"If we have clearly understood the result of our reflections, then the activities belonging to war divide themselves into two principal classes, into such as are only _preparations for war_ and into _the war itself_. This distinction must also be made in theory." Nothing could be more clearly stated than this, or place in greater honour peace preparations. Like his doctrine of the importance of gaining public opinion in war, it is one of those almost prophetic utterances which make Clausewitz the germ of modern military evolution. Clausewitz, unlike Jomini who did not, foresaw to a certain extent (probably owing to his employment in organizing the new Prussian short-service army after 1806) the nation-in-arms of the present day. And, since his time, the greater the forces which have to be prepared, the greater has become the value of preparation for war. It has been continually growing, till to-day it has obtained such overwhelming importance that one may almost say that a modern war is practically (or nearly so) decided _before_ war breaks out, according to which nation has made the greatest and most thorough peace preparations. Clausewitz elsewhere speaks of "every imaginable preparation." We may nowadays almost go so far as to say that preparation is war, and that that nation which is beaten in preparation is already beaten BEFORE the war breaks out. A failure to understand this fact is a fundamental error at the root of the idea of war as held by civilians, for many of them think that speeches are a substitute for preparations. It is plain that these three ideas of Clausewitz regarding the nature of war, its political nature, the distinction between wars with an unlimited object and a limited object, and preparations in peace-time, are as much matters for the statesman as for the soldier, and require study and reflection on the part of the former as much as on the part of the latter. FRICTION IN WAR I place friction here before the more detailed consideration of actual war, of war in itself, because it is that which distinguishes war on paper from real war, the statesman's and soldier's part from the part of the soldier only, and is therefore to be fitly treated midway between the two. Friction in war is one of Clausewitz's most characteristic ideas. He always looks at everything from that point of view, and as friction and the fog of war, and their influence on human nature will always be the chief characteristic of real war as distinguished from theoretical war or war on paper, it is chiefly this habit or mode of thought which makes his writings of such great and permanent value. It is also a habit which we ought sedulously to cultivate in ourselves.