In terms of background, I enlisted in the US Marine Corps Reserve in April 1975, the same month that Saigon fell, and later saw what had become of that branch of the US military post-Vietnam, which for a young and idealistic recruit on active duty for training was hair-raising, but that was the very limited extent of my experience. I have read some books on the subject and have had many discussions with veterans of that war, but nothing like an insightful view through study of the specific history of the conflict. So I profess no specialized knowledge of the subject, but I am a strategic theorist and look at this war - as I look at all wars - from a Clausewitzian strategic theory perspective.

It is interesting that in a book review of Sorley's Westmoreland, in Parameters no less, the word "China" does not appear even once. This in a book explaining how we lost the Vietnam War?

This is particularly relevant when considering that those in high government positions in the Johnson Administration were taking China very seriously. Without China and Chinese ambitions(those assumed to be such in Washington) what was the reason for US intervention in Vietnam? Surely it was not seen as an important US strategic goal that Vietnam stay divided, or that the South Vietnamese government survive as regards to Vietnam itself or even Indochina. What made Vietnam important was the effect the conflict had on China and these supposed Chinese intentions . . . Thomas Schelling, writing in 1966, put the complex situation relatively clearly from this US strategic perspective:

We need to recognize that China, as a "strategic" adversary, could not be taken care of by "strategic war" planning that was developed during two decades of preoccupation with the Soviet Union. China is a different strategic problem altogether. New modes of coercive limited warfare might have to be developed for coping with the problem. The entire tempo of war would be wholly different from anything contemplated against the Soviet Union; except for a small retaliatory force that the Chinese might possess some time in the future, there would be few or no targets of such urgency as to make the initial moments, even the initial days of weeks, as critical as they are bound to be in planning for the contingency of Soviet-American war. The idea of "limited strategic war" between the Soviet Union and the West is often dismissed as plain impracticable, and those who dismiss it may be right; between China and the United States a war would have whatever tempo the US decided on, or a tempo determined by Chinese actions in some local theater, not the hypersonic tempo of preemptive thermonuclear exchanges.
The need to distinguish a campaign intended to eliminate the regime from one intended only to coerce the regime into good behavior could be supremely important when the Chinese possess a nuclear retaliatory capability (against the US or against any other population center that they might choose). Making clear to them that, the most potent coercion might be a target strategy that threatened the regime - eventually, gradually, or uncertainly, not suddenly and decisively - and such a strategy would require discriminating what it is that the regime most treasures and where it is most vulnerable.

Whatever its effect on the North Vietnamese willingness to support the Vietcong, and whatever the capacity of North Vietnam to control the Vietcong in submission to the threat of continued bombing attacks, the bombing of North Vietnam must have had one implication for China that went far beyond that war in Southeast Asia. Forcible resistance to them outside their borders can never cost the Chinese more than the resources they knowingly put at risk, the troops and supplies they send abroad; but the bombing of North Vietnam is a mode of warfare that the record now shows to be a real possibility, one that the US has not only thought of but engaged in. It is a mode of warfare that, at least with air supremacy and the absence of modern anti-aircraft weapons, can be conducted deliberately over a protracted period. And it is a mode of warfare that, if quantitatively increased, could cause extensive physical damage inside the target country, denying any guarantee that the costs of aggression could be confined to the expeditionary force put at risk outside one's border.

Thomas Schelling, Arms and Influence, pp 187-8

The decisive factor in North Vietnam's eventual success was outside support, from both the Soviet Union and from China. With the North enjoying this advantage, at the strategic level, the US could not exercise enough coercion on the North for them to forsake their goal of political unification with the South. Invasion of the North would have triggered Chinese intervention and the US intended to keep this war "limited". Overthrowing the North Vietnamese government was simply not a viable option. And as the war dragged on, even US bombing became unsustainable due to the ever increasing sophistication of anti-aircraft defenses in North Vietnam. It was here from a strategic theory perspective that the war was lost.

Tweeking the tactics on the ground in South Vietnam would have perhaps inflicted higher losses on the North's invasion force, may have bought the Saigon government a bit more time, but to what purpose? Would this US tactical success have changed the character of South Vietnam's ruling elite? Would it have made the people in the South willing to die to save the RVN government? Tactics comes down to the implementation of violence to achieve specific and limited goals which supposedly build on one another to create operational and finally strategic success. Violence has it's uses, and war is essentially organized violence, but it is not going to build a political community. Outstanding tactical virtuosity still would not have translated into a US victory in Vietnam.

At this point the tendency of tactical myopia leading to grand tactical speculation becomes clear and the reason for it as well. It allows us to avoid what the real main questions are and what failure actually entails. It also indicates how limited, and complex, even at times self-defeating, the role of violence is in many wars, especially when used as an instrument by "outside" political players. Which is all very depressing for a society conditioned not to question its ideologically framed motives and endlessly fed the pap that large explosions and massive destruction always lead inevitably to "victory".

For this reason, a lack of sense of the big picture becomes a necessity, actually the possible basis for a career as "snake oil salesman" in the current or even next "war of choice". Much more soothing for the gullible is to instead focus on narrow tactics that we assume that we excel in. All that "warrior" stuff is ever so flashy.

Like cattle we follow the same worn path leading to exactly the same place, but with little consciousness that we have traveled this route before. We share the advantages and disadvantages of any herd animal to our and our decedents' regret.

What is a Clausewitzian?

William F Owen has a very interesting article published in Infinity Journal's Special Edition on Carl von Clausewitz (free subscription required to view). In it he describes what distinguishes Clausewitzians from the rest. I agree with his view. I would only add that Clausewitzians think in terms of Clausewitz's general theory of war.

Clausewitz wrote:

The insights gained and garnered by the mind in its wanderings among basic concepts are benefits that theory can provide. Theory cannot equip the mind with formulas for solving problems, nor can it mark the narrow path on which the sole solution is supposed to lie by planting a hedge of principles on either side. But it can give the mind insight into the great mass of phenomena and of their relationships, then leave it free to rise into the higher realms of action. There the mind can use its innate talents to capacity, combining them all so as to seize what is right and true as though this were a single idea formed by their concentrated pressure - as though it were a response to the immediate challenge rather than a product of thought.
On War, Book VIII, Chapter 1

It is very much a way of thinking, a way of conceiving social reality, something of a "yardstick", but more like an interlocking "system" of concepts that form Clausewitz's General Theory of war. The perspective is to view war in terms of political relations (essentially all questions concerning power). Over time and practice this way of thought becomes automatic, it is simply the way that a Clausewitzian views war, that is in terms of the general theory. By nature retrospective, the general theory is capable of being expanded through the interaction of praxis with theory (critical analysis), or simply praxis alone (the military genius).

The general theory forms the basis for strategic theory and much of strategic thought. It is the opposite of doctrinal speculation or the "dominance of tactics" which are sadly prevalent today in strategic thought.

Sun Tzu, if he even existed, wrote about 2,500 years ago and is still read today. He provided no general theory of war, but his thought was expanded by later writers through commentary. He provides an approach to warfare (that of the Taoist sage) and sees warfare "as the greatest affair of the state".

Clausewitz wrote 200 years ago and is also still read today. He did provide a general theory of war which forms the basis of Clausewitzian strategic theory. Later writers, much like the commentators of Sun Tzu, have been able to expand on the general theory. Also a whole series of various "arts of war" covering different political epochs is possible with the general theory, as long as they do not contradict the general theory (following Wylie here).

My guess is that in 2,300 years, if there is still need for strategic theory and strategy, Clausewitz will still be read and discussed.