War, History, and the Rationality of Violence: A Re-reading of the Hegel–Tolstoy Opposition in the Context of Agamben, Arendt, and Clausewitz

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Introduction: Modernity’s Test with Violence
The tension between Hegel’s understanding of war and Tolstoy’s critique of war points to a fundamental question at the heart of modern political thought: Can violence be justified as a constitutive element of historical and political order? While Hegel rationalizes war as a necessary moment of historical reason, Tolstoy exposes this rationalization as a moral illusion. This contrast can be placed within a broader theoretical framework through Clausewitz’s politicization of war, Arendt’s distinction between violence and power, and Agamben’s theory of the state of exception.

I. Clausewitz: The Rationalization of War and the Hegelian Horizon
Clausewitz’s famous formula — “War is the continuation of politics by other means” — bears a deep structural resemblance to the Hegelian conception of history (Clausewitz, Vom Kriege). In both thinkers, war is:

not a random chaos,
but a functional instrument of a higher rational order (state, history, politics).

  1. The Hegel–Clausewitz Proximity
    In Hegel, the state is the embodiment of reason; in Clausewitz, the state is the political subject that makes war meaningful and controllable. In this context:

War is not an unethical deviation, but the extreme of political rationality.
Violence gains meaning only when it is controlled.
This approach coincides with Hegel’s role of war in “strengthening ethical integrity” (Hegel, Philosophy of Right, §324).

  1. Tolstoy’s Implicit Objection to Clausewitz
    In War and Peace, Tolstoy carries out a literary demolition of Clausewitzian reason. The strategic calculations of commanders do not explain the reality on the battlefield; war is not something that can be planned, but a sum of uncontrolled violence. According to Tolstoy:

War is not a rational tool of politics.
Politics is an illusion that collapses in the face of war.
In this respect, Tolstoy radically rejects the Clausewitz–Hegel line from an ethical standpoint.

II. Hannah Arendt: The Distinction Between Power and Violence
In her work On Violence, Hannah Arendt draws attention to a common mistake in modern thought: the identification of power with violence (Arendt, 1970).

  1. The Hegelian Problem According to Arendt
    For Arendt, the Hegelian approach is problematic because:

Violence is not the source of power, but a substitute that emerges where power collapses.
War is not the highest expression of the political, but the failure of the political.
This perspective shows a strong parallel with Tolstoy’s depictions of war. In Tolstoy, war is:

not the product of collective action,
but of coercion and blind obedience.

  1. Tolstoy and Arendt: Ethical Proximity
    Tolstoy’s anti-war approach confirms Arendt’s thesis at a literary level:

“Violence does not create meaning; it only destroys it.” (Arendt, On Violence)

In Tolstoy, war does not produce meaning; on the contrary, it collapses historical narratives, leaving behind only suffering and death. At this point, Tolstoy invalidates the Hegelian idea of ​​”historical meaning” in an Arendtian way.

III. Agamben: The State of Exception and the Perpetuation of War
Giorgio Agamben analyzes modern sovereignty through the concept of the state of exception (Homo Sacer, State of Exception). In this framework, war is no longer an extraordinary situation, but a technique of governance.

  1. The Hegelian State and the Logic of Exception
    In Hegel, war is the moment of the state’s self-reproduction. From Agamben’s perspective, this leads to the following conclusion:

The state legitimizes violence in the realm of suspended law.
The individual is reduced to “bare life.”
This suggests that Hegel’s conception of the ethical state has a dark, biopolitical side.

  1. Tolstoy: An Ethical Objection to Exception
    Tolstoy’s opposition to war can be read as an early ethical objection to this process identified by Agamben. In Tolstoy:

War is the suspension of law.
Man is reduced to a body that can be killed.
Tolstoy does not accept this reduction as either historical or political. In this respect, Tolstoy becomes a figure who morally exposes the logic of exception in modern sovereignty.

IV. General Assessment: Two Paths of Modern Reason
Within this expanded framework, the Hegel–Tolstoy dichotomy can be reformulated as follows:

Hegel / Clausewitz —-Tolstoy / Arendt / Agamben
War is historical —–War is exceptional
Violence is instrumental —-Violence is destructive
It is state-centric—– It is ethics-centric
History is meaningful —-History is problematic
While Hegel offers a rational defense of the modern state; —-Tolstoy makes visible the ethical cost of this rationality.

In Hegel, war is justified as a dialectical moment of historical progress; in Tolstoy, war is depicted as the moral bankruptcy of modern reason’s self-justification strategies. Clausewitz systematizes this justification at a strategic level; Arendt and Agamben theoretically deepen Tolstoy’s intuitive critique. In this context, Tolstoy can be positioned not only as a novelist but also as one of the earliest and most powerful critics of modern political violence.

Source
Hegel, G. W. F. Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts.
Hegel, G. W. F. Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Geschichte.
Tolstoy, L. War and Peace.
Clausewitz, C. von. Vom Kriege.
Arendt, H. On Violence. New York: Harcourt, 1970.
Agamben, G. Homo Sacer. stand