A Clausewitzian lens on modern urban warfare

Perceived disconnect between Clausewitz and modern combat

• Several commenters find the article abstract and “academic,” saying it smooths over the brutal reality of current urban fighting (e.g., Bakhmut) as largely an exercise in mass destruction, not nuanced maneuver.
• Others appreciate the historical context but think the piece “fizzles” into platitudes (“urban warfare is messy”) without offering actionable guidance.
• There’s frustration that the author promises “a way to think clearly” instead of offering concrete strategic choices or decision frameworks for Kyiv, Gaza, etc.

Debate over Russia’s strategy and Clausewitzian logic

• One camp: Russia is disregarding Clausewitz—lacking clear political ends, failing logistics, defaulting to rubble-ization because it can’t encircle or maneuver. The war is seen as a grand-strategic disaster that revived NATO and damaged Russia’s economy and elites.
• Another camp: Russia is portrayed as following a deliberate attritional strategy (prioritizing casualties over terrain, avoiding large urban assaults, targeting infrastructure), with some even claiming high kill ratios and eventual Ukrainian collapse.
• Strong pushback to the latter: others call this propaganda, pointing to Russian incompetence, stalled advances, and the fact that a supposed “three-day” operation is in its fourth year.
• Disagreement over whether Russia is “restrained” toward Ukrainian infrastructure or simply lacks enough precision weapons and capacity to destroy it outright.

Gaza, urban warfare, and morality

• Some argue modern wars show the opposite of the article’s claim: moral restraint and “coherence” give way to siege, bombardment, and destruction of dual-use infrastructure because house-to-house fighting is too costly.
• Others counter that brutality often undermines long-term goals by radicalizing populations, making occupation impossible, and eroding international and domestic support; “moral restraint” is framed as strategically useful, not just ethical.
• Gaza and Ukraine are cited as cases where technologically superior actors have not achieved quick, decisive victories, suggesting that urban warfare dynamics favor prolonged, indecisive conflict.

War colleges, doctrine, and the “checklist” question

• Several comments note that Clausewitz, Sun Tzu, etc. are still central in Western war colleges; the problem is not absence of theory but how much officers internalize it.
• There’s a back-and-forth over whether strategy can (or should) be reduced to “checklists.” Critics want concrete conditional plans; defenders argue that real war is too contingent (terrain, politics, morale, external actors) for universal recipes.

War as politics and manufacturing consent

• Clausewitz’s “war as continuation of politics” is contested: some see it as a hard-headed truth; others view it as an amoral rationalization unless war is truly a last resort.
• Commenters link modern conflicts to “manufacturing consent” in democracies and note that moral narratives are aimed as much at domestic and allied audiences as at adversaries.