[lit-ideas] Re: The Effects of Reading Military History
- From: "Lawrence Helm" <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 3 Mar 2006 10:09:47 -0800
Eric,
Yes, man has an ignoble side and there are usually ignoble reasons back of
any war at least on the side of one of the participants - sometime son both
sides -- but the common soldiers are often extremely noble. Very often they
exhibit the highest examples of self-sacrifice even to the laying down of
their lives for their buddies.
When I read about a war I usually end up disgusted with the politicians who
invariably screw things up, and then I am disgusted with Generals who fight
the last war rather than the one they ought to be fighting, but when the war
is on and in the hands of the lieutenants and sergeants, it is a different
matter.
I've read several books about WWI and marvel that generals could send wave
after wave of men with bayonets against machine guns and not realize that
the invention of the Machine gun demanded new tactics. After World War One
the Germans learned the lesson the best and developed new tactics.
And WWI is a war that didn't need to be fought. There's a very interesting
book entitled Dreadnaught by Robert K. Massie. His emphasis was on the
naval rivalry between Britain and Germany, and were it not for certain
personalities, a certain stubbornness on the part of a few people, the war
might have been avoided. However, after saying that I am reminded of all
the intertwining treaties and agreements and think how could the war have
been avoided?
There are historians who believe that had not one of his own sentries
mistaken Stonewall Jackson for the enemy, the South might well have won that
war. They argue that Jackson was the best general in either army by several
levels of magnitude. That opinion isn't shared by Liddell Hart who thinks
Sherman, the inventor of shock and awe, was the best general.
One of the main lessons from WWII we should have learned is that having a
weak military doesn't prove our good intentions and it doesn't keep us out
of war. It makes war more likely. Had we a decently sized military force,
the Japanese would not have attacked us. They knew our potential, but they
also knew we weren't living up to it and attacked us hoping that would
weaken us and keep us out of the Pacific theater in the near term. In the
long term they had confidence that the Germans would eventually defeat the
allies and America would eventually sue for peace on good terms for the
Japanese. It wasn't a stupid gamble. Had the Germans won they would have
been right and had Hitler been a little wiser in the ways of the military,
that could have happened, but he screwed thing up, the Germans lost, America
began living up to its military potential and the Japanese were defeated.
So the lesson was there for us to learn that we ought not to let our
military grow weak. We should keep it strong to prevent adversaries from
thinking they could take advantage of us. But we didn't learn that lesson
as plain as it was and North Korea decided it could whip the South Koreans
and whip us - drive us off the peninsula and achieve a fait accompli before
we could find our rifles and bayonets. And they came close to doing that.
We have never given up our tendency to take the "peace dividend." However,
when our misguided idealistic scientists gave the Communists the secrets to
building atomic weapons, all that changed. There was no peace dividend in
the offing during the Cold War. We remained on a war footing, prepared to
fight the Soviet Union, prepared to engage the Communists whenever they
tried to take over another country, for almost 50 years. But when the USSR
collapsed in 1989 surely it was time for another peace dividend; so we cut
back on our military and emasculated out intelligence service; because that
is our way.
Imagine our surprise when a new enemy cropped up in the Middle East that our
intelligence service didn't know much about and we weren't equipped to
fight. I won't rehash that in this note, but what lesson should there be in
this for the future? What should we emphasize after the Islamists are no
longer a serious problem, say in 2060 or 2075? Well, for starters we should
become more enmeshed in the rest of the world. We should take the sort of
interest in it we never had. Students should be learning all the languages
of the world. Diplomatic corps should be filled with the best people, and
there should be no part of the world that we aren't intimately familiar
with. Intelligence should no longer be a "mission impossible," it should
grow out of our intimate relations with the nations of the world through our
diplomats, through our students, through our business people, and our
analysts.
Thus, if Fukuyama's or Barnett's scenario is showing signs of success, that
is, if the "non-integrating gap" is well on its way to becoming integrated
into the functioning core, then our diplomats, students, etc can enjoy
themselves as citizens of the world. If on the other hand Huntington's
scenario is proving itself, and some nation or group of nations is preparing
for war against us, then we will be as well positioned in the world to know
whatever it is we need to know to prepare for this coming war.
It is good to hope for a Fukuyama/Barnett future, but it is wise to prepare
for Huntington one. There is nothing in our human makeup or history to
suggest we shall ever be without wars. The End of History would mean an end
to wary, but it is in the nature of our species, not necessarily in ever
individual but in our species to be warlike. I've known a few truly
peaceful people, people whose natures are utterly unwarlike, but I've also
noted that many of those most vehement in opposition to war, are some of
the most verbally violent, abusive, insulting and rude people I've ever
encountered. War is in their nature as well. They are not the peaceful
people they pretend to do. As the motives of these warlike pacifists in
opposing war, I don't know but I can't help suspecting fear and cowardice.
Perhaps growing up they discovered they didn't have the courage to perform
in that aspect of the human condition; so they used their natural violence
in other ways and among them by attempting to keep their precious bodies
from harm by attacking (verbally of course) the thing they fear.
They don't count. Wars will continue to be fought. They will either escape
wars or be drafted into them where with any luck those in charge will
realize they would be worthless in battle and send them to the rear. They
won't be taken into the Marine Corps which realizes people like that would
detrimentally affect the morale of the troops.
Lawrence
-----Original Message-----
From: lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Eric
Sent: Thursday, March 02, 2006 2:48 PM
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [lit-ideas] The Effects of Reading Military History
>>This is America. It's still America.
Maybe Lawrence and David and other history readers
can comment on this.
Seems to me that reading even a little military
history reveals how stupid and venal, incompetent
and nasty, humans are. I mean, as opposed to
Barbara Tuchman historical overviews, military
history shows just how close to barbarity our
world is, how little anything has changed. Calling
it "the fog of war" is (except in a very
specialized sense) a misnomer, perhaps a form of
denial. Like imagining we're living in a Star Trek
world. Brutish from Sumer to now with no let up.
It's like we've always been in this fog and the
drunken Roman soldier kills Archimedes over and
over again, killed Archimedes yesterday, today,
and will kill Archimedes tomorrow.
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