On War: Applied Value and Integrated Use
Through the Law of Value Conservation (macro Y = E × S × T, micro y = f(m) × f(h) × f(t)) with the 7-Layer Depth Modelas the theoretical framework, this article revisits On War (published in 1832) by the Prussian military theorist Carl von Clausewitz, drawing on Ai Yuejin's A Panoramic Survey of Military Thought and the historical record of the two world wars, and argues that it stands as the Value Conservation × 7-Layer Depth methodological source of Western military theory, setting out its applied value and the art of putting it to integrated use.
OpeningIntroduction: The "Value Conservation × 7-Layer Depth" Source of Western Military Theory
Carl von Clausewitz (1780–1831) was born into a Prussian military family. He threw himself into the Napoleonic Wars as a young man, surviving the catastrophe of Jena and taking part in the wars of liberation against Napoleon; he ended his career as a Prussian general, teaching at the War College while writing his theory of war. On War was begun in 1816 and remained unfinished at his death in 1831; it was edited and published by his wife in 1832, running to three volumes, eight books, and 124 chapters. Later generations would hail this great work of "war philosophy" as the classic of modern Western military theory and one of the hundred books that changed the course of history.
In On War, Clausewitz advanced a cluster of far-reaching propositions:war is the continuation of policy by other means, the remarkable trinity (passion / chance / reason),the fog of war (the uncertainty of information),friction (the gap between the ideal plan and its execution in reality),the center of gravity (the vital node where the enemy's strength resides),the principle of concentration (massing force at the decisive point),the culminating point of the attack (an attack that passes the culminating point turns to decline), along with his highest regard for the moral factors and military genius.
The Outcome of War = E × S × T
Macro value conservation: E = wealth/economic/material value · S = social/relational/moral/human value · T = heritage/time/long-term value. Value is a multiplicative structure: if any dimension goes to zero, the whole goes to zero.
Viewed through the underlying formula of the Econ-Sentiment Twin Think Tank, On War is precisely the oldest systematic expression in the military domain of the proposition "multiplicative accumulation vs. divisive overdraw": war is not an independent act of violence but a tool for realizing political value (a macro-level recombination of E/S/T); victory or defeat is not measured by bare military statistics but by the degree to which the political aim is achieved — this is exactly "goal-oriented value conservation." And the "fog of war" and "friction" are precisely the natural source of divisive losses between an ideal plan and its real execution.
Even more intriguing is how closely the "7-Layer Depth Model" mirrors the proper way to read On War: if you stop at the Information Layer (memorizing dates of battles, numbers of troops, who won and who lost), all you gain is the "phenomenon of war"; only by diving down layer by layer —Material Layer (troops, weapons, logistics, resources) →Behavioral Layer (tactics, actions, execution) →Bodily Layer (the army's physical fitness, commanders' energy, the stamina to execute) →Awareness Layer (perception and insight into the battlefield and the situation) →Subconscious Layer (morale, the soul of an army, habits, beliefs) →Mind Layer (strategic thinking, cognitive frameworks, political aims) — can you truly "see the strategic essence." This chapter opens with a ladder of "cognitive depth" across the seven layers: the value of reading a classic lies not in how many times you have read it, but in how deep you descend into it.
The 7-Layer Depth Ladder: Reading On War Should Descend from the "Phenomenon of War" to the "Strategic Essence"
From the Information Layer to the Mind Layer, an illustrative mapping of cognitive input and value output for each layer (illustrative scores, 0–10)
Just as the law of conservation of energy pervades the natural world, so too, from the holistic perspective of the economy, society, and the people, economic value, social value, and time value are neither created out of nothing nor vanish into nothing; they merely transform from one form into another or transfer from one subject to another, while the total amount of value remains unchanged.
Macro: Y = E × S × T = Economic Value × Social Value × Time Value = Aggregate Economic–Social Value (In this article: E = military means and resources; S = political aims and legitimacy; T = long-term peace and order)
Micro: y = f(m,h,t) = f(m) × f(h) × f(t) = f(m)Monetary Value × f(h)Happiness Experience × f(t)Time Value (In this article: m = armies, firepower, and resources; h = political aims, legitimacy, and popular support; t = long-term peace and the international order)
“The Value Cube · Three Readings of the Formula”—fold the two formulas above back into geometry: every variable is an edge, and the multiplication sign is the volume. Three readings (macro adds, micro multiplies / value never disappears, it only changes shape / 1 is the only watershed in multiplication), 12 isometric plates, and a verbatim script you can read aloud.
1War Is the Continuation of Policy by Other Means: Goal-Oriented Value Conservation
Clausewitz's most famous first thesis — "war is nothing but the continuation of policy by other means" — is the cornerstone of all of On War. War is no isolated event but one gear in the great machine of politics: politics is the matrix of war; politics decides war, and war reacts back upon politics.
Behind this stands Clausewitz's celebrated "remarkable trinity": war is compounded of three forces —passion (the people's hatred and hostility, corresponding to the instinct of violence),chance and probability (the creativity of the army and its commander),reason (the political aim of the government). Every real war is a mixture of these three forces. At the same time he distinguishes absolute war (the form that in theory knows no restraint and presses toward extreme violence) from real war (the form constrained by politics, resources, and public opinion), warning that once "absolute war" is pursued as a real-world goal, war breaks loose from political reason and degenerates into meaningless violence.
From the perspective of value conservation, this thesis establishes the measure of "goal orientation": victory or defeat = the degree to which the political aim is achieved.
The Macro Political-Value Composition of War: The E/S/T Structure of Aims (illustrative)
"War is the continuation of policy by other means" means war must serve political value — the illustrative shares of three classes of macro aims (illustrative values, shown only to demonstrate the method)
Hence, any party that starts a war or joins a competition must first answer three questions: what E do I seek to realize (economic gain, resources, living space), what S do I seek to uphold or rebuild (moral legitimacy, the international order, the support of hearts and minds), and for whom do I seek to build what T (long-term security, institutional continuity, historical legacy)? Only when the three multiply to a positive value is war a "tool of policy"; when any of the three is overdrawn to zero, war degenerates into the "failure of policy."
2Three Great Principles: Aim · Center of Gravity · Concentration (Multiplicative Focus)
On the strategic plane Clausewitz distilled the three most influential principles, and the essence of each is "focus multiplicatively on the decisive dimension and avoid spreading effort evenly" — precisely the operating manual for "multiplication" in the Law of Value Conservation.
① The Principle of the Aim
All military action is subordinate to the political aim. When the aim is unclear, force is scattered and attrition has no standard of reference.Anchoring the value direction: fix the target value of Y first; only then speak of methods and means.
② The Principle of the Center of Gravity
Strike the enemy's "center of gravity" (Schwerpunkt) — the capital, the main army, the cohesion of an alliance, the will of the people — to lever the greatest value at the least cost.A multiplicative lever that moves a thousand pounds with four ounces.
③ The Principle of Concentration
"Act as concentratedly as possible": put force on the decisive point and create local superiority.Concentration = multiplicative focus; spreading force evenly = divisive dilution.
On the tactical plane Clausewitz gives four rules of execution: mobilize every available force to the utmost; mass as much force as possible at the main point of attack; lose no time and achieve surprise ("surprise is the basis of all operations, without exception");exploit success with the utmost tenacity and keep up the pursuit. The four rules interlock into a complete chain of "multiplicative focus → multiplicative amplification → multiplicative payoff": mobilize (enlarging the existing stock of E/S/T) → concentrate (forging a local f(m)×f(h) advantage) → move fast (saving T and compressing the window for division) → pursue (converting the multiplicative advantage into political value).
On December 2, 1805, Napoleon faced the Russo-Austrian allies with about 73,000 men against roughly 86,000 (slightly inferior in total strength). He deliberately yielded the Pratzen Heights to lure the enemy forward, opened a gap in the middle of the allied line, and then drove his reserves and concentrated forces straight into the enemy's center of gravity — the allied center — splitting and enveloping them in a single stroke. At relatively light cost the French destroyed some 27,000 allied troops (about 30,000 by some accounts); the Russo-Austrian alliance dissolved and the Third Coalition swiftly collapsed (paraphrased).
Radar of the Five Elements of War: Conservation-Based vs. Overdraft Warfare (illustrative)
Clarity of aim, center-of-gravity focus, concentration of force, offense–defense rhythm, moral cohesion — an illustrative five-dimension contrast between effective and misguided warfare (illustrative scores)
3Fog of War and Friction: The Natural Source of Divisive Losses
On the gulf between the "ideal plan" and "real execution," Clausewitz made the most penetrating diagnosis ever offered and contributed two immortal concepts: the fog of war (the uncertainty of the Information Layer) and friction (the execution losses of the Behavioral and Bodily Layers).
☁ The Fog of War — the Information Layer
Missing, false, and contradictory intelligence leaves a commander as if lost in dense fog. The fog cannot be eliminated by "chasing perfect intelligence"; it can only be hedged by probabilistic thinking, redundant reconnaissance, and admitting uncertainty.The divisive source of the Information Layer: intelligence blindness.
⚙ Friction — the Behavioral/Bodily Layers
"In war everything is simple, but the simplest thing is difficult." Weather, miscommunication, fatigue, equipment failures… countless minor accidents compound, steadily eroding the efficiency of execution.The divisive losses of the Behavioral and Bodily Layers.
Clausewitz's prescription is layered: overcome the fog through "knowing" — strengthen intelligence, reconnaissance, and information processing (the multiplication of the Information Layer); overcome friction through "margin" and "spirit" — keep strategic reserves and redundancy, train the army's endurance and discipline, and lean on the commander's will (the multiplication of Material Layer × Bodily Layer × Subconscious Layer). Together: use more "informational certainty" and "executional redundancy" to hedge uncertainty, pressing divisive losses to the minimum.
Fog and Friction: Divergence Curves of Ideal vs. Actual Execution (illustrative)
As a campaign progresses, the accumulation of fog and friction keeps pushing the "degree of actual execution" down relative to the "degree of planned execution" (illustrative values)
Japanese strength was about three times that of the United States (eight carriers against three), and Isoroku Yamamoto designed Midway as bait. But the Americans first broke the Japanese navy's JN-25 code, confirmed that "AF" meant Midway, and deliberately "verified" it with a false report of a broken freshwater distiller. On the day of battle the Americans knew the direction and timing of the Japanese attack; with their limited force of about three carriers they crippled four Japanese front-line carriers within minutes. Japan lost four carriers, roughly 285 aircraft, and about 3,500 men; the United States lost one carrier (USS Yorktown), about 150 aircraft, and 307 men (paraphrased).
4Offense and Defense: Value Conservation Between Attack and Defense (Including the Culminating Point)
Clausewitz devotes two full books of On War to the relationship between offense and defense and reaches a counterintuitive yet far-reaching judgment: the defense is the stronger form of war. This does not disparage the offense; it points to a natural asymmetry in value conservation between the two.
🛡 Defense = The Stronger Form of War
The defender waits at ease: shorter supply lines, terrain and fortifications to lean on, reserves kept in hand, trading space for time.The multiplicative mindset of "accumulate first, then strike": defense is the storing of force.
⚔ Offense = A Weaker Form of Overdraft
The attacker must keep moving forward, lengthening supply lines and enduring an unfavorable exchange ratio; E/S/T are consumed far faster than for the defender.The offense's multiplicative advantage (the initiative) is paid for with faster divisive losses.
From here comes one of the most brilliant concepts in On War, the "the culminating point of the attack" concept: the attacker's relative advantage is not constant — it rises and then falls. Men and resources are consumed along the way, supply lines stretch, morale and fatigue accumulate; past a critical point the attacker is no longer stronger than the defender, and to press further is to enter divisive collapse. A masterful commander must identify that point precisely and "halt before the peak," converting the attack's multiplicative advantage into political results at the culminating point, rather than being devoured by the counterattack after overrunning it.
The Culminating Point: The Attacker's Relative Advantage Rises Then Falls Over the Campaign (illustrative)
The attacker's net relative combat power over time; once past the "culminating point," it slips into divisive collapse (illustrative values)
In 1812 Napoleon massed some 600,000 men to invade Russia. At first he won victory after victory and drove straight to Moscow, looking like "multiplication" compounding all the way. But Kutuzov fought a deep defense that traded space for time: scorched earth, refusing a decisive battle, stretching the French supply lines. When the French entered Moscow and were then forced to withdraw, they had already passed the culminating point of the attack — cold, severed supply, and guerrilla harassment shattered the army on its retreat, and few ever returned (paraphrased).
In 1815, restored to power, Napoleon sought to end the coalition with a single decisive battle. At Waterloo he was first held stubbornly by Wellington's Anglo-Dutch forces on the ridge; then Grouchy, detached in pursuit, failed to return in time; finally Blücher's Prussians arrived, the French line collapsed, and the Hundred Days came to an end.
Germany's Operation Sea Lion sought to break Britain's will to resist through air attack. Fighting on home ground, the Royal Air Force enjoyed a double defensive advantage of radar early warning (Information Layer) and home-based supply (Material/Bodily Layers), and its pilots, though few, fought with high morale (Subconscious Layer). The Luftwaffe scored early successes but never won air superiority, and in bombing London it let its center of gravity — "destroy the RAF" — drift into "revenge bombing." Passing the culminating point, it slid into attrition and finally abandoned the invasion plan (paraphrased).
5The Moral Factors: The Multiplication of f(m) × f(h)
Among the five strategic elements of On War (moral, physical, mathematical, geographical, statistical), Clausewitz places the moral element first: "Physical causes and effects are no more than the wooden hilt; moral causes and effects are the precious metal, the truly sharpened blade."
This corresponds exactly to the value-conservation micro formula: y = f(m) × f(h) × f(t). In it, f(m) is the material/capability dimension (troops, weapons, logistics); f(h) is the human/mind/moral dimension (morale, will, conviction, popular support); f(t) is the time/persistence dimension. The three stand in a multiplicative relation: to look at the material alone while ignoring the moral is to decide as if f(h) were 1 or 0 — the classic divisive-style decision (seeing things but not people). Conversely, when material means are weak but spirit is strong, even limited material strength can be amplified multiplicatively.
As the German offensive Operation Typhoon reached the gates of Moscow, the Soviet Union shifted onto a war footing with total mobilization (expanding E); the morale of the Red Square parade overpowered fear (amplifying f(h)); and the winter, with its frozen ground and German supply crisis, provided a favorable timing lever (the multiplicative force of T). In early December the Soviets turned to counteroffensive, broke the German blitzkrieg plan, and provisionally stabilized the Soviet–German front (paraphrased).
The German 6th Army assaulted the city for 200 days and at one point held most of it, yet never fully subdued it. The Soviets pinned the army's heart with Order No. 227 — "Not a Step Back" (Subconscious Layer), bleeding the Germans street by street and building by building (divisive attrition waged from the Bodily and Behavioral Layers); meanwhile the Stavka secretly massed some 1.1 million men and on 19 November 1942 launched Operation Uranus, encircling about 300,000 Germans (paraphrased). On 2 February 1943 the German 6th Army surrendered, and both the Soviet–German front and the whole Second World War turned a corner.
6Chance and Military Genius: Synthesis from the Awareness Layer to the Mind Layer
"No human activity leaves so much room as war to this unbidden guest, chance." (Clausewitz, paraphrased) War is pervaded by chance (chance), and whether chance can be mastered depends on the commander's genius — which Clausewitz describes as the union of coup d'œilcoup d'œil (the eye of the battlefield) with decisiveness.
Viewed through the 7-Layer Depth Model, military genius is precisely the linking of the Awareness Layer → Subconscious Layer → Mind Layer — where the Awareness Layer is the perceptual insight that sees the battlefield and the situation "at a glance" (discerning faint light amid the fog); the Subconscious Layer internalizes courage, calm, and tenacity into intuition and habit (daring to follow that faint light); the Mind Layer sublimates intuition into strategic judgment (the unity of political aim and military means). Multiplied together, the three form the complete capability structure of "genius"; lacking any one layer, one exposes a divisive gap in the face of chance.
The implication for today is immediate: uncertainty (chance) is the constant of the environment, and decision quality is the variable multiplier. Faced with fog, rather than chasing the "elimination of uncertainty," train yourself amid uncertainty to dive down to the Awareness Layer and "see"; then use the Mind Layer mind-layer frame of aims to "choose"; finally, rely on the Subconscious Layer executive resolve of the Subconscious Layer to "hold."
7The Two World Wars: The Extreme Specimens of Division-Style War
If On War is the theoretical source of "value conservation" in the military domain, then the two world wars of the twentieth century were the extreme laboratory of "division-style war" — they overdrew E/S/T on an unprecedented scale and closed with the total collapse of the old order, confirming Clausewitz's diagnosis in reverse.
World War I: Pure Divisive Attrition
In the years before World War I, the "offense above all" military culture pervading Europe was itself a one-sided reading of Clausewitz's "absolute war" — it forgot that war must be governed by political reason. Germany's Schlieffen Plan sought to knock France out in one quick campaign, but it foundered at the First Battle of the Marne (September 1914), and the war settled into trench stalemate (paraphrased). Thereafter the Western Front sank into "meat-grinder" attrition, and Verdun and the Somme became bywords for division-style warfare.
Following the Schlieffen Plan, the Germans swept past Paris seeking a swift decision; in the Battle of the Marne of September 5–9 the French (reinforced by troops rushed from Paris) counterattacked, the Germans were forced back, and the quick war failed (paraphrased). Some 1.52 million men were engaged on both sides; French casualties were roughly 143,000 and German about 216,000 (paraphrased).
From February 21 to December 18, 1916, the Germans sought to "bleed France white." After nearly ten months of slaughter, France lost about 543,000 men and Germany about 433,000 — over 700,000 casualties in all — yet the front returned almost to where it had begun (paraphrased).
On July 1, 1916, after seven days of bombardment, the British went over the top and suffered about 57,000 casualties on the first day alone (some 19,000 killed) — the bloodiest single day in British military history. The battle dragged on for about five months, and combined casualties on both sides exceeded one million (paraphrased).
World War I's final bill (paraphrased): The belligerents exhausted, at one stroke, an entire generation of young men, decades of economic accumulation, and the international order (E/S/T), and closed with the collapse of four old empires — Tsarist Russia, the German Empire, Austria-Hungary, and the Ottoman Empire. This is the macro-level confirmation that "long-run overdraw by division must inevitably collapse."
World War II: Total-War Mobilization × Divisive Plunder
World War II drove "war is the continuation of policy by other means" to its extreme: the belligerents mobilized all of E/S/T for "total war" — in essence the extreme execution of Clausewitz's "mobilize every available force to the utmost." But Nazi Germany's blitzkrieg disguised divisive plunder as multiplicative expansion — sustaining on-paper growth by annexing other nations' resources; once the front lines stretched and the will to resist awakened in every country, this predatory growth swiftly collapsed.
With massed armored thrusts, the Germans initially overran Poland and Western Europe, seizing factories and resource reserves, and their on-paper E briefly soared. But this was expansion by division, "war feeding on war" — plundering the occupied fed hatred (S negative), while front lines and supply lines stretched exponentially (T negative).
For 200 days the German 6th Army battered the city, reaching the Volga and occupying most of it — seeming to approach the "center of gravity." But street fighting "divided" the armored advantage into building-by-building attrition, Soviet attacks kept harrying the supply lines, and the Germans passed the culminating point without knowing it.
The Japanese struck Midway and the Aleutians simultaneously and split off a feint, while the main force dithered over "rearming," leaving four elite carriers with decks piled high with bombs and fuel in a lethal configuration — and U.S. dive-bombers destroyed them in five minutes.
Operation Overlord was the largest amphibious invasion in the history of war: on D-Day about 156,000 Allied troops landed on five Normandy beaches, supported by some 5,000 ships and 11,000 aircraft; by July the Allies had committed roughly 2.88 million men, and total Allied casualties in the Normandy campaign came to about 122,000 versus some 114,000 German (paraphrased). Deceived by "false intelligence," the Germans kept their main strength at Calais, leaving Normandy relatively thinly held — a multiplicative use of Information-Layer deception (Operation Fortitude).
Multiplicative Accumulation vs. Divisive Overdraw: The Contrasting Paths of the Two World Wars (illustrative)
An illustrative net-value comparison of the multiplicative and divisive paths across the three dimensions of E (material/economic), S (popular/moral), and T (time/long-term) (illustrative values, shown only to demonstrate the method)
8Mao Zedong's Military Thought × On War: The Multiplicative Way of the Weak Defeating the Strong
The relationship between On War and Mao Zedong's military thought is a genuine and profound fusion in the history of Chinese military thought. According to authoritative records such as those in Guangming Daily and Qiushi, around the time the War of Resistance entered its stalemate phase in 1938, Mao Zedong organized in Yan'an a study group on Clausewitz's On War, systematically studying this Western military classic and combining its dialectical core with the practice of China's revolutionary war (paraphrased).
On Protracted War: The Multiplicative Philosophy of Protracted Warfare
From May 26 to June 3, 1938, Mao Zedong delivered his lecture On Protracted War at the Yan'an Forum on the War of Resistance, systematically refuting the "national-subjugation theory" and the "quick-victory theory." He pointed out that the enemy was strong and we were weak, the enemy was regressive and we progressive, the enemy was small and we large, and the enemy had little support while we had much — and the conclusion was: China will not perish, yet it cannot win quickly; the War of Resistance must be a protracted war. Its strategy of "trading space for time and accumulating small victories into great ones" is precisely the multiplication philosophy in the Law of Value Conservation — taking T (time) as the multiplier and exchanging many accumulated small victories for one great victory: rather than chasing an on-paper multiplication from a single annihilating battle, it accumulates in parallel on three dimensions through countless local victories — E (attrition of enemy strength), S (international justice, the mobilization of the people), T (dragging the war into stalemate and then counteroffensive), building on all three at once.
Against a well-armed Japan bent on quick victory, China played its two advantages of "vast territory" and "huge population": on the regular front it pinned the Japanese down with "protracted attrition," while behind enemy lines it harassed them with independent mountain guerrilla warfare and mobile warfare that "broke up into small units," accumulating countless small victories into one great victory (paraphrased). After the Battle of Wuhan, Japan's plan to "subjugate China in three months" collapsed; the war settled into strategic stalemate, and Japan's weaknesses — overstretched fronts, insufficient manpower, and scarce resources — stood fully exposed.
Concentrating Superior Forces: An Echo Across Time with Clausewitz's "Principle of Concentration"
The deepest affinity between Mao Zedong's military thought and On War lies in the the principle of concentration and principle of the center of gravity. Mao stressed "concentrate superior forces to destroy the enemy forces one by one" and "in every battle, concentrate an absolutely superior force (two, three, four, sometimes even five or six times the enemy's strength), encircle the enemy on all sides, and strive for complete annihilation" — this is precisely the Eastern practice of Clausewitz's "concentrate force at the decisive point"; and the sequencing rule "first strike the dispersed and isolated enemy, then the concentrated and strong enemy" is the strategic wisdom of "choosing the center of gravity."
The People's Liberation Army was inferior to the Nationalist forces in total strength, yet in every campaign it used mobile warfare to "concentrate its forces and forge absolute local superiority": at Menglianggu it massed strength to annihilate the Reorganized 74th Division, and in the three great campaigns of Liaoshen, Huaihai, and Pingjin it used tactics such as "slamming the door to beat the dog" and "breaking through the center" to roll local multiplicative advantages gradually into an overall advantage, finally winning total victory in the strategic decisive battles (paraphrased).
9Ai Yuejin's A Panoramic Survey of Military Thought: Military Thought Read from a Chinese Perspective
The work cited in this chapter — A Panoramic Survey of Military Thought — is a genuinely published book: by Ai Yuejin, published by Nankai University Press (ISBN 978-7-310-02033-1); 488 pages, about 441,000 characters, it serves both as an auxiliary textbook for military courses at institutions of higher education and as a research monograph on military thought.
Key Facts about A Panoramic Survey of Military Thought (per the official catalog of Nankai University Press and public sources)
- Title: A Panoramic Survey of Military Thought
- Author: Ai Yuejin (professor at Nankai University; master's supervisor in military thought within the discipline of military science; passed away on April 21, 2016)
- Publisher: Nankai University Press (first edition April 2005; reprinted many times since)
- Length: 488 pages, about 441,000 characters, ISBN 978-7-310-02033-1
- Scope and structure: The book "sweeps across" past and present, China and the world — Chapter One, "The Earliest Light of Military Wisdom and Its Decline" (ancient and modern Chinese military thought, including a chapter-by-chapter explication of The Art of War); Chapter Two, "Jade from Other Hills and the Source of Truth" (foreign military thought, covering early and modern bourgeois military thought and the military thought of Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Stalin); Chapter Three, "The Greatest Military Strategy of Mankind — Mao Zedong's Military Thought" (the largest part of the book, covering the view of war and the methodology of war, people's war, the people's army, the strategy and tactics of people's war, and national defense construction); it also treats Deng Xiaoping's thinking on army building in the new era and Jiang Zemin's thought on national defense and army building.
For details: Nankai University Press · Catalog entry for A Panoramic Survey of Military Thought, Encyclopedia entry · A Panoramic Survey of Military Thought
Known as the "Iron-Blood Professor," Ai Yuejin taught courses including "Military Thought" and "The Art of War" at Nankai University over many years; his classes and lectures were famous for outspoken positions and for sweeping across past and present. The book's most distinctive feature is that it threads military thought "vertically and horizontally" from a Chinese perspective — comparing China and the world laterally (from The Art of War to Clausewitz, and then to Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Stalin) while sorting past and present chronologically (from pre-Qin military learning and modern military affairs to Mao Zedong's military thought) — and it consistently takes Mao Zedong's military thought as "the greatest military strategy of mankind," the book's running value thread.
Read within the value-conservation × 7-layer-depth framework, its methodological significance is this: military thought itself is a multiplicative system — multiplying the accumulated wisdom of different civilizations (E as stock), morality and the people’s cause (S as increment), and the historical and temporal conditions of the age (T as variable), rather than inheriting any single line or copying wholesale. Ai Yuejin’s reading of Mao Zedong’s military thought carries forward the two propositions Clausewitz prized most: the moral factors (people's war, morale, the soul of an army — that is, f(h)) and the popular character of war (the historical trend of war transforming into popular war).
A note on sources: The book's table of contents and publication information follow what is verifiable through public channels (Nankai University Press, encyclopedia entries, and textbook websites); details of Ai Yuejin's life and the date of his death come from public reports (paraphrased). The interpretations of the book offered here are general discussions of military thought based on public materials, and no chapter-level details absent from the book have been invented.
10The 7-Layer × E/S/T Integration Matrix
Overlaying the core concepts of On War, the macro formula of value conservation, and the 7-Layer Depth Model yields an "integration matrix" — at once an advanced path into On War and a general scaffolding for migrating the wisdom of war into business, management, investment, and personal growth.
| 7-Layer Depth | Corresponding On War Concept | E/S/T Correspondence | Multiplicative Action (Accumulation) | Divisive Trap (Overdraw) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ① Information Layer Intelligence, facts, data |
Fog of war, intelligence, reconnaissance | E: information assets / S: information credibility | Strengthen reconnaissance, break enemy codes, build redundancy (the U.S. at Midway) | Intelligence blindness, blind faith in a single source (Japan at Midway) |
| ② Material Layer Troops, weapons, logistics, resources |
Physical elements, mobilization, supply | E: existing stock and capacity to mobilize | Mobilize every available force to the utmost (Normandy) | Stretched supply lines, diluted resources (the march on Moscow) |
| ③ Behavioral Layer Tactics, actions, execution |
Friction, tactics, pitched battle | E: the rate at which execution converts into results | Concentrate force, achieve surprise, keep up the pursuit (Austerlitz) | Effort spread evenly, execution losses, biting off more than one can chew (the Somme) |
| ④ Bodily Layer The army's stamina, commanders' energy, the vitality of execution |
Fatigue, discipline, endurance training | E: human resilience / bodily health | Rotate and rest units, train endurance, conserve physical strength (the French rotation at Verdun) | Fighting while exhausted, overdrawing physical fitness and energy (trench attrition) |
| ⑤ Awareness Layer Perception and insight into the battlefield and the situation |
coup d'œil, seeing through the fog | S: judgment and insight | Recognize the center of gravity and the culminating point (Spruance) | Misjudge the situation, be led astray by illusion (the German misjudgment in the Ardennes) |
| ⑥ Subconscious Layer Morale, the soul of an army, habits, conviction |
Moral factors, martial virtue, morale | S: the hearts of the people / the moral multiplier of f(h) | Cultivate the soul of the army, shape conviction, win the people's hearts (people's war) | Collapsing morale, shaken conviction, hearts turning away (late Nazi Germany) |
| ⑦ Mind Layer Strategic thinking, cognitive frameworks, political aims |
Political aim, strategy, the reason of the trinity | T: long-term value / anchoring of the aim | Anchor victory or defeat in the political aim; remain goal-oriented (the protracted war of resistance) | Aim drift, detachment from politics, war for war's own sake (World War I) |
The depth of reading On War = Information Layer (reading the phenomena) → … → Mind Layer (grasping the essence)
Value transfers between layers in a multiplicative structure: distortion of information (①) is amplified at the Behavioral (③) and Bodily (④) layers; a misaligned aim at the Mind Layer (⑦) can zero out all the effort of ①–⑥. This is exactly "any dimension at zero means the whole at zero."
11Applied Value and Integrated Use
On War has stayed vital for two hundred years because its theses are not a "manual for fighting" but a methodology of aims, centers of gravity, concentration, attrition, and spirit — naturally portable to six domains: modern war, business, management, investment, personal growth, and conflict management. This chapter offers the complete argument of "six scenes × a methodology of integrated use."
Scene 1 · Modern War and Information Warfare: A Center of Gravity Led by the Information Layer
The Gulf War (1990–1991) is widely seen as the milestone of the transition from mechanized to informationized warfare: on January 17, 1991, the Operation Desert Storm air campaign began; coalition forces seized information superiority with F-117 stealth fighters, Tomahawk cruise missiles, GPS satellite navigation, and electronic warfare; 38 days of strategic bombing paralyzed Iraq's command, air defense, and power grid, and a 100-hour ground war then liberated Kuwait. The coalition (U.S.) lost 148 killed; Iraqi casualties are estimated in the tens of thousands to over a hundred thousand (paraphrased). In essence it replayed, in modern form, Clausewitz's "center of gravity" and the Information Layer: first paralyze the enemy's "nervous center" (the information center of gravity), then convert a minimal physical cost into enormous political value.
Coalition forces used the "OODA loop" (observe—orient—decide—act) to build a real-time intelligence network; precision-guided weapons jumped from about 0.2% of ordnance in the Vietnam War to roughly 8%, yet destroyed about 80% of key targets; F-117 stealth fighters knocked out some 75% of Iraq's air-defense command nodes within the first three hours of the war (paraphrased).
On February 24, 2022, Russia launched its "special military operation," initially seeking a quick decision through rapid multi-axis thrusts; the drive on Kyiv failed to deliver quick victory, and the conflict settled into prolonged attrition (paraphrased; the events are still unfolding). The case again confirms the universality of the "culminating point" and "friction": in an age of transparent information and instantly transmitted opinion (a highly sensitive S dimension), the attacker's overdraw of T and S is exposed far sooner.
Scene 2 · Business Competition: Strategic Aim, Competitive Center of Gravity, and Focus
Commercial warfare is isomorphic with war: the aim principle = knowing clearly what value to create, and for whom (the target value of Y); principle of the center of gravity = locating the pivotal link in the industry value chain where "one strike moves the whole body" (technology, supply chain, customer mind-share); the principle of concentration = building local superiority in the decisive market segment rather than spreading effort evenly across the whole line.
Apple has long kept a comparatively lean product line (fewer, better), concentrating resources on the ultimate experience of a handful of flagship products (multiplicative focus on the Behavioral Layer) and building durable barriers with its operating system, ecosystem, and services (the compounding of T). Its ceaseless trimming of the product matrix and cutting of redundant projects is precisely the business version of Clausewitz's "act as concentratedly as possible."
LeEco expanded rapidly from an online video site into seven sub-ecosystems — phones, televisions, cars, sports, finance, and more — spreading across the board in the name of "ecological synergy" (paraphrased). In November 2016 its cash-flow crisis erupted, widely viewed in the media and industry as the archetype of "runaway expansion and blind diversification."
Scene 3 · Business Management: The Three Principles of Aim — Center of Gravity — Concentration
The Aim Principle · Strategic Anchoring
The company first answers "why do we exist, and for whom do we create value," writing the target value of Y down clearly. Aim drift = organizational entropy (division).
The Center-of-Gravity Principle · Resource Allocation
Identify the single link on which the company lives or dies (core capability, key customer, chokepoint technology) and put the scarcest resources on that center of gravity, instead of sprinkling them evenly like pepper.
The Principle of Concentration · Breakthrough at One Point
Forge absolute local superiority in a decisive line of business (own the champion position of a niche), then replicate it elsewhere; avoid the "big and all-encompassing" expansion by division.
Scene 4 · Investment Games: Stop-Loss, Focus, and the Fog of War
Clausewitz's "defense is the stronger form of war," translated into investing, means protect the principal first and cut losses rigorously — putting "surviving long" (the defensive advantage) before "winning fast" (aggressive returns). His "principle of concentration" maps to holding concentrated positions in a few assets inside one's circle of competence, rather than scattering into a "fake diversification" over things one does not understand at all; and his "fog of war" maps to acknowledging the uncertainty of market information, hedging it with a margin of safety and probabilistic thinking.
Scene 5 · Personal Growth: Decisiveness, Composure Under Pressure, and the Moral Factors
- Decisiveness: train probabilistic thinking and information layering inside the "fog" — separate facts (①) from interpretations (⑤), and avoid betting heavily when information is insufficient.
- Composure Under Pressure: internalize calm as a Subconscious-Layer habit (⑦→⑥) — like the commander who keeps his awareness amid gunfire: the more critical the moment, the less the hurry.
- the moral factors: conviction and self-discipline are the multiplier of f(h) — however good the method, if the will goes to zero, the whole goes to zero.
- Awareness of the Culminating Point: know when to "stop" — the expansion of a career, the devotion to study, the intensity of an emotional fight: once past the peak, all of them turn and bite back.
Scene 6 · Conflict Management: Caution in War and Political Solutions First
The contemporary meaning of Clausewitz's "war is the continuation of policy by other means" is caution in war: since war is only a means of politics, anything that can be settled by political means should never be escalated into violence; even when war becomes unavoidable, victory must be measured by "the degree to which the political aim is achieved," and a way out through political settlement must always be kept open. This converges with the Eastern wisdom of "the best strategy is to attack plans" and "subdue the enemy without fighting," and it is in tune with modern international governance's turn from confrontation toward dialogue.
The Methodology of Integrated Use: A Unified Trinity Framework
On War's strategic essentials × the value-conservation quantitative framework × the 7-layer-depth insight into human nature
Integrated use = letting On War supply the strategic intuition of "where to strike, what to hit, how to concentrate"; letting value conservation supply the quantitative check of "E/S&T and f(m)×f(h)×f(t)"; and letting the 7-layer depth supply the micro-diagnosis of "on which layer (spirit, awareness, mind) a person actually fails."
- Step 1 · Anchor the Aim (Mind Layer): write the political/strategic aim clearly and refuse "war for war's sake." — This unites the principle of the aim with the target value of Y.
- Step 2 · Identify the Center of Gravity (Awareness Layer): find the pivot where "one strike moves the whole body"; if you cannot find the center of gravity, you have not yet seen through the situation.
- Step 3 · Concentrated Allocation (Behavioral Layer × Material Layer): put strength on the decisive point and create local multiplicative superiority.
- Step 4 · Guard Against Overdraw (Information Layer × Bodily Layer): face the fog and friction squarely — keep enough margin, set the stop-loss, hold the line before the culminating point.
- Step 5 · Amplify Through Spirit (Subconscious Layer): use conviction, discipline, and the hearts of the people to multiply the limited material advantage.
- Step 6 · Settle and Verify (E/S/T): settle by "the degree to which political aims/value goals are achieved" rather than "on-paper process metrics"; spot divisive overdraw and correct course in time.
12Summary and Conclusion
Looking back over this whole article, the value of On War can be distilled into three sentences — at once military wisdom and the underlying laws of all competition and growth.
1 · War Is the Continuation of Policy by Other Means
Victory or defeat is measured by "the degree to which the aim's value is achieved," not by bare military statistics.Goal orientation is the first premise of value conservation.
2 · All Competition Is a Contest of Multiplication and Division
Concentration = multiplicative focus; overdraw = divisive collapse; cross the peak and you turn to division.Multiplicative accumulation vs. divisive overdraw is the shared underlying structure of war and competition.
3 · The Human Factor Is the Deepest Multiplier
Material × spirit × time: if any one goes to zero, the whole goes to zero.To read a classic you must dive from the Information Layer down to the Mind Layer before you can grasp the strategic essence.
From the concentration of Austerlitz to the meat grinder of Verdun; from the Nazis' predatory expansion to the Allies' multiplicative overtaking; from the "accumulate small victories into great ones" of On Protracted War to Ai Yuejin's people's-war reading in A Panoramic Survey of Military Thought — two hundred years of military history have repeatedly verified one and the same formula: the multiplicative structure of value cannot be violated. Any dimension at zero means the whole at zero; every overdraft must, sooner or later, be repaid.
May every reader keep a glimmer of awareness within the "fog of war," keep sober restraint before the "culminating point," accumulate value with a multiplicative heart, and calibrate direction with the anchor of aims — so that this classic of two hundred years ago becomes a methodology for action and growth today.
13Sources
The argument of this page is compiled from the ideas of On War itself, Ai Yuejin's A Panoramic Survey of Military Thought, and public historical facts; objective data is marked "paraphrased," and score/index-type content is marked "illustrative." The traceable sources below are all genuine links.
Theory and Books
- On War (by Carl von Clausewitz, published 1832; three volumes, eight books, 124 chapters) — core theses: war is the continuation of policy by other means, the remarkable trinity, the fog of war, friction, the center of gravity, the principle of concentration, the culminating point of the attack, moral factors, military genius.Encyclopedia entry · On War
- Ai Yuejin, A Panoramic Survey of Military Thought (Nankai University Press; ISBN 978-7-310-02033-1; 488 pages, about 441,000 characters) — ancient and modern Chinese military thought, foreign military thought, Mao Zedong's military thought, and more.Official catalog of Nankai University Press, Encyclopedia entry · A Panoramic Survey of Military Thought, Red Song Society · Recommending Ai Yuejin's Book
- The Law of Value Conservation and the Path to Doubling Righteousness and Profit in a Unified National Market (Econ-Sentiment Twin Think Tank) — the source of the underlying formulas Y=E×S×T and y=f(m)×f(h)×f(t) and of the law of multiplication and division; an internal theory document.
- Mao Zedong, On Protracted War (lecture to the Yan'an Research Association on the War of Resistance Against Japan, 1938) — the idea of protracted war and "accumulate small victories into great ones; trade space for time."Guangming Daily · The Full Story of the Writing and Publication of On Protracted War, Qiushi · The Victory of the War of Resistance and the Radiance of Scientific Theory
Historical Facts and Battle Data
- World War I — the Marne, Verdun, the Somme: Guangming Online · 1916, the Clash of Fire and Sword, China Literature and History Net · The Three Great Battles of World War I
- Casualties at Verdun (about 543,000 French and 433,000 German; over 700,000 combined): Guancha · A French History Lesson and the Battle of Verdun
- The Battle of Stalingrad (17 July 1942–2 February 1943; Axis losses about 850,000 to 1.5 million; Soviet casualties about 1.12 million): Encyclopedia entry · The Battle of Stalingrad, Kremlin.ru · The Battle of Stalingrad
- The Battle of Midway (Japan lost 4 carriers, about 285 aircraft, and roughly 3,500 men; the United States lost 1 carrier, about 150 aircraft, and 307 men): Encyclopedia entry · The Battle of Midway, China News Service · Midway, a Duel Between the Clear-Sighted and the Blind
- The Normandy landings (about 156,000 Allied troops ashore on D-Day; roughly 4,414 Allied dead on D-Day; total Allied casualties in the campaign about 122,000, German about 114,000): The National WWII Museum · Normandy Fact Sheet, Associated Press · Key Data on the Normandy Landings, History.com · D-Day Casualties
- The Gulf War (Operation Desert Storm, 17 January–28 February 1991; 148 U.S. service members killed in the coalition; Iraqi casualties estimated from tens of thousands to over a hundred thousand): Cannon Air Force Base · 25 Years After Operation Desert Storm, Encyclopedia entry · Operation Desert Storm
- The fog of war, friction, and military genius: Shanghai Institutes for International Studies · Technological Change and the Evolution of the "Fog" of War
Business and Management Cases
- LeEco's cash-chain crisis (2016): CE.cn · LeEco's Cash-Flow Crisis, 36Kr · The LeEco Tragedy
- Apple (product focus and long-termism; an analytical case): Apple official website
Note: the historical data in this article (casualty figures, battle dates, etc.) has been verified online and is marked "paraphrased," with the sources cited above. Details not verified item by item (such as the specific results of the Battle of Britain or the casualty counts at Waterloo) are given no precise numbers or are marked "illustrative/paraphrased." Scores carrying the "illustrative" label are theoretical-modeled composite state values, not authoritative statistical indicators. The Russia–Ukraine conflict is an event still unfolding; related remarks here are only a general methodological account — please defer to authoritative sources.