In reality the Art of War did go on for some time in the spirit of a handicraft--we allude to the times of the Condottieri--but then it received that direction, not from intrinsic but from external causes; and military history shows how little it was at that time in accordance with the nature of the thing.
3.

WAR IS PART OF THE INTERCOURSE OF THE HUMAN RACE.
We say therefore War belongs not to the province of Arts and Sciences, but to the province of social life.

It is a conflict of great interests which is settled by bloodshed, and only in that is it different from others.

It would be better, instead of comparing it with any Art, to liken it to business competition, which is also a conflict of human interests and activities; and it is still more like State policy, which again, on its part, may be looked upon as a kind of business competition on a great scale.

Besides, State policy is the womb in which War is developed, in which its outlines lie hidden in a rudimentary state, like the qualities of living creatures in their germs.( *) (*) The analogy has become much closer since Clausewitz's time.