Carl von Clausewitz’s On War remains one of the foundational texts on strategy. It’s quoted in war colleges, cited in white papers, and clutched by officers the world over trying to sound profound in briefings. The definition of war as ‘a continuation of politics by other means’ has stood the test of time. But so has its blind spot.
Clausewitz’s theory of war—rational, state-centric, kinetic—has underpinned how we train, fight, and frame conflict. But it’s a theory forged in the officers’ mess, blind to the lived experiences of civilians, particularly women, and to the invisible structures of power that shape the battlefield before the first shot is fired.
This article asks: what if Clausewitz had a sister? What if she were a strategist not schooled in Prussian militarism, but in the domestic disarray of war, in propaganda that weaponises gender norms, and in the systematic exclusion of women from ceasefire tables and postwar cabinets?
Clausewitz’s canon and what it misses
Clausewitz was a product of his time: a Prussian officer shaped by Napoleonic battlefields, aristocratic salons and a worldview where the state was male, the battlefield was masculine, and civilians were either in the way or in need of saving. His theories mapped the logic of military force—the trinity of passion, chance, and reason—but the cast of characters was narrow, and the setting firmly kinetic.
What gets missed? The informal. The interpersonal. The invisible. The types of violence that don’t come with uniforms or frontlines: sexual violence as a tactic; disinformation campaigns laced with gendered tropes; the weaponisation of shame, honour, and social order. And most of all, the people who don’t fit the mould—women, LGBTQ+ individuals, civilians who don’t stay passive and communities whose experience of conflict starts long before the first artillery shell and lingers long after the peacekeeping mission flies home.
If Clausewitz’s sister had been in the room, how might our understanding of war—and peace—be different?
Russia’s gendered disinformation in Ukraine
Conventional take: Russia’s war in Ukraine isn’t just about tanks and territory; it’s also being waged in pixels and perception. Disinformation campaigns have targeted Ukrainian resilience, NATO unity and Western resolve. Cyber operations, Telegram channels and a troll army are the familiar tools of the trade.
Clausewitz’s sister’s take: She’s not surprised. After all, why fire a missile when you can fracture a population’s identity? From day one, Russian information operations have gone gender-deep. Ukraine’s leadership is mocked as effeminate, female soldiers are dragged through sexualised smear campaigns, and LGBTQ+ communities are cast as symbols of Western moral decay. It’s all part of the plan: strategic narrative warfare that aims to emasculate, degrade and divide. These psychological operations are gender-coded and precision-guided.
UN Peacekeeping and Sexual Exploitation and Abuse
Conventional take: Blue helmets are meant to bring calm to chaos by holding ceasefires, protecting civilians and helping countries transition from conflict to peace. But peacekeeping missions have repeatedly found themselves in headlines for all the wrong reasons, including accusations of sexual exploitation and abuse.
Clausewitz’s sister’s take: She’s not here for the euphemisms. ‘Misconduct’ sounds like someone forgot to sign a form, not what happens when a uniform becomes a threat instead of protection. The repeated failure to design missions with gender in mind isn’t just bad for optics; it’s bad for strategy. It shreds credibility, poisons relationships with local communities, and hands violent actors a perfect propaganda gift. If Clausewitz’s sister ran mission planning, gender wouldn’t be a tick-the-box workshop on arrival—it’d be baked into force design, discipline and deterrence. Because in her book, peacekeepers who abuse don’t just betray their mandates, they sabotage their missions.
Women in resistance movements
Conventional take: Resistance movements have always been part of asymmetric warfare: think the French Maquis, the Viet Cong, or modern-day Kurdish militias. Analysts usually focus on terrain, logistics and tactics. And the fighters? Often imagined as gritty, male and camo-clad.
Clausewitz’s sister’s take: She’s read the footnotes. She knows that behind every ‘freedom fighter’ headline is a woman smuggling weapons in prams, gathering intel over shared meals, or broadcasting coded messages from a bedroom radio. Whether it’s Algerian women planting bombs under their hijabs or Kurdish women on the frontlines against ISIS, women have always done more than support the cause—they’ve been the cause. But because they don’t fit the cigar-chomping archetype of the guerrilla hero, their strategic role is routinely overlooked. Clausewitz’s sister wouldn’t just give them medals, she’d give them doctrinal recognition.
Whose hearts, and whose minds?
Conventional take: Counterinsurgency doctrine is big on hearts and minds. Success is measured not just by body counts, but by community engagement, trust-building, and legitimacy in the eyes of the local population. It sounds great, in theory.
Clausewitz’s sister’s take: She’s got questions. Mainly, whose hearts and whose minds? Because if your local engagement strategy involves all-male patrols handing out food packs to village elders while ignoring the women who run the household economy, you’ve already lost. If your civil-military team talks security with the men but misses the women who know where weapons are hidden, you’re not doing intel—you’re doing theatre. Clausewitz’s sister would scrap the parachuted pamphlets and start with a gender analysis, because you don’t win legitimacy by forgetting half the population, you win suspicion. And insurgents know that better than you do.
Clausewitz’s sister writes the sequel
Clausewitz and his wife Marie taught us that war is the continuation of politics by other means. His sister, with her gender-focused point of view, reminds us that it’s also the continuation of power—over bodies, stories, and systems.
But she doesn’t want to burn Clausewitz’s canon. She just wants to shelve her book beside his. Because if strategy keeps ignoring gender, it’s not just incomplete, it’s strategically and operationally unsound.