Karlchen (“Little Carl”) Von Claustrowitz warned large states from undertaking adventurism in small states, inspiring the term “Vonclaustrophobia” (an irrational fear or aversion to military involvement in small or limited wars). Described small wars as “the continuation of inter-office politics and bureaucratic in-fighting by violent means.”
Also coined under-appreciated terms like “the drizzle of war,” “abrasion” or "chafing" (which takes Friktion a logical step further to describe the damage that small, limited wars inflict even upon a military victor).
Admonitions include: “If you start to take Liechtenstein, take Liechtenstein.”
Karlchen (sometimes Charlotte) Von Claustrowitz was the sole heir of a family of Imperial knights in the Schwalmish foothills of Hessen’s Westerwald.
Born on the family Rittergut and educated the Academia Nassauensis in Herborn, during the Napoleonic period he participated in many small, unproductive military campaigns, eventually gaining command of his own field desk and camp stool.
Recently re-discovered in a dusty suggestion box in Marburg, his writings were nearly forgotten and lost to history as a result of parchment mold issues in the Hessian State Archives .
