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Page 1: Military Review - Slim

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Page 2: Military Review - Slim

Lieutenant General Leonard P. Wishart III

Commandant, USA(;GSC

Brigadier General (P) John E. Miller

Deputy Commandant, USACGSC

Military Review Staff

Colonel Phillip W. Childress Editor in C/if()f

LieulenanlColonel Donald G. Rhodes AssocIate Editor Major Chris J. LeBlanc Managing Editor Major Jose H. Rivera Editor, Latin American Editions Mr. Phillip R. Davis Prod.Jction Editor Mr. D. M Giangreco Design Editor Patricia L. Dunn Books & FeallTes Mr. Charles A. Mar1inson III Art and Design

Consunlng Editors Colonel sergio Pedro Lima Brazilian AI1Tly. Brazilian Edition Major EdJardo Aldunale Chilean Army; Spanish Eaition

By Order of the Secretary of the Army:

Carl E. Vuono General, Unrted States Army Chief of Staff

Official: William J. Meehan II Brigadier General, United Slales Army The Adjutant General

The ~ of MILITARY REVIEW IS 10 provide a forum for the open exchange of ideas on military affaitS: 10 focus 00 concepls, dOClnM and war· fightirq allhetaelicaJ and operalionalloYelsofwar; and to suppor11he edlJca!ion. training. doclr"" dewlopmen! and .,tegallon miSSIons of lhe Cern­btned Arms center and the Command and Gen­eral Staff College. Prolessiooal Bulletitll00-90. MILITARY REVIEW, appears 1TQ'1lflly in English and SpanISh and bi­n'IlJI1thly II Patu~ Sgeood·<:!ass postage paid at le-.worth. KS 60048-9998. and addi­tional entry offices. This publicatlon presents p~

1esslonaJ inbmalion, bU1 the views l'Xpresse<l Ilere", are those of tile authors. not tile [)epa11­men! Of De/etlSe Of its elements. The conlent does not necessarily re1lecl !he official US Am'Iy posi­tion and does not change Of S1Jpersede any infor· mation in al1er official US Anrny publiCatiOnS. MIUTARY REVIEW tile right to edrt malerial. Basis of official distribution .. one jMlf general oflioef and one per r..... field goade offICerS of the AclIve Army. and one pet headquarte,s{bat· tallon and higher} oflhe Army National Guard and the US Army Reserve. MILITARY REVIEW is available on microfdm trQ'Tl University Mierofrlrns, An" Artlor; MI48106, and is indm<ed by the PAIS {Public ~ Infoonation S&rvi<::e) Bufelin. Post· rnas1ef: SeOO change of aalIess inlormaliOO to MIll­11>.FlV REVIEW. USltCGSC. Fort l.eaI<>nvoth, KS 66027~1Q, Telep/n>e: (913) 664-5642 cr AIJIt). '<ON 55l!-Q642; Subscriptions (913) 684-5130.

MILITARY REVIEW (USPS 123-830) US ISSN 0026-4148

Military Review HeadQuanetS, Depanmenl of the Amy

~by US ARMY COMMAND AND GENERAL STAFF COLlEGE

VOWME LXX· MaV 1990 • NO 5 Professional Bullelln 100-90-5

CONTENTS

2 Command by General John W Foss, US Army

9 Perspectives on Command

10 Higher Command in War by Field Marshal Sir William Slim

22 Corps Command in World War II by Major General V\oade H. Haislip

33 Leadership at Higher Echelons by General J Lawton Collins

46 Patton's Staff and the Battle of the Bulge by Ueutenant Colonel Paul G. Munch, US Army

55 The Diplomat Warrior by Ueutenant Colonel (P) Rudolph C. Barnes Jr., US Army Reserve

64 J. F. C. Fuller and B. H. Liddell Hart: AComparison

by Brian Holden Reid

74 Toward aProfessional Military Ethic by Ueutenant Colonel (P) Mason E. Smith, US Army

83 Insights by Captain Stephen C. Danckert, US Army

84 Summaries the best from other journals

86 Letters

89 From My BooksheH by Major General Michael F Spigelmire, US Army

90 Book Reviews contemporary reading for the professional

Page 3: Military Review - Slim

From the Editor Duril)g the centennial year of the birth ofGeneral Dwight D. Eisenhower, it is appropri­

ate for military officers of all ranks to reflect on the requirements of command. For mem­bers of the Armed Forces and others interested in the profession of arms, the very name Eisenhower, or Ike. is synonymous with high-level command in coalition warfare. Ike's success during World War II is a case study in the personal aspects of commandership. Remembering Ike and anticipating the awesome challenges facing future military leaders, the editorial staffselected command as the theme for this issue ofMilitary Review. A tribute to Ike will be presented in our October 1990 issue.

In today's fast-paced, high-tech Army, there is an inadvertent tendency on the part of some officers to dilute the importance of command by lumping the term together with the processes of command such as control, communications, intelligence, and so forth, Obvious examples are the well-used acronyms C' (command and control) and C31 (com­mand, control, communications and intelligence~Although most officers know that there are distinct differences between the above terms and command, there is always the danger that the study of, and preparation for, command will get short shrift in the development of our future military leaders. Of course, this eventuality must never be allowed to happen.

At every opportunity, General John W. Foss, commanding general, US Army Training and Doctrine Command, makes a point ofhighlighting the differences between command and its processes. His views, based on years of experience and a great deal of thought, reinforce the doctrinal definitions and concepts contained in US Army Field Manual 22 ­103, Leadership and Camm<lnd at Senior Levels. We present General Foss' point of view in

our lead article, titled simply "Command." Although doctrine, theory and peacetime experiences are important to the develop­

ment of future commanders, an exposure to the knowledge gained by successful comman­ders in. past wars is an essential part of the education process. To make this knowledge available to our readers, the editorial staff located tape recordings of presentations to past CGSC classes by rhree outstanding senior commanders of World War 11-Field Marshal Sir William Slim, Major General Wade H. Haislip and General J. Lawton Collins-and edited their remarks for presentation in this special issue. Although all three of these "mas­ters of the art of command" spoke at Leavenworth four decades ago, their comments are just as relevant today as they were back then. As a matter of fact, some of their techniques and procedures are included in current Army doctrine.

Slim's presentation, titled "Higher Command in War," highlighted his adventures as the commanding general of Fourteenth Army in India and Burma. Basically, he addressed three issues: the commander's personality; his headquarters and staff; and the ways and means ofexercising command. Major General Wade H. Haislip commanded the XV Corps in Europe during World War II. His presentation gave the CGSC Class of 1950-1951 a vicarious experience in the challenges of corps command in combat. Haislip's talk gave meaning tb suchtennsas "risk, uncertainty and tension." This issue'sfinal perspective on command is a presentation by General J. Lawton Collins. Collins commanded the 25th Infantry Division in the Pacific and VII Corps in Europe during World War II and served as the chief of staff of the Army from 1949-1953. His Leavenworth speech highlighted the qualities, attributes and techniques required for "leadership at higher echelons." His views on the senior commander's need to be attuned to public opinion are especially relevant to the Army of the 1990s.

We hope you find these old and new views on command to be of interest in your profes­sional development. Let us hear from you.

PWC

Page 4: Military Review - Slim

General John W. Foss, US Army

Page 5: Military Review - Slim

THE EVOLUTION ofwarfare, enhanced by dramaric advances in technology, has led

to high demands on mobility, agility and rapid decision making. Technology has prompted not only great demands, but also a myriad of devices to assist the commander. How we com­mand will be the key to our future success. Dur­ing the coming decade, the Army must stress and reinforce some aspects of command that have always been important, but which now have become even more essential.

We can choose one of two paths-a strong command path or a strong control path. Tech­nology and electronic devices will push us toward control. Such a path is dangerous. Only the command path provides for initiative, the acceptance of risk and the rapid seizure of opportunities on the battlefield. The control path appears safer but leads to caution, a more deliberate manner, and an emphasis on proc­ess as opposed to outcome. We must realize, though, that the future battlefield will be less forgiving of slow decisions than ever before. It will not be a place for cautious, bureaucratic centralizers glued to computer monitors waiting for that one additional piece of information which will allow a "sure" decision to be made.

This article argues for a strongcommand phi­losophy for the US Army and asserts that we must begin to embed that philosophy through­out the force now. This strong command philos­ophy empowers commanders with maximum authority to accomplish their tasks, to develop a strong chain of command and to practice com­mand on a daily basis in peacetime training just as we will have to exercise it in war.

Philosophy. A strong command philoso­phy is essential to how our Army functions in peace and in war. We have had many fine com­manders, present and past, who have practiced a strong command phHosophy! whether it be:

When in charge, take charge! General Maxwell R. Thurman

or Never teU people how to do things. TeU them

what to do and they wiU surprise you with their ingenuity. General George S. ParronJr.

As an institution, though, we are not consis­tent in our application of command and com­mand authority. We often send our subordi­nates conflicting signals-in how we act, what we say, or even what we call things. When we say "C4," we tend to place all parts of com­mand, control, communications and comput­ers on an equal basis. However, we all know that control, communications and computers are subordinate to, and support, command.

What does a strong command philosophy entail? It is a total approach to empower com­manders with the authority to deal with tasks as assigned in combat or peacetime. We have often referred to this as "mission tactics" or "mission orders" or freedom of action for the commander to execute his mission in the way he sees fit, rather than being told how to do it. To deal with such a concept, we must first place our approach to command in perspective; then discuss the role of control, with communica­tion and computers clearly defined as what they are-components of the control appararus that supports command.

Command. A strong command philosophy is built around three precepts: vision, free­dom ofaction and responsibility. A commander must design a simple command system that will survive the dynamics of combat and is based upon a strong command philosophy rooted in our first precept-mission tactics. Who is better able than the commander on the ground, for­ward at the decisive point, to recognize and seize the opportunity? The commander must be

MILITARY REVIEW. May 1990 3

Page 6: Military Review - Slim

COMMAND Commander's Intent

(Vision)

Ar---------, r---------, Priority of

Mission Tactics Main Effort (Freedom 01 Action) (Responsibility)

Figure

empowered to exploit these opportunities and avoid the vulnerabilities of dynamic combat. Only the practice of mission tactics will enable the decisive commander to exercise initiative and in recognizing opportunity, rapidly accom­plish the mission.

The commander must, however, act within the parameters of the overall mission. An under­standing ofthe intent of the higher commander is a prerequisite to mission tactics. Our next pre­cept-"commander's intent"-provides vision and enables subordinate commanders to clearly understand what the larger force must accom­plish in order to gain victory. The commander's intent is designed not to restrain, but to unleash a subordinate by giving him greater freedom of action to accomplish the mission. Subordinate commanders view their mission within the con­text of the higher commander's intent. Should battlefield opportunities arise, the commander can immediately capitalize on them, rather than wait on instructions from higher head­quarters.

But the display of initiative and the exercise of freedom of action within the Commander's intent also bring attendant responsibilities. These are governed by our third precept-the designation ofthe maineffort. The commander who has been assigned the main effort knows he h:).S greater freedom of action and lesser responsibilities to the rest of the force. Com­mahders who have been assigned missions other than the main effort know they have

responsibilities to support the main effort (for example, protect the flank, provide supporting fires, and the like) and not divert resources from the main effort. In the chaos of combat, an understanding of the main effort provides a common basis for action.

Thus, a strong command philosophy is really a three~legged stool. Mission tactics (freedom of action), reinforced by knowledge of the com­mander's intent (vision) and focllsed on a main effort (responsibility) constitute the basis of a strong command philosophy. This synergism results in effective command and a philosophy relevant to any battlefield, in any theater of operations, in any type of conflict.

Control The proper understanding of con­trol is embodied in the axiom, "The more con­trol imposed, the less command applied." Con­trol, by definition, restricts command. This is not to say, however, that control is bad. No one has "total" freedom of action all the time. Some control is necessary to focus the effort. In some complicated actions, a great deal of control is required to ensure synchronization. Therefore, the rule is to apply only those control measures essential to the operation.

The most common form of control is the mission itself. Not only does the mission struc­ture commonality of actions, it focuses the en­tire unit on the main task at the critical time.

Another control that is automatically ap­plied is the common doctrine adopted by the US Anny and instilled in commanders during their formative years in units and in military schools. Higher commanders expect their subordi­nates to understand, apply and act within the.tenets ofArmy doctrine.

Most controls, however, are not automatic. For example, the operations order (OPORD) is tailored to the mission as are the graphics on the operations overlay. Although optional and situationally dependent, these are, neverthe­less, controls and must be reviewed by the com­mander prior to implementation. Well~meaning

staff officers sometimes sprinkle control mea­sures into an OPORD without full cognizance

May 1990 • MILITARY REVIEW 4

Page 7: Military Review - Slim

CONTROL

Mission (Task)

"" r------.., ...----...,/ ~ SigmaControl Common StarMeasures Doctrine

Figure 2

of the impediments placed upon subordinate commanders. The basic rule governing option­al control measures is the test of "purpose." Each control measure should have a specific purpose that contributes to mission accom­plishment. If a control measure fails the pur­pose test, do not apply it-it unnecessarily restricts freedom of action. OccasionaUy, the purpose test will necessitate very restrictive controls. For example, certain night operations or attacks on fortified positions, by their very complicated nature, require a high degree of synchronization among several units and sup­porting fires. Thus, selective and restrictive control win be required. Once these specific missions are completed and the need for re­strictive control abates, the commander should then relax controls and revert back to the mini­mum control necessary.

Some controls ate system oriented. As with operational controls, the commander should specifically review these control systems-such as the Army Tactical Command and Control System (Sigma Star)-to determine their appli­cability to the mission. This is especially impor­tant because without specific direction from the commander, the system tends to run toward the goal of efficiency rather than effectiveness. But, as we all know, the mission demands effectiveness.

In summary, control is inversely proportional to command. A good commander is like a good horseman; he maintains a strong grip and, at the same tibe, keeps a loose rein. He allmvs

COMMAND

freedom of action, but is prepared to take con­trol quickly when required. Ultimately, "what," not "how," is most important.

Communications. Communications pro­vide the link between command and control that enables commanders to lead from the front and directly influence the action. A robust communications capability facilitates com~

mand by allowing the commander to tighten or loosen control rapidly through some mode of communication other than face-to-face. A strong, flexible communications system allows the staff and subordinate commanders to pass information. O:Jmmunications systems are tools that facilitate the command and control im· posed by the commander, enabling him to issue timely orders directly to subordinates. But even with very sophisticated ccmmunications capa­bilities, the commander must strive to person· ally issue orders to subordinates face-to-face whenever he can or, failing that, by voice radio. The tone, rate and pitch of a commander's voice will tell mote than any graphic or written message could ever convey.

Computers. These remarkable and ubiq, uitous devices are an aid to help provide infor­mation to the staff and commander. This infor­mation must then be assessed for its operational relevance by the staff and passed to the com­mander. The commander must resist the temp­tation to tie himself to the computer. Although the flow of information is fascinating, most data is input by the staffand is intended for the staff. The commander cannot treat the computer

~ -c-o-m-m-a-n-d--'j ,. ,......---....,

\1,---c-o-m-m-u-n-jC-a-ti-o-n-s----,

\, Computers ]

Figure 3

MILITARY REVIEW. May 1990 5

Page 8: Military Review - Slim

information as totally correct because a com­puter can be given poor, partial or outdated information on which to compute. The com­puter also passes on all the trivial data impor­tant to only a few individuals, none of whom is a commander. After all, a computer does not

Ifwe learned nothing else from the recent operations in Grenada andPanama,

we have learned that soldiers fight exacdyas they are trained in peacetime. We must command in peacetime as we

command in war. We mustplace the same responsibilities upon subordinates in peace­

time that we expect ofthem in combat.

question the input. Output must be asses.,ed. Excessive reHance on computers, or a series of computers, can be embarrassing when the com­puter llCf"dShes,"

Properly used in their intended role, comput­ers provide invaluable assistance; therefore, our development of them must continue. They can "mechanically" pass information, orders, data and graphics in almost realtime. But the com­puter is not, nor can it be, a substitute for com­manders talking to commanders.

The Commander. Having commanded at every level in our Army, I have leamed-usually the hard way-some points along the way that I have developed into my command philosophy. Perhaps the most important thing to know about command is that it is personal. One can­not successfully command through the staff. Nothing communicates commander-to-com­mander as well as face-to-face. Parton observed that the senior should go forward to visit the junior, rather than the j~nior back to See him. The obvious exception is when it is necessary to collect several commanders at one location. Notice that Patton said "go forward." He did not say "call," or ('communicate" or "write.'! The value of face-to-face command cannot be

stressed enough, especially during critical mo­ments of the battle. What the commander says, and how he says it, is the basis for the unit's actions, In peacetime, when routine activities tend to be turned over to the staff, a commander must constantly speak of the important issues, because staffs tend to treat everything as equal in importance.

Command is more than responsibility; it is also authority and authority must be actively exercised. Thurman's often-stated maxim, "When in charge, take charge," contains a lot of wisdom-be in charge and practice the au­thority given to you. Commanders must make decisions. Regardless of the difficulty at hand, a decision must be made in a timely and resolute manner.

Many years ago, I Icamed to command only one echelon down. This not only contributes to the entire chain of command having maximum freedom of action, it also reinforces the span of control theory. Commanding two levels down violates a fundamental principle of war-unity of command. Commanding one level down maximizes the information flow and increases the opportunity for face-to-face or voice-to­voice command. The commander must keep abreast of what is going on two or more levels down. By contrast, commanding too far down gives one a stereoscopic view, and this tunnel vision inhibits the ability to "see" the overall battle. The absolute worst effect of such a com­mand style is that the chain of command goes into "neutral" and steps out of its responsibi­lities when a senior commander usurps its author­ity. That commander then misses the most viral input he needs-a subordinate commander's assessment of his unit's overall capability.

Next, good commanders anticipate. Not only do they anticipate the enemy, they antici­pate their subordinates' needs and provide help and support to facilitate overall mL-;sion accom­plishment. In this regard, the staff plays a key role. They must be forwatd-looking, helping the commander anticipate.

Successful commanders also have a vision of

& May 1990 • MILITARY REVIEW

Page 9: Military Review - Slim

Patton observed that the senior shouldgo forward to visit the junior, rather th thejunior back to see him. The obvious exception is when it is necessary to coj

severalcommanders at one location. Notice that Patton said flgo forward/' He dJ say «caD, 11 or ~communicate" or {{write." The value offacMo·lace command ca

be stressed enough, especially during critical moments ofthe battle.

the task. They "see" the task in its proper per' spective; they understand the "what" and "how" of the mission; and they understand the conditions necessary for success. Further, they can articulate those points to others. Good commanders are able to visualize not only the capabilities, but the intended actions of subor' dinate units in the accomplishment of the larger mission. It is especially importam that the commander, not the operations officer (531 03/J3), personally articulate the commander's intent portion of the order. If others do this for the commander, the unintentional, yet inevita­ble, filters are applied and the result becomes not "what the commander intends," but "what the staff officers thought he intended."

Before I condude, let me offer a few words on peacetime command. If we learned nothing else from the recent operations in Grenada and Panama, we have learned that soldiers fight exactly as they are trained in peacetime. We must command in peacetime as we command in war. We must place the same responsibilities upon subordinates in peacetime that we expect of them in combat. We must foster the same relationships in peacetime as in war. As com­manders, we must demonstrate daily that we

will say what to do, not how to do it; a we will not skip echelons in directing a1 seeing tasks, but consistantly adhere chain of command. We must empha: important things and avoid the trivial. I mander finds himself or his unit doin thing for peacetime only, he should c how this will affect his war~fighting mi the answer is: there is no war~fighting to the task, then he should not do it. I simple. But if he has no option, then 1 convert the execution of the task into else of the chain ofcommand so as to g2 imum benefit from the task.

Just as command personifies the com so must the chain of command repres personifY the command system. A stror of command is essential to a successful implies trust and confidence between f of command and develops junior Ie, placing the appropriate authority, respo and decision making at each level. Al responsibility and decision making 1

practiced. Senior commanders must re that we do not live in a penect world; tl underwrite subordinates' honest mis part of the developmental process. Tha

MILITARY REVIEW. May 1990

Page 10: Military Review - Slim

produces risk-raking, iniriarive-grabbing and war-winning commanders.

Commanders train, teach, coach and de­velop their subordinate leaders and units to a high standard. One way senior commanders develop subordinate commanders is by watch­ing. The process of watching them leads to training, teaching and coaching in such a man­ner that both the subordinate commander and his unit can overcome weaknesses and improve perfonnance. While commanders must avoid dic­tating "how," they must never be afraid to tell a subordinate what to do or even when to do it.

Good commanders must be willing to take some risks. In combat, commanders operate within the higher commander's intent, tem­pered by doctrine and procedures. In peace­time, commanders must understand and oper­ate within the same guidelines. The "garrison" exercise of command entails risk just as it does in wartime. The combat requirements of ini­tiative and risk taking are just as applicable in peacetime as they are in war. The commander who makes no mistakes and rakes no risks prob­ably does not accomplish very much-nor does he have soldiers with great confidence in the unit or its leaders. The commander who cen­tralizes everything in an attempt to be strong everywhere is, in fact, strong nowhere. But worst of all, his chain of command and his junior leaders will never develop responsibility and initiative.

There is a saying in our Army, "Command is command." Translated, that means com­mand of any unit-combat, combat support or combat service support, in the Continental

United States or forward deployed, tactical or nontactical-is srill command, which beats not being a commander. Equally important in that statement is that command-in the field, at one of the combat training centers j in peacetime, during a contingency operation or in war-must be practiced as it will be executed in war.

We have talked about command, control, communications and computers. I have as~

serted that we must have simple, robust com­mand systems built upon a strong command philosophy. Commanders must be provided the maximum freedom to command and have im­posed on them only those control measures nec­essary to synchronize mission accomplishment. A strong command philosophy recognizes the many tools available to the commander, but emphasizes that tools are no substitute for exer­cising the personal element of command.

In the next war, the price of failure will be very high and the margin for error grows smaller. We must get the maximum effect from our leaders and our units. At a time when tech­nology and electronic devices appear to ofter an easy path to overcome the complexities of mod­em battle, the Army must empower command­ers, embrace the mission tactics and use tech­nology to assist-not take over-the art of com­mand. Most important, we must be an Army that practices strong command on a day-to-day basis in peacetime, so our units are always ready for the demands of combat. The capabilities we now possess in our officer and noncommis­sioned officer corps say that now is the time to empower leaders to get the most out of this great Army. "1>

General]olm W. fuss ~ commanding general, US Anny Training and Doctrine Command, furt Monroe, \irginia. He IOOS commissioned from <he US Militm'y Acad­emy; receiwd a master, degree from Shippensburg University ofPennsyllUnia, and ~ a graduate of<he AllJ1Y War College. He has helda rnriety ofcommand and staffpositions in Europe, South Korea and Vietnam. He "'" the chief, Joint US Military Advisory Group, Philippines; commanding general, Se"",th AllJ1Y Training Command, West Germany; commanding general, Infantry Center and commandant, InjUntry School, furt Benning, Georgia; and commanding general, 82dAirborne Division and command­injrgeneral, XVIII Airborne Corps, Fart Bragg, North Cawona; and <!epmy chiefofstaff oj <he Army for operations and plans.

./

May 1990' MILITARY REVIEW 8

Page 11: Military Review - Slim

PERSPECTIVES ON

It has been said that the art ofcommand is timeless; many ofthe skills and traits ofsuccessful command have a unique durability. This is very evident in the articles that foHow as three of World War II's ablest commanders review in their own words the princ~ pIes and methods that served them in highe~level command. Even though Field Marshal Sir Wi11iam Slim, General J. La~on Collins and Major General Wade Haislip are deceased, their remarks, presented four decades ago, offer enduring truths that apply to many of the challenges of present..cfay and future command.

Page 12: Military Review - Slim

HigherI/I"Iftf4 ... • ..Jftn"" ......... ~ ....;1'1,",un."•••..I...a

til

WJIl:I.D."ar Field Marshal Sir William Slim (1891-1970)

Reproduced by permission of the Controller of HMSO

Field Marshal Sir Wil1iam Slim serv~d m arId War I and in the Indian army during the interwar period. As com­mander ofthe 1st Burma Corps (I942-1945) and supreme AUied commander of ground forces in Southeast Asia (1945-1946), he was the driving force behind the successful campaign to drive the Japanese out ofIndia and the defeat ofthe]apanese armies in Burma. After the war, he servedas commandant ofthe Imperial Defense College, chiefofthe Imperial Staff, British army, and governor general ofAus­tralia. The following remarks, delivered to the students and faculty of the US Anny Command and General Staff Col­lege on 8 April 1952, provide his unique and invaluable insights on the art of command at the senior levels. His remarks have been edited for publication.

Al LTHOUGH I selected the subject of this talk, ~'Higber..tS.Command in War," I do address you with a certain amount of diffidence. Command is an intensely pen;onal affair; anyone who has exercised it and then goes on to talk about it (which may not be very wise) is bound to base all that he says on his own personal experience. Any man's personal experience, however wide it may have been, is limited. Another thing that makes talks on command from us old generals sometimes rather a bore is that we are frightfully inclined to sprinkle our talk with a very large number of capital "1"5, and the capital "I" is not really a very elegant letter. I'll try not to, but I probably shall.

The sort of command that I am talking about, mainly, is higher command -that is, the command of an anny or ofan anny group. Most of the things I shall say hold good, I think, for command at any level. If, when I have finished, any ofyou cate to get up and say, "Well, we know a better way to do it," I will not contradict you at

May 1990· MILITARY REVIEW 10

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PERSPECTIVES

all -as long as you say, "1 know a better way for me to do it, but not necessarily for you," because I do emphasize throughout that com­mand is a personal thing.

I have been very lucky in my military career-very much more lucky than I deserve. I have commanded everything from a section of six men as a lance corpcral to an army group of a million and a quarter, and the conclusion I have come to, after 40 years ofdoing that, is that command, on whatever level you exercise it, is very much the same thing. It is based on the same qualities.

o,mmand is that mixtute of example, persuasion and compul­sion by which you get men to do what you want them to do, even if they do not want to do it themselves. If you ask me really to define it, I should say command is the projection of personality -and like all true art, and command is an art, it is exercised by each man in his own way. But, you cannot be a commander without having certain qualities. In command itself, I think there are three ele­ments. I am talking now, remember, of the command of a big organization. There is, first of all, the commander himself; then there are his headquarters and his staff; and third, there is the way he keeps contact with the people he commands. I will talk about each of these.

The Commander If you ever have to organize a command or a campaign, believe

me, the first thing to do is to select your commander and select him early because he should be the mainspring of the whole enter­prise. I said just now that command was the projection of person­ality. So it is a question of what sort of personality a commander should have. He ought to have a whole lot of qualities, but there are certain ones that are basic and without which, he will never be a commander at all.

Will Power. The first of these is will power, or determination if you like to call it that. Not only does the commander have to decide what is going to be done-that is perhaps one of the easier things-but he has got to see that it is done. I don't think you really need me to tell you that, because most of you have had experience of command on some level.

You do not need me to tell you, either, of the amount of opposi­tion you will meet. There will be opposition first of all from the enemy. Well, that is fair enough; that is the attitude you expect of the enemy. I can remember in World War I, when I was a very young officer, some fellow at the back started sending up forms and one ofthe things you had to fill in was the attitude of the enemy. A certain youhg officer filled in "hostile!" He got it back with a very rude note from the staff saying, "Amplify your answer." So he sent it back. "Definitely hostile!" So you will meet opposition from the

You very often hear people say, "So and so is a lucky commander!' Well, you can be lucky once; you can be lucky twice; but I don't think you will be lucky three times. Ifa chap is lucky three times, there is something more to it ••. The commander who always guesses right doesn't reallyguess, it is a product of, •• training, knowledge,· observaaonandch~cre~

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I hadasortofmottn, "No details, no paper andno

regrets!' No details-don't go aboutsettingmachine­guns on different sides of

bushes. That is done a damn sight better by a

platoon commander. Then, no paper. You cannot

entirely do without paper, but you can get rid ofquite

a lot ofit. Do nothave people coming to you with

huge 6les, teYing you an about it. Make the man

explain it; and ifhe cannot explain it, getsomebody

who can.

enemy, but there are other forms of opposition. Strangely enough, there will be your own statl Sometimes I used to get cross with my staff, which was one of the finest Anglo-American staffs you could have had, and I used to say, "You fellows do nothing but tell me that anything I want to do is logistically impossible." You will get most of the opposition to the things you want to do from the administrative Ot what you call the logistics staff-and that is very understandable because the one thing that an administrative staff officer wants to avoid is letting down his commander. So he is always a little bit on the cautious side. There is always a tendency on the part of your administrative staffs to say, "Look here, you're taking too great a risk." Sometimes you may be, but you must be the judge of that.

Then there are your subordinate commanders who probably want to do the thing a little bit differently or have other ideas, and sometimes you will find your superiors have very strong ideas of their own. You have to deal with that sort ofopposition. When you get rather high up, there are doubting and interfering politicians. You have rodeal with them. They aren't so hard rodeal with when you get down to it; they are not half as tough as they look some­times. Then, ofcourse, there are your allies.

Now, it is an extraordinary thing that you should meet with so much opposition from allies. Allies, altogether, are really very extraordinary people. It is astonishing how obstinate they are, how parochially minded, how ridiculously sensitive to prestige and how wrapped up in obsolete political ideas. It is equally astonishing how they fail to see how broad-minded you are, how clear your picture is, how up-to-date you are and how cooperative and big­hearted you are. It is extraordinary. But let me tell you, when you feel like that about allies-and you have even worse allies than the British, believe me-when you feel like that, just remind yourself of two things. First, that you are an ally too, and all allies look just the same. If you walk to the other side of the table, you will look just like that to the fellow sitting opposite. Then the next thing ro remember is that there is only one thing worse than having allies­that is not having allies. You will get opposition from all those sources. You simply have got to drive through what you want against every kind of opposition, including the opposition of nature. The opposition ofnature can be, ofcourse, the worst ofthe lot. The British army fights all its battles uphill and usually on the junction of four map sheets.

To be a little more serious, this determination, this will power, which is the first essential of the commander, is really based on courage. Not so much physical courage; you will have that because, thank God, courage is bred in us. You will have physical courage, but what else you commanders will have to have is rarer-

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that is moml courage. Mora! courage simply means that you do what you think is right \vithour bothering too much about the effect on yourself. That is the courage that you will have to have, Yenl must be as big as your job an.d you must not be too afraid of losing it. It docs not mattt~r what your job is, whether supreme commanc!cf or lance coqxxal, you HUlst not be too afraid of losing it-·-··somc peclplc are. So the one quality no leader can do without is determination, bilsed on moral courage.

Judgment. The prime task of the commander is to make dcci~ sions. \X/hat you have to do is to weigh all the various factors, recognizing that in war half of your infom13tion may be wrong, that a lot of it is missing completely, and that there arc all sorts of elemems OV{:f which you havt7 no control, such as the \veatherand, to a certain extent, the action of the enemy. Yf.lll have to weigh all these things. and corne to a dedsiclJ). as to what you want to do, You must have that judgment. Another kind (l jud~{mcnt that you need is rhe judgrncnt of men. You must be able to select your 5ub()rdinarcs. I have known at least one man who had every attribute of the great cOrTnnander and would have t"Ccn ont~ of tht~ gr(~mtst cornmanders that we hav(~ produced. but who lacked the fKM'cr properly to sdcct his subordinates. He was too hJY'al to them sotnetirn(;:~ and dung to them when he should have gotten rid of them. Choose your subordinates and then, decentralize to them. Do not try to do ev(:rything yourself because you will kill yourself, uni<-" you make somebody so angry by interfering with his job that he shoots you, The motto for a commander who is going to survive the strain of cornmand I(n any length of time, is "Don't keep do~s and bark yourself:" Deal, also, with the things that matter and have rhe jndgment to detennine which they ate.

When I commanded, I had a SOrt of mottO, "No derails, no paper and no rel,'fets," J-.b denlils·~d()n't go about setting machineguns on different sides of bll,h~'S. That is done a damn sight better by a platoon commander. No details,

Then, no p"pet, You cannot entirely do without vaper, but you can get tid of quite a lot of it. Do not have people wming to you

MILITARY REVIEW· May 1990

It is astonishing how obstinate [allies] are, /WW parochially minded, how ridiculously sensitive to prestige IIlJd how ..Tapped up in obsolete political ideas. It is equally astonishing how thl."}' fail to see how broad-minded you are, how dear your picture is , . , and how cooperative and big-hearted you are ••. Just remind yourselfoftwo things, First, that you are an aUy too , , , Ifyou walk to the other side ofthe table, you .viIllookjust like that to the fellow sitting opposite. Then the ne,,-c thing to remember is that there is only one thing WO~ than having aUies­that i.~ not having aU1es,

13

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There is an obvious contJict between flexibility

ofmind and strength ofwill. You have to be very careful to see that your strength of

will does not become just obstinacy and that your

flexibility ofminddoes not become mere vacillation . .. You have somehow, in yOUl"

selves, in your own characters, to strike [a1

balance.

with huge files, telling you all about it. Make the man explain it; and if he cannot explain it, get somebody who can.

When I say "no tegrets," that is important. You do the best you can. You may have gotten it wrong; you may have lost a battle. You may even have lost a good many of your men's lives which hurts more, but do not have regrets. Do not sit in the comer and say, "Oh, ifI had only gone to the left instead of the right," or, "If I had only fought in front of the river instead of behind it." You have done the best you could- it hasn't come off. All right! What's the next problem? Get on to that. Do not sit in the comer weeping about what you might have done. No details, no paper, no regrets.

If you go on that motto and if you combine it, as I did, with going to bed at 10 0'clock every night, getting up at 6 0'dock, and crucifying anybody who woke you up between those hours unless it was for a major disaster, you will probably survive five years of higher command in war as 1did.

Now in some commanders, the ability to judge correctly seems instinctive. You very often hear people say, "So and so is a lucky commander." Well, you can be lucky once; you canbe lucky twice; but I don't think you will be lucky three times. If a chap is lucky three times, there is something more to it. I think I can illustrate that to you. I was once having my porrrait painted by a very well· known artist. I was not paying for it-the government was doing that. I watched him doing it. Be took his little toothpaste tubes and squeezed out blobs of the ptimary colors all down the side of his pallet. Then he took a brush, dabbed at the colors he fancied and mixed them all together. Then he put his stroke straight on the canvas to give the color ofmy nose or whatever it was. It struck me as the most extraordinary thing; because if I had been doing that, I should have wanted to try the tone on something first to see if I had it right. I asked him how he did it. He said, quite frankly, he did not know, but he supposed it was pracrice. Well, of course, it was a good deal more than practice. It was a mixture of training, observarion, knowledge and "feel" for his task-and that is what people call luck with a commander. The commander who always guesses right doesn't really guess, it is a product of all those things-training, knowledge, observation and character. There is only one more point I would like to make about judgment. The stronger a commander's will power, the more dangerous or even fatal it may become if his judgment is bad. Therefore, when you select your commanders and when you train yourselves as com­manders, keep the balance between strength ofwill and judgment.

Flexibility of Mind. Modem war, tactics and techniques change rapidly. Indeed, the whole background against which you fight fl war may change very rapidly. The invention of a new weapon, a political change, a break in the weather and the whole

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thing may change very rapidly. Unless you can adapt yourself to that-unless your mind is sufficiently flexible-you will not be a good commander. What you have to cultivate is imagination, but a controlled imagination, and a flexibility of mind. There is an obvious conflict between flexibility of mind and strength of will. You have to be vety careful to see that your strength ofwill does not become just obstinacy and that your flexibility of mind does not become mere vacillation. We have, all of us, known the chap who went about thumping himself on the chest and saying, "I am a strong man." He has a weakness somewhere and, of course, if he never changes his mind, he will be wrong more often than he is right. Then you get the other fellow who has such a flexible mind that he always agrees with the last chap who talked to him, and he's terrible. You have somehow, in yourselves, in your own charac­ters, to strike the balance between flexibility of mind and strength of will. When you have done that, you will be well on the road to being a commander in quire a big way. But nobody can help you very much, you have to do it yourself.

Knowledge. Another quality you must possess is knowledge. Now, when you command a small unit, if you are a platoon com­mander, you should be able to do everything that you ask any man in that platoon to do rather better than he can himself. When you get higher up and you command divisions, corps and armies, you cannot, of course, be expected to perform all the operations that everybody under your command performs or to have their tech­nical skill. You can't take a wireless set to pieces and put it together again like a trained mechanic should be able ro do. You can't take out a fellow's appendix as well as a doctor would, though God knows, sometimes I felt I could do better than some of them. But you have to know the capabilities of the machines that they han­dle; you have to know the sort ofconditions under which thc'Y have to work; and you have to know how long it takes them to do certain things. You must have that kind of knowledge.

Another kind of knowledge you should attain is the knowledge of your enemy. We, the British, at any rate, are not very good at that. We didn't study our enemy enough. When you are a com­mander, one of the people you want to study very closely is your opposite number-the fellow you are fighting-because bartle is largely a struggle between the wills of the commanders.

I found it very difficult to get very much information about the Japanese. We were not very clever at it at the start of the war with Japan. I remember, on one occasion, I really thought I knew my opposite number pretty well. I used to keep his photo on my desk. If! couldn't do anything else, I used to look at him and say, "Well, I may not be much of a general, but I am better looking than you." I thought I knew that fellow very well. I planned the whole cam-

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It i~ not usually dif6.cult for a commander to know what he wants to

do; major tactics will be the basis ofthat knowledge.

The thing that is difficult to know is ifhe can do it with

the resources he has .. . Unless the commander

has a wide knowledge of general administration and

logistics, he will find himself much too much in the

hands ofhis logistic experts who will be admirable chaps

but who, as I said, will be on the cautious side.

paign on what I reckoned he would do as a reaction. It did not go right at all; everything went the other way. It was only after I had been fooling around at this game for some time that I discovered that they had told him he could go home, and had ptoduced another commander who had different ideas. The whole tempo of the thing was quite different hecause they had changed the com­mander. One of the things you must have knowledge of is your enemy and especially the commander.

Now, it is not usually difficult for a commander to know what he IVants to do; major tactics will be the basis of that knowledge. The thing that is difficult to know is if he can do it with the resources he has. But what I do stress and what I think we sometimes (we, the British, I won't say yo~do, although I think you do) miss is a general knowledge of administration, The answer to that is the logistic answer, almost always. Unless the commander has a wide knowl­edge of general administration and logistics, he will find himself much too much in the hands of his logistic experts who will be admirable chaps but who, as I said, will be on the cautious side.

I once had an argument with Field Marshal (Sir Bernard L.) Montgomety-I didn't have many because I neatly always agree with him on military matters-about what the qualifications of a great commander ate. We each tried not to give our own qualifica­tions-but I said (which rather surptised him) that I thought the real test of a great commander in the field was to be a judge of administrative risk. A judge ofadministrative risk-now you think that over.

Integrity. If you have those qualities that I mentioned-will power, judgment, flexibility of mind and knowledge-you will be a commander. You will be a good commander, you may even be a great commandet, but you won't necessarily have the confidence of your men, especially when things are not going your way. And the confidence of your men is essential. In order to get that, all those qualities must be based on a simple honesty, on integrity. You have to have this massive and simple honesty. All the really great commanders who have held their men have had it because the only foundations under man which will stand under great stress are the moral ones.

You're all right as long as you're winning. I'm a hell of a general when I'm winning, anybody is. But it is when you are not win­ning-and I have not always been winning, if yOu had been a British general at the statt ofa war you'd know that - it is then that the real test of leadership is made. It's a funny thing, but when you are in command and things have gone wrong, there always Comes a pause when your men stop and-they look at you. They don't say anything-they just look at you. It is rather an awful moment for the commander because then he knows that their courage is

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ebbing, their will is fading, and he has got to pull up out of himself the courage and the will power that will stiffen them again and make them go on. That happens to every commander sometime or other. He will never get over that moment unless he has the confi­dence of his men.

I can remember myself, I am not telling you this as an example of leadership, but I remember once I stepped out of a tank. I was using a tank because it was the only means of communication I had left. I saw waiting for me two of my subordinate commanders with a couple ofstaffofficers and one or two other fellows, standing in a melancholy group. The situation was just about as bad as it could be. A division was cut off; we had no means ofgetting it out; and I didn't think we could last very long or it didn't look like we could. As I stepped out, those chaps just looked at me and I did not know what to say. So, I put the best mce I could on it. I tried to look cheerful, and said, "Well, gentlemen, it might be worse." And one of those unspeakable fellows said, "How?" The only thing I could think ofsaying was, "Well, it might be raining," and in two hours it was.

Now, I don't hold that up to you as an example of leadership or how to deal with it, but it was a situation that I shall never forget. You, too, will all sometime have to face it and what you have got to do is build yourself up for it, because it will come. The way you will survive it is by having the confidence of your men, which you will get by honesty in dealing and with integrity. Now, to get on to the headquarters, which is the second element in command.

The Headquarters A headquarters is important as far as the commander himself is

concerned, in its effect on him and in its effect on the people who are commanded. I believe that a commander has a right to demand

In the Burma Campaign, very often owing to shortage ofair transport, a lot ofmy troops, my forward for­mations, had to be on half rations. Whenever they went on halfrations, I used to put my own head­quarters on halfrations. It was a bit theatrical, I admit, but it did remind the young staffofficers with healthy appetites what it is like to be hungry, andit perhaps put a little more ginger in getting the supplies forward.

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An Cw;amoir

When you are a commander, one ofthe

people you want to study very closely is your

opposite number-the feHow you are 6ghting­because battle is largely a

struggle between the wiIl5 ofthe commanders . ..

I planned the whole cam­paign on what I reckoned he would do as a reaction.

It did notgo right at all; everything went the other way . .. [later] I discovered

that they had told him he could go home, and hadpro­duced another commander

who had different ideas.

18

from his headquarters two things-the first is information, and the second is suggestions. The information has to cover a ttemen­dously wide field: his own troops, the enemy, photography, every­thing. On it, he must form his judgments. Then, I think it is the duty of his headquartets to put up to him suggestions for alternative courses ofaction, from which he selects one, or perhaps he thinks of one for himself. That is what the headquarters should do for the commander. For the troops, the first essential is that the headquar­rers should translate to them quickly and accurately the will of the commander. I suppose I have published dozens of operations instructions and orders, and I have never written one myself because I have always had excellent staff officers who could do it. But, there is one part ofan ordet that I have always made a point of writing myself. That is the object. I do recommend it to you, gen­tlemen, that when long orders are being written for complicated operations, you take up your pen yourself and write the object in your own words so that object goes down to everybody.

You must insist that your headquarters regards itself as the ser­vant of the fighting troops. In practice that means that staff mem­bers won't collect to themselves an undue proportion of the amenities, but they will confine themselves or you will confine them to having the necessary degree of comfort for them to per­fonn their duties efficiently. In the Bum1a Campaign, very often owing to shortage of air transport, a lot of my troops, my forward fonnations, had to be on half rations. Whenever they went on half rations, I used to put my own headquarters on half f'dtions. It was a bit theatrical, I admit, but it did remind the young staff officers with healthy appetites what it is like to be hungry, and it perhaps put a little more ginger in getting the supplies forward.

You have to see that your headquarters is the servant of the fighting troops. It has to be a friendly headquarters- I don't mean friendly amongst yourselves, it must be that-but it must be friendly to the people who come to it from outside. If an officer comes to headquarters to find out something, do not keep him hanging about; have somebody ready to take him to the chap who can give him an answer. Do not forget that your headquarters, any headquarters, is always under inspection. Always, it is being inspected by the people who come up from below. Do not bother too much about the people who eome down from above. but the headquarters must be efficient and look efficient.

Organization of Headquarters. We organize our headquar­ters now on the chiefof staffsystem; so do you. Personally, I am not very fond of it-I like the old-fashioned British system before we began to copy the Geffi1ans, of the commander dealing directly with his principal staffofficers. I know all the arguments in favor of the others and they are very good ones, but I nm on the old system.

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PERSPECTIVES

Don't let that worry you, I am not pteaching hetesy, I am not asking you to change anything. When you get to a height in com­mand, it teally will not mattet what the theotetical otganization of your headquatters is. By changing the emphasis a little bit, you will have it running the way you want it. Whatevet you do, see that in your headquarters thete isn't too much (Etich) Ludendotff and too little (paul von) Hindenburg.

Choices ofStaffs. Thete ate certain key staffofficers to whose selection you ought to pay a great deal of attention. First of all, of course, there is your chief general staffofficer, ot your chiefofstaff. There is next, and in many ways more important, your chief administrative officer. Then there are two other fellows I would draw your attention to-one is your chiefintelligenceofficer. Now, when you select your chief intelligence officer, do not select him because he is a fellow who can put on false whiskers and go down to the bazaar and pass himself off as Chinese or something. He can­not do it anyway, but you do not want that sort of fellow. What you want first and foremost is a good organizer. A man who can organize the collection and interptetation of intelligence-not necessarily collect it himself. You Want an officer who will repre­sent to you the mind ohhe enemy commander. They are very hard to find, these chaps, very hard to find. They are very rarely regular officers-they are usually university dons or something like that. Get a fellow with the extraordinary flair of being able to put him­self in the mind of the enemy commander-get him and put him in your pocket, because he's very useful.

Then, you want some good planners. They also come from what we might sometimes think strange places. Of two of the best plan­ners I ever had, one was a fellow of All Souls College at Oxford, a son of the Archbishop of Canterbury; and the other one was an American National Guard officer whose profession was selling refrigerators. They were both of them absolutely first class, and you must have high-class planners.

Traveling Circuses. Do not go in for traveling circuses. We developed a very bad habit in the British anny. When an officer was promoted, he took all his staff from the lower fonnation. That meant that you pushed out a lot of really very good fellows to make room for the circus, broke up the staffof the lower fonnation and it was not good for the commander himself.

Size ofHeadquarters. All British and all American headquar­ters are too big and should be cut down. As far as I know, there are only three ways of cutting down headquarters. One is by a flat, overall cut-you reduce your staff by say, 10 percent. I do that about once a year to the War Office, and the excruciating noise of the corks coming out of the bottles is heartbreaking! Another way of doing it is by elimination of complete sections. That is possible

Ionce had an argu­ment with Field Marshal (Sir BernardL) Mont­gomery .•. about~hatthe quaIiJications ofa great commanderare. We each tried not to give our o~ quaIiJications-but I said (which rather surprised him) that I thought the real test ofa great commander in the field ~as to be ajudge ofadministrative risk.

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Ifa man loses a battle, orgets a setback, go and see him and find out why. Ifhe

did it because he was careless, ifhe did it because he was stupid or, above all, ifhe did it because he got

cold feet, sack him. Tell him why you sacked him.

But ifhe did it because he was a little bit overeager, because

he took just a little bit too much risk or because he

was a little bit too pugnacious, give him

another chance. Lots of fellows benefit a great deal

by a little setback once.

20

because you do find, especially in wartime, that around your head­quarters all sorts of fancy sections grow up that you can really very well do without or you can push farther back.

Lastly, a way, which I recommend to your attention, is to cut out one complete tier of the staff hierarchy. That is, roughly speaking you get rid of say, all the captains, and send them back to their regiments where they are very badly wanted, or you get rid of all the majors and you let the captains do their own job and the majors' jobs. In a big headquarters what you will find is that in effect this merely means that there is one note less on the file, and that's no harm. Unless you constantly keep your eye on the size of your headquarters, it will grow out of all knowledge and usefulness.

Contact Between Commander and His Command Now, the third and last element is the contact between the

commander and his command. You cannot, when you get a big formation, know more than a very small fraction of your men. But every man in your command-and I don't care how big it is ­ought to know you, at least by sight. As you walk onto any parade or pass any men in your army, they ought to be able to say, "There's the 'Old Man,' I wonder what he's up to now." You have to be known to them. Y()u have to show yourself to your troops.

Publicity. Then, there comes this business of publicity. I've hardly known a general in the British artily and strangely enough in the American either. who has not said that he disliked publicity. I have never yet seen a general in either army who did not rush to the newspaper to see what it said about him. Publicity is with us and it is here to stay. It is necessary, and a good general uses it for his own purposes.

I have only one bit ofadvice about publicity to give you and that is, if you take over an artily or large fortllation, do not start outside publicity until you are really well known to your own men. I sug­gest that you don't start it until you have won a battle or two, and then you won't have to bother because it will be done for you. Get yourself known to your own men before you start trying to get yourself known to people outside. The best way of getting yourself known to your own men is going about amongst them and actually talking to them. If you want to talk to men, it does not marter whether they are private soldiers or staffofficers, ifyou want to talk to them as a soldier, and not as a politician, there are only two things necessary. The first is to have something to say that is worth saying, to know what you want to say. The second, and terribly important thing, is to believe it yourself. Do not tell men some­thing that you don't believe yourself, because they will spot it, and if they do not spot it at the time, they will find out. Then you're finished.

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PERSPECTIVES

Scapegoats. Do not go chasing scapegoats; ifsome fellow undet your command has made a blob, has lost a battle or done some­thing that is wrong, do not rush off straight away and "sack" him. Some people think that's big stuff in the way of command. My advice to you is if a man loses a battle, or gets a setback, go and see him and find out why. If he did it because he was careless, ifhe did it because he was stupid or, above all, if he did it because he got cold feet, sack him. Tell him why you sacked him. But if he did it because he was a little bit overeager, because he took just a little bit too much risk or because he was a little bit too pugnacious, give him another chance. Lots of fellows benefit a great deal by a little setback once-but the thing to do is to find out why -don't be in too big a hurry to sack people.

If you have to sack anybody, which is the most unpleasant thing in the world because the chaps you have to sack are usually rather nice people, do it yourself. Send for him or go to see him and do it straight to his face and tell him why you have done it. Then push him straight out, put him in an airplane and send him out of your anny area. Do not leave it to other people to do and do not do it by letter. Similarly, if a rebuke has to be given to a subordinate com­mander, even a small one, sign it yourself. There is nothing more annoying if you are a major general, than to get a raspberry signed, "Doolittle, CAPTAIN."

Finally, when you become great generals, as some of you will, and you have all these publicity merchants rushing about, watch it that they do not make a monkey of you. Watch it, that they do not make you begin to act as they think you ought to act. If you start putting your cap on at a particular slant in front of the mirror before you go out to face the flash bulbs, just watch it, because there has been more than one good chap who has been a little bit ruined by trying to act up to what the publicity boys thought he ought to be. It may even affect your judgment.

Now, all I tell you is this-that command is a completely per­sonal thing. That you must have certain essential qualities: will power, judgment, flexibility of mind, knowledge and integrity. Do not confuse those with the frills that commanders always culti­Yate - they cultivate them because they want to get known to their troops. Ifyou wear a couple of pearl-handled revolvers, you will not be a Patton; if you put two badges on a beret, you will not be a Monty. Look for the essentials that are in those commanders and copy those. You all have the makings of commanders in you. You wouldn't be here in this han if you didn't. Some of you have already been commanders. You can develop your power of com­mand. The last thing I say to you is this-Command is you. As you develop, be yourselves, because no imitation was ever a masterpiece. "1..

You want an officer who will represent to you the mind ofthe enemy commander. They are very hard to find, these chaps, very hard to find. They are very rarely regular oflicers­they are usually university dons or something like that . .. get him and puthim in your pocket, because he~ very useful.

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CorpsCOInID.and

•I.n

World WarII Major General Wade H. Haislip (1889.197

Major General Wade H. Haislip graduated fro Academy, fought in France during World War I a War Department General Staffjust prior to assurnitig,t . ofXV Corps in World War II. This narrative, a rewrlt presentation to the US Anny Command and General Staff CO _, lege Class of1950-1951, gives some insight into what it was like to be a corps commander in combat. The XV Corps arrived in Europe on 11 July 1944, became operational on 31 July and fought across France andinto the heartofGerrnany as partofthe Third, First and Seventh US armies.

T HE CORPS commander is the farthest corps headquarters, on the other hand, goes commander to the rear who direcrs fire into action and stays there until the war is over. If

on the enemy; he is the man who conducts the properly organized and managed, there is no rea­battle. He gives purpose and direction to the son why a corps should not be able to sustain ir­combat operations of his divisions. To appreci­ self indefinitely. Its headquarters is large enough ate his task, one must understand the corps' for continuous operations without exhausting irs place in the organization ofArmy ground forces, soldiers. irs characteristics and irs relationship to an A division has units trained together as com­army and a division. bat teams, but a corps has nothing except a

The army is the great administrative and sup­ headquarters, an artillery headquarters and ply echelon. It influences the fight by assigning some signal units. A division is complete for missions, means and frontages to its corps. By combat; a corps has only that which is given to

varying anyone or all three of these factors, it it by the army commander. As a division ma­can have a direct impact on what a corps can tures in irs training and develops greater cohe­do. An army can stop a corps in its tracks by sion, its commander can adopt complex stand­giving it a front wider than it can manage or by ing operating procedures (SOPs). A corps, on taking away irs divisions. Conversely, by giving the other hand, takes on new strength just prior a corps greater combat power and reducing its to irs involvement in a fight. Usually, there is frontage, an army can enhance the corps' abil­ insufficient time for a corps to indoctrinate its iry to accomplish its mission. divisions, artached artillery battalions and engi­

In theory, a division in combat expecrs to be neer unirs in elaborate and intricate tactical relieved periodically to refit, rest, receive re­ procedures. Consequently, a corps must use placements and prepare for the next fight. A simple SOPs.

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A division has no self-contained units. To split up a division, you must make numerous attachments to its major subordinate units be­cause a regiment has neither fire nor service Sl.\pport adequate to fight. On the other hand, a corps has nothing but self-contained units. It can take on divisions and artillery units or drop them without any trouble, without any break­ing up of attachments. Although the division is a supply unit and the corps is not, except for its own corps units, the latter must monitor clivi, sian supply to ensure soldiers and units get what they need.

Finally, a division retains its organization throughout its life, while a corps is a continually changing force. In nine months of combat, my corps changed from one to six divisions and from 12 to 27 battalions of artillery. At one time or another, there were 27 different divi­sions fighting under XV Corps.

The Mayenne River and Le Mans To illustrate how one corps fought in World

War II and to highlight some of the challenges facing its commander and staff, I will summarize XV Corps' fight across France and Germany, pausing to look at a few operations in depth.

When the First US Army broke through the Gennan defenses at the base of the Cherbourg peninsula, the Third US Anny attacked through the hole. The VIII Corps came out first, turned west and drove towards Brest. My corps came through second and pushed south toward the Mayenne River. Our first battle action was the forcing of a well-defended river line.

My mission was "to capture Laval and May­enne and secure a crossing of the Mayenne River" (see map). To accomplish this task, I had the 79th and 90th Infantry divisions, the 5th Armored Division and the I06th Cavalry Group. I advanced with the 90th Infantty Division on the left and the 79th Infantry Division on the right. The 5th Annored Division was eche­loned to the right rear of the corps to protect the right and rear flanks and to execute an en­velopment, if the tactical situation permitted.

MILITARY REVIEW. May 1990

PERSPECTIVES

By 6 August 1944, encountering only light en­emy resistance, my units had secured the towns and crossed the river. US forces now had my

A division in combat expects 00 be relieved periodicaHy 00 refit, rest, re­ceive replacements and prepare for the next light. A corps headquarters, on the otherhand, goes moo action and stays there until the war is over . .. There is

no reason whya corps shouldnot be able 00 sustain itselfindefinitely.

corps facing east and the VIII Corps facing west. My corps' next mission, assigned on 7 Au­

gust 1944, was to capture Le Mans, 50 miles to the east of the Mayenne River. This mission required us to traverse ideal defensive terrain, force a crossing over the Sarthe River and seize a strongly defended city of 75,000 people. More­over, during the drive, we were vulnerable on our left and right flanks. We were told there were numerous German forces in the vicinity of Le Mans, but no one knew how many. We knew there were Gennans on the east side of the Sarthe River because they were shooting at us. Also, intelligence sources showed that there were about 30,000 Gennans south of the Loire River. The greatest threat, however, was in the north from German forces withdrawing southward and eastward from the vicinity of Mortain.

Additionally, we were told that there were 800 tanks in our front. Now, in my opinion, that is a hell of a thing to tell a corps when you order it into battle. Believing that this figure was excessive, I told my G2 (intelligence) to pass the word to the divisions that there were 80 ranks to our front. Later, I revised this number downward to about eight tanks. After the first few weeks of fighting, we had destroyed 120 ranks so maybe there were 800 tanks after all.

It is appropriate to digress for a moment to

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explain how we got our intelligence. It was a rather remarkable thing. The Air Corps had a system for debriefing fighter pilots when they returned from their missions. As you can imag­

i¥ • In battle, you must . •• know where you are going, what you are going for and how to handle the situation when it develops. Combat is a day-w-day affair. We were very lucky and extremely fortunate to have done it successfully.-

ine, this procedure produced an enormous con­glomeration of infonnation. These bits of infor­mation found their way to my corps, arriving about 3 or 4 o'clock in the morning, inside the covers of an inch~thick book. My G2 nearly went crazy trying to identify information rele­vant to us at the time.

My major concerns during the planning phase for the attack on Le Mans were speed of movement and a desire not to be tied up indefi~

nitely at the objective. To ensure rapid seizure of the objective with the minimum loss of m~ mentum, my staff and I decided on a three~

pronged attack. The 90th Infantry Division was assigned the northern half of the city, the 79th Infantry Division was given the southern half and the 5th Armored Division was ordered to encircle the town from the southeast. Going against doctrine, I used my annor in the city to crack it like a nut. You were not supposed to use

24

armor in this manner, but I did it I and it was successful. You \U·e what you have to get the job done. I positioned the l06th Cavalry Group to cover the roads leading into Le Mans from the north and northeast. After fierce street fight~

ing, the city fell on the evening of 8 August.

Moving Northward to Alen~on After seizing Le Mans, the corps received

three new attachments: the 2d French Armor­ed Division, the 35th Infantry Division and the 80th Infantry Division. The French division was en route to Le Mans from the vicinity ofSt. James to the south. The 35th Infantry Division was concentrated near Mortain, and the 80th Infantry Division was moving to Le Mans from St. Hilaire via lavaL It had just landed on the Continent and had no combat experience.

On 9 August, I was ordered to change the corps' direction ofattack from an easterly orien~

tation to a northerly direction to capture Alen~

9On. The staff quickly developed a plan to ad­vance east of the Sarthe River, using that obsta~ de to protect our west flank, with the two armored divisions abreast, the 2d French Armor~

cd Division on the left and the 5th Armored Division on the right. The 90th Infantry Divi~

sion was given the mission to follow the French on the left, and the 79th Infantry Division was tasked to foHow the 5th Armored Division on the right. The 106th Cavalry Group was as~

signed to cover the corps' eastern flank.. The recently arrived BOth Infantry Division was directed to secure the bridgehead at Le Mans and protect our left and rear flanks.

To move into this attack posture, I had to position the French Armored Division to the corps'left front as quickly as possible. There were two routes to move the division to its line of departure. First, it could pass south and east aroundLe Mans and the 5th Armored Divi­sion, a time-<:onsuming operation. Second, it could proceed by the most direct route across the rear of the three other divisions, a risky movement. In the interest oftime, the latter op-­tion was selected. It required careful planning.

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To move into this attack posture, I had to position the French Armored Division to the corps' left front as quickly as possible. There were two routes to move the division

to its line ofdeparture. First, it couldpass south and eastaround I.e Mans and the 5th ArmoredDivision, a time-consuming operation. Second, it could proceed by the most

direct route across the rear ofthe three other divisions, a risky movement. In the interestoftime, the latter option was selected. It required carefulplanning.

This plan required the French unit to cross the Sarthe River north of Le Mans, The opera­tion had to be executed rapidly because the river offered a perfect delaying obstacle to my corps if the Germans were behind us. To com­pound the problem, the French had left their treadway bridges back on the beach, 140 miles away. Fortunately, we had some corps bridges.

I had the 5th Armored Division attack to seize crossing sites along the entire corps front. My corps engineers built two bridges over the 5arthe north of Le Mans. With my fingers crossed and my deputy chief of staff running traffic, we moved the French division across the river during the night of 9-10 August and into its attack positions on the left of the corps. The operation worked like a charm.

While the French were moving up on the

evening of9 August, the 5th Annored Division was driving enemy forces from crossing sites along the Orne River. They turned over sites in the French division's zone to them by 1200, 10 August. With my forces now consolidated, we attacked northward toward Alen90n.

My attack formation had the two armored divisions abreast, followed by the two infantry divisions. Each infantry division moved with one motorized regimental combat team (RC1) follOWing the armor. This fonnation raises a contentious issue. It deals with the attachment ofRCTs to annor units. Being a good infantry­man, I refused to use this procedure. I have seen too many infantry units chewed up by the ar­mor. There is always a tendency among com­manders to use forces that do not belong to them before they use their own resources. I

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know corps commanders who Hlways attached an infantry RCT to armor. If you do that and the RC':T gets used up, your infantry division becomes combat-ineffective.

During the attack northward, the corps en­countered sharp tank action, strong artillery fires, congested roads and overall strong Ger­man resistance. The going was slow. The major obstacle facing us was the Perseigne Forest which stood across the route ofadvance in both annoreddivisionzones. The forest was about 12 miles wide and 10 miles deep. Reportedly, it contained enemy supply installations and the bulk of two first,class Gennan divisions, about 30,000 troops. I wanted to burn the forest with napalm, but amlY denied my request based on intelligence reports that the Germans had al­ready evacuated the area. I now faced a major decision. If I tried to move the corps in between

the forest and the Sarthe River, a smaller enemy force could have delayed our advance. If I had tried to pass the corps around the forest to take Alen4;on, it would have been an extremely awk­ward affair. l.-onsidering my options, I took a risk and directed that the forest be bypassed to maintain the momentum of our attack. I split the corps and sent half on one side and half on the other side of the forest. By doing this, I had my forward divisions separated by a 12-mile­wide obstacle. I ordered the 79th Infantry Divi­sion, trailing the 5th Annored Division on the right, to be prepared to deploy and attack the forest on any sign of the enemy.

As they say, "Nothing succeeds like success." There was no threat from the Perseigne Forest and no Gennans in Alen~n. We took the town easily. However, my two annored divisions lost 60 tanks getting from the Orne River up to

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I ADVANCE OF THE XY CORPS

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1 IJ

"" ~_~- II OF TIfE THIRD l:N1TED STATES ARMY

NORJ\1ANDY TO THE SEINE RIVER I AUGUST TO ~') AUGUST, l~H

SCAlf l TO ;00.000 "" " l;; $ I'J ,.., ,~ ~~.0 "' ....____ .~ __..=:~.-:::tr=--_ ....-=:-=t-·_·_~

Alen~on. Elsewhere in the COIps area of opera­tions, the 80th Infantry Division, protecting our left and rear flanks, forced the withdrawal of German covering forces threatening the Le Mans bridgehead. The I06th Cavalry Group on our right flank turned back a German threat from the direction ofOrleans.

seizing Argentan After we took Alen~on, the anny com­

mander ordered the corps to seize Argentan on the Orne River to the north. Notwithstanding my complaint that the corps was stretched pretty thin with an open flank, the order stood, and we prepared for the advance. I turned the 90th Infantry Division west, tied its right on the Ecouves Forest and placed it in a defensive posi~ tion to block the major road network leading into Vemeuil and Paris to the east. This road center had to be blocked prior to the passing of my corps. I intended to send my two armored divisions around the east side of the forest. As usual, the armor reacted too quickly. Without orders, the commander of the 2d French Annor­ed Division moved some units into the 5th Armored Division's sector where the two forces became entangled, causing considerable confu­sion.Moreover, the French sent a combat com­mand into the forest from the north where it

MILITARY REVIEW. May 1990

PERSPECTIVES

encountered strong resistance from enemy tanks, tank destroyers and artillery belonging to a pan­zer division. The French forces killed about 800 enemy soldiers, captured 1,000 prisoners and destroyed 34 tanks. After this engagement, we continued On to Argentan and seized it. We were then ordered to halt.

Earlier, the Third Anny commander had ordered XV Corps to push toward Falaise and link up with the British forces there. Before this mission could be executed, he directed half of the corps' divisions to march on Dreux to the east, a mission previously assigned to XX Corps. The latter corps had been ordered to change direction and move to Chartres.

The above situation brings me to another teaching point concerning the characteristics of the pursuit. At Argentan 1 never knew from one day to the next what my mission was going to be. Anny did not know either. In fact, 1 was always apologizing to my division commanders for making them respond on 1 or 2 hours' notice and for never giving them time to perfonn re­connaissance. Here at Leavenworth, you study

Throughout the war, my corps' frontages were always roo wide to handle effectively. To compensate for this recU1'"

ring problem, 1always selected the part ofthe zone in which I desired to attack and

used mycavalry to observe the .rest. I was able to do this because I always had the initiative, and whereverI went, the

Gennans bad to come to me.

that when you want to pursue, you seek out sen­sitive areas in the rear and try to grasp and hold them; so you can comer the enemy to deal him a knockout blow. In battle, you must do this before you start. You must know where you are going, what you are going for and how to handle the situation when it develops. Combat is a day­to-dayaffair. We were very lucky and extremely fortunate to have done it successfully.

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Each infantry division moved with one motorized regimental combat team (RCI) following the armor. This formation raises a contentious issue.

It deals with the attachment ofRCTs to armor units . .. I have seen too many

infantry units chewed up by the armor. There is always a tendency among

commanders to use forces that do not belong to them before they

use their own resources.

At Argentan the corps was ordered to turn east once again to seize Dreux and move to the Seine River. To do this, I was ordered to split my corps in two. With the 2d French AmlOred Division and 90th Infantry Division left back to block routes through Argentan, the 5th Armor­ed Division and the 79th Infantry Division were ordered to march on Dreux and Nogent­Le-Roi, respectively, to seize toad net\\'orks there, cross the Eure River and continue to the Seine River. To make the task more complex, I was directed to retain control of my entire corps. This meant that I would be commanding a corps split in two parts, with units separated by over 50 miles. After my protest to the army commander, he sent out his chief of staff who took p'drt of my sraff and established a provi­sional corps consisting of the 90th Infantry Division, 2d French Armored Division, four battalions of corps artillery and other support units. On 18 August 1944, this provisional corps passed to the command of V Corps.

Continuing the mission, the 5th Armored Division and 79th Infantry Division advanced in sector toward DreUJ<, meeting only minor resistance. By dark on 16 August, both divisions hadseized rheir objectives. They then crossed the Eure River and proceeded to the Seine. By the evening of 20 August, the 79th Infantry Division had crossed the Seine in the vicinity of Mantes Gassicourt, and the 5th Am10red

Division had positioned itself between the Seine and Eure rivers, east of Louviers, to pre­vent river traffic and enemy crossings of the Seine. At 0600, 24 August 1944, XV Corps passed to command of the First US Army.

On 27 August, XV Corps attacked across the Seine River with the 30th Infantry Division in the right zone, the 79th Infantry Division in the left zone and a combat command of the 2d Am10red Division protecting the north flank. By dark the corps had advanced about 3 kilo­meters against strong enemy resistance. When the attack resumed on 28 August, 35 battalions of artillery delivered 53,000 rounds on enemy positions. Over 2,000 enemy soldiers were kllled by artlllery, and another 1,000 were so shaken that they surrendered to 79th Infantry Division units as they passed through the area. By 1200, 29 August, both infantry divisions were on the corps' objectives, dearing the way for the general advance ofUS and Britishforces east of the Seine River. On 28 August, the 5th Affi10red Division passed to command of V Corps, and the 106th Cavalry Group passed to Third US Affi1Y. On 29 August, the XV Corps' remaining three divisions passed to XIX Corps. With the corps zetoed out, the headquarters and corps troops passed to Third US Army and moved to the vicinity of Rozay-en-Brie to await the assignment of divisions.

From the Seine to the Danube When we resumed our push eastward, we

crossed the Marne River and moved up to the Meuse River with an infantry division and an armored division abreast. After breaking through the Vosges Mountains and seizing Strass­bourg, my forces were again widely separated. I had an aIll10red division and an infantry divi­sion in and around Strassbourg. Thirty-five miles away, across the Vosges Mountains, I had an infantry division, part of a second infantry division and part of an aIll10red division. The forces there were tlghting off a vicious counter­attack. When the Battle of the Bulge occurred, my corps was attacked on a 20-mile front with

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Third.Army self.propeli~d~Uh~;i;(· firing near Budeshein;Ger .. 1Q M<':fcIJ 1945.

When the attack resumed on 28 August, 35 battalions ofartiIlery delivered 53,000 rounds on enemy positions. Over2,000 enemy soldiers were killed by artillery, and another 1,000 were so shaken that they surrendered to 79th Infantry

Division units as they passed through the area.

My corps artillery replaced the XII Corps artillery by shifting 10 battalions northward during a single night. Because XII Corps artillery's night~firing techniques were radicaHy different from my corps' procedurest it continued to direct its fires into

its corps zone, and we directed our tires into ourzone to fool the Gennans into thinking that the corps artilleries had not been moved.

two infantry divisions defending in the left half of the zone. The right half of the corps' zone in the Vosges Mountains was covered only by a cavalry group.

I mention this fact to show that throughout the war, my corps' frontages were always too wide to handle effectively, To compensate for this recurring problem, I always selected the part of the zone in which I desired to attack and used my cavalry to observe the rest. I was able to do this because I always had the initiative, and wherever I went, the Gennans had to come to me. Moreover, I kept an annored division in reserve to react to contingencies.

Next, without any prior notice, I received orders to take over the XII O:Jrps' sector on my left and to release the units in that corps for use in the north. To accomplish this task, I was

given one additional infantry division. At the time, XII Corps occupied a 40-mile front with three infantry divisions, one armored division, a cavalry group and an armored division in re­serve. Within four days, I released these forces, plus 17 battalions of corps artillery, and re­placed them with my three infantry divisions, armored division and cavalry group, Concur­rently, I shifted my right flank 11 miles to the left.

My corps artillery replaced the XII O:Jrps artillery by shifting 10 battalions northward during a single night, Because XII Corps artil­lery's night-firing techniques were radically dif­ferent from my corps' procedures, it continued to direct its fires into its corps zone, and we directed our fires into our zone to fool the Ger­mans into thinking that the corps artilleries

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had not been moved. Although difficult to execute, this deception worked. Its success was a remarkable tribllte to the outstanding battle sraffs in borh corps and ro rhe skill with which battle-trained units can displace. This example illustrates why it is not necessary to have a stra­tegic reserve sitring back enjoying the war. With good soldiers, outstanding leaders and superb staff work, you can pull a division out of the lines and move it 100 miles within 24 hours. We did it often!

My next point for discussion deals with an attack on a fortified zone, the Seigfried Line. When ordered to break through ir and drive to the Rhine River, I had the 3d, 45th, 71st and 100th Infantry divisions in the corps. The 7Ist was a new division; it had not yet been in action. 1was determined not to put it in a fight where it could get torn up and lose its confi­dence. On the way up to the line, I allowed the 7I5t to organize some small attacks to get the fed of the usc of artillery and to get accustomed to combat. It was also involved in the seizure of Bitche.

To penetrate the Seigfried Line, I put the 3d and 45th divisions on the left and the lOOth and 7lst divisions on the right. The latter division also had the mission to protect my rear. As nor­mal, I put my cavalry in the interval between the two groups of divisions. Unlike some com­!nanders who spread their strength neatly over an entire front and then wonder why they never get anywhere, I put every gun in the corps artj}... Iery and every airplane in the tactical air force behind the corps' main effort. I believe in pour­ing it on the objective area and not scattering your combat power over a wide front. Addi­tionally, I received the 6th Annored Division just as we approached the Seigfried Line and placed it in reserve. After the infantry created a hole in the fortified zone, I moved the armored division up and ruptured the Gennan defensive positions. My annored forces rhen raced to the Rhine in some 20 hours, a distance of over 100 miles. The les.'iOn here is to never use armor to penetrate a fortified position. It is not organized

for this task. If you commit the annor too early, it becomes bogged down, and the infantry has to come along and pull it out and do the job over again.

I had another policy that I always strictly enforced. It deals with support between divi­sions. I believe the best way one division can support another in battle is to loosen and soften up enemy resistance in its own zone of action that might threaten the unit on its flank. I never permitted one division to tum across the front of another division. When you do this, there is a great possibility that your forces will become disorganized. Disentangling the troops and getting them started again in the right direction is a difficult, risky business, especially if enemy forces are located nearby. If I had a division advancing rapidly and having success, I insisted that it plunge ahead in its own zone and drag the other divisions with it.

Now, I want to address the Rhine River cross­ing. My staff and I started planning for the cro&sing several weeks in advance, focusing south of the junction of the Main and Rhine rivers. We had the air corps take photographs all winter, and we studied the banks of the river under all conditions and types of weather. The Rhine, a fonnidable obstacle, is 1,000 feet wide and has a current of about 4 miles per hour, about as fast as a man can walk.

By this time, we had destroyed all enemy forces west of the Rhine, and we knew there were no large concentrations of forces east of the river either. We felt that if we could get a footing over the river, we could not be turned back. We knew, however, that the Germans were desperate and were placing all their units in the front lines. We expected a fierce fight at the river line.

My intent was to cross on a broad front with speed and momentum. To do this, we used four crossing sites. The initial assault force crossed in assault boats and DUKWs, 2 liz-ton amphibious trucks. I was fortunate to have a battalion of DUKWs to transport the artillery and heavy equipment. Moreover, we built infanrry ferries

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and heavy pontoon ferries. After the fire was cleared from the crossing sites, we constructed bridges. Because the river was high and the stream beds were soggy and boggy, we selected our bridge sites carefully. We built a treadway bridge just south of Worms in 12 hours and 50 minutes, a heavy pontoon bridge 1,040 feet long in 9 hours and 12 Ininutes and a pontoon bridge 1,164 feet long in 17 hours and 10 minutes.

Q)mmand and control of the river crossing was another eXCiting challenge. 1 told my staff that I wanted the operation organized just as carefully as the channel crossing was organized. They did it too! My 03 (operations and plans) established the priority of crossing, and my 04 (Logistics) granted clearances. We had a corps control cell in the 04 office with a traffic officer, military police (MP) officers and some military policemen. We had two sector control cells on each side of the river. Each pair, one on each side of the river, controlled two bridges. We also had two assembly areas on each side of the river. The only traffic between them was bridge traffic. At the ingress and egress points to each bridge, we had an MP officer, some mili­tary policemen for traffic control and a recovery vehicle to move stalled or inoperative vehicles. Experience shows that if a vehicle is going to break down, it will always do it in the middle of the bridge. [f a driver did not know where he was supposed to go the minute he crossed the river, we ran him into an assembly area to dear the road until we could get the problem stmightened out.

The river crossing was a great success. We attacked at 0230,26 March 1945, and 68 hours later, or about 48 hours after the bridges were completed, we had crossed 120,000 troops, 23,000 vehicles, including four infantry divi­sions and two annored divisions, and 84 as­signed or attached units, mostly of battalion size. Many of them belonged to XXI Corps. I was a proud corps commander standing there watching the traffic move across the bridge­one after another without any hesitation, with

MILITARY REVIEW. May 1990

We attacked at 0230, 26 March 1945, and 68 hours later, orabout48

hoUts after the bridges were completed, we hadcrossed 120,000 troops,

23,000 vehicles, including four infantry divisions and two armored divisions,

and84 assigned orattached units, mosdy ofbattalion size.

Ii

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everything running perfectly. We switched traf­fic on some of the bridges occasionally and turned it back again without any delay.

The river crossing, however, was not my only focus at the time. I had two divisions attacking east across the river and approaching rhe Main

Unlike some commanders who spread their strength neady overan entire front

and then wonder why they neverget any' where, I puteverygun in the corps artillery and every airplane in the tacticalair force behind the corps' main effort. I believe in pouring it on the objective area and not

scattering your combat power.

River, which itself was about 350 yards wide. I had another division attacking south to capture Mannheim, the great industrial city of Ger­many. With all this going on, the army com­mander called me up and said, "Move the XXI Corps across your bridges too." Slightly an­noyed at this directive, I responded, "While I'm doing all these other things for you, I've got a few odd minutes, is there anything else you'd like me to do?" He came down and took ovet my bridges.

After we took Nuremberg and started south to the Danube, it was evident that the fight was rapidly drawing to a close. German resistance had been deteriorating ever since we left the Rhine River some 250 miles back. We knew that when we hit the Danube, itwas just a mat­ter of finding soft spots and getring across. We had run out of maps and off of maps, but at this stage of the game we were in full pursuit. I was not worried about being cut off or stopped. We just kept the pressure on and gained ground.

Although this has been a fast, superficial look at the XV Corps in World WadI, there are a few additional points worth pondering. First, as a corps commander, I never knew from One hour to the next whether I was going to have

one, two, four or whatever number of divisions. The lesson here is that a corps commander must be flexible; he must be able to adjust him­self to any situation without worry, fuss or bother. No matter what happens, it must be considered entirely nonna!. Prepare yourselffor this kind of warfare. Second, the fights that I have described were fought with weapons and materiel that are now outdated, some of them ob­solete. But these battles proved that the Anny's principles are sound. We know how to fight, but our techniques and procedures are going to have to change as our organizations and weap­ons change. Think about these changes while you are studying here at Leavenworth. Do not blindly accept the tactics and techniques of World War II. Be innovative; think critically about future war and how to wage it. Third, XV Corps consistently operated without friendly units on either flank or protecting its rear. Con­sequently, we always marched closed up and ready to fight in any direction. This tactic re­quires well-trained soldiers, competent leaders and sound bartle drills. Fourth, tapid movement over great distances made communications ex­tremely difficult. Radio and telephone commu­nications were consistently unsatisfactory. Often, couriers and other messengers were the only means ofeffective communications. Ordetswere issued orally between commanders in face-to"' face exchanges or transmirted orally by anny staff officers to corps staff officers. Although wor­risome, this procedure allows you to better under­stand what your boss is trying to accomplish. Fifth, aerial reconnaissance was always unsatis­factory. Neither reports of reconnaissance mis­sions flown nor photographs taken were received at the torpscommand post in time to be ofany use in bartle planning. They always arrived24t~ 48hoUJ:s late. We always fought with inadeqtll!t~ tactical intelligence.Finally, remember this frolllan old corps commander. A corps must behan­dIed sitllplyand directly. There must be no elab­orate SOPs'll(} elaborate maneuvers. If you want to win a fight, put your combat power in the place you Want it to go and punch it through.~

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ea ersh G

at Higher S

General]. Lawton Collins (1896-1987)

GeneralJ. Lawton Co1llns graduated fro .,', ,,' in the Philippines prior to World War II. After t Harbor, he was sent to Hawaii to organize the General CoUins led soldiers into combat in both acific and European theaters in World War II. He took the 25th Infantry Division into Guadalcanal in late 1942, and commanded the US VII Corps during the Way landing at Normandy and then in battles in France, Belgium and Germany. After thc war, he served as deputy and vice chiefofstaffand, from 1949 to 1953, he was chiefofstaffofthe Army. He delivered this speech to the students and faculty ofthe US Army Commandand General StaffCollege on 15 April 1949. His views on leadership ring true across the echelons of command and are as applicable today as when he served. His remarks have been edited for publication.

HEN I was first asked, last year, to come leader, then look into the techniques of lead· here to speak, the subject assigned to ership and then see what differences, if any,

me was "Leadership in the Higher Echelon." I there are in the qualities and the techniques of thought about that subject f()r some time be· leadership for larger units. cause it never had occurred to me before that First of all, the qualities of a leader. I am only there was any difference in leadership in the going to touch upon four of them, Probably you smaller units from the leadership required to could line up 100r 15, but there are only t(,ur command large units. The more I analyzed the that really amount to anyrhing, from my point problem, the more I became convinced that of view, was correct. [ think that just as it is true that tactics involved in a squad or a platoon or a Human Touch company or a battalion are identical to the tac· First, I would say rhar a great leader musr tics used in fighting in a corps or arm also have the human touch. Now, I cannot quite true that the same qualities all· qefinethat for you specifically, but I could per' unit commanders ate essential ose who haps indicate what 1 mean by saying that this have the responsibility of commanding larger human touch that I put such great store by units. So, I am going to attack the ptoblem would be exemplified by men like RobertE. pretty much in that way, first of all trying to Lee, and outside of the military field by such a analyze what are the essential qualities of a great man as AbrahaIll Lincc,[n. That would be

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the first then, in my judgment, of all the essen­tial qualities-that a leadet must have the human tOLlch. Nc)\\,\ h()w do yOll get· that way? What are the things that are involved in having a hUnl<ln touch!

Integrity. The first of these is that he must be a man of character and integrity. There is an

One ofthe things you certainly cannot kid{the troops] about is

honesty, character and integrit}' The leader who does not have those qualities

loses the confidence ofhis men faster than in any other way, because the men knolV a phony when they see one. You

can'thide a phony.

old saying in the Army that you can't kid the troops, and one of the things you certainly can­not kid them about is honesty, character and integrity. The leader who does not have those qualities loses the confidence of his men faster than ill any other way, because the men know a phony when they see one. You can't hide a phony. You either have character and integrity or you don't have it; And HS I say, men can spot people of that ilk right off the bat.

Genuine Interest. Next, the leader must have a genuine interest in the welfare of his men. And again, ifhe does not have that, if he does not look after his men first, last and all the time i hewiU never have their confidence. Now, while we are doing many things in the Army today to improve the relationships between our officers andmcn. to engender the confidence that must exist there, I think what we really ought to do is to go back to the old Army stand­[ud-where ·9fficers actedas.the "fathers" of their units. I do I1(ltlllefm in a sentimental way, but in agenuineway, with all the finest implica­tions of the responsil>ility ofa father for his chil­dren. When! joined the Army that was the thing that was emphasized most to me and, as a

matter of fact, it was emphasized Iuost at \V'est Point, that my job was primarily to look after my men. And I say we must go back to that point of view again, where the officer is willing to spend any amount of thne in order to look after the interests and welf,,,e of his men. I would like to illustrate that by a story.

I guess it was in January 1941, I was assigned as chief of staff of VII Corps (the corps I had the great good fortune to command in Europe) which was just being organized at Birmingham, Alabama. When I reported dO\vn there with the army commander, all we had were a handful of officers. I received word that we were going to get our cadre in a day or two ;.;md the cadre con~

sisted of one noncommissioned officer and I think it was 19 or 21 privates.Well, I got in touch with the 01 (personnel) over in Atlanta, Georgia, and I said, "Is this OUf whole cadre?u He said, H()h yes, that's what you are going to have to organize your headquarters company." I think we were entitled to about five or seven master sergeants and a lot ofother noncommis­sioned officers, but the senior man being sent us was a corporal. So we sat down and wrote to all the staff officers who were being ordered to us and suggested that they pick out, from their old headquarters, one or two men who were suscep­tible of development into senior noncommis~

sioned officers and bring them along, and we would guarantee that they would get some pro­motion. Well, these men began to arrive at odd times. Usually, we had no forewaming of just when they were going to corne. And one night at abour I I o'clock, as I was just tuming in, the telephone rang and it was the Salvation Army down at the railroad station. They said that there were just about a half dozen, six or eight men, for VII Corps that had just arrived. They had a lot of baggage with them and did not know what to do. Our headquarters company was still not fully organized, and we did not have adequate transportation or anything of that sort So. I got the 04 (logistics) of corps headquarterson.the phone, Colonel Eel Hall, and I said, "We have got some men down there

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at the railroad station. I would like you to get your car, and we will go down and meet them." So we did. We did have an acting first sergeant by then, and he was able to bed them down for the night. Now, I do not say this in a boastful way, that we two colonels went out and picked up these soldiers. That was our duty. It never in the slightest occurred to us that we were doing anything particularly unusual, because that was our business. Well, I had an interesting come­back on that incident when [ took command of this same corps in England, before the Nor­mandy invasion. At one of the first offices that I walked into, there was a good-looking master sergeant. As I shook hands with him, I said, "Sergeant, you have been around here for a long time-I know you from before when we were in Birmingham, don't I?" He said, "Yes, General, you are the first man that I saw in VII Corps. You met me at the railroad station about midnight the night I arrived, and I have never forgotten it."

Now, I am sure that was one reason we had such a crack corps headquarters, and maybe I am biased but I think, perhaps, we had the best in Europe. But there is no question in my mind that one of the reasons why we had it was because of the fact that Hall and I had met those men that night. Three of them were still with the company and were master sergeants then. That is the sort of thing that the officers of the Army must do for their men, for all their men. In the old Army, that was the routine thing, and we must get back to that sort of action.

Judgment. Now,rhe next thing that the leader must be able to do is to judge men. He must know how to choose tllen, because men are vastly different.Youcanhatl?le one man one way and find you musthlltldleanother one in an utterly different fas~ion.• With one man, you have to be exttemelyfirm, and another one, if you do that under certain circumstances, he loses his confidence. You have to handle each a little bit differently, and that is again dependent upon your own knowledge ofhuman nature and

PERSPECTIVES

your ownwillingness to admit that people can have fOibles, can have weaknesses and yet can have very great qualities which, if properly han­dled, can leadro perfectly splendid results.

Responsibility. Now, along with this will­ingness to handle men differently, you have got to give them responsibility if you expect them to be able ro develop into the leaders that you want to have under you. You have to place responsibility on these subordinates of yours, and then you have to be loyal to them.

I ran into an incident out in the Philippines some years ago when I was G 3 (operations and plans) of the Philippine Division. We were sta­tioned at Fort William McKinley. We had a number ofvery splendid young officers who had joined Us from the Military Academy and from

With one man you have to be extremely finn, and another one, if

you do that under certain circumstances, he loses his confidence. You have

to handle each a little bit differently ••• people can have foibles, can have weak­

nesses and yet can have very great qualities which, ifproperly lumcfled, can lead to perfectly splendid results.

the R01C (Reserve Officers' Training Corps) back here in the States. In one of the regiments in the brigade, the rule was that none of these young officers could even serve as officer of the day, mind you, until they had served as officer of the guard for three tours of guard duty, and dur­ing these tours of guard duty they had ro live right at the guardhouse. Now, these were men who had .a fair amol.lnt of training. Some of them had even gradl.lated from the basic COllfse at Fort Benning, Georgia, and yet that WdS the ordenlf that particular regimental commander. He was completely suppressing these Yol.lngsters.

In contrast ro that sort ofan idea, when I first was commissioned in 1917, I reported to duty

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It is easy enough for anybody having made a pIan, to follow that pIan if everythinggoes according to schedule.

The difflculty always arises, particularly in war, when something unexpecteddevelops,

something that you have not foreseen. Then what do you do! It is usually better to stick to a relatively poorplan than to

be always varying, but on the other hand, to stick obstinately to something

that is no longer applicable to the changed circumstances is silly.

amI ttx)k command ofa company the same day. All of my classmates were in the same boat. There was no alternative but to take command and to assume responsibility. And yet these youngsters in the Philippines knew far more than we did when we reported to duty. Well, that is one way to suppress initiative, and I can assure you that it is a sign of lousy leadership. If you are going to treat your subordinates that way, you can't possibly expect them to grow up and to shate with you the responsibility for their units-;

Toughness. I always was a great admirer of Lee but, despite the fact that I come from the South, I do not class Lee as one of the truly "Great Captains" of warfare. That may be a shocking thing to some of you, but the reason that I don't is that Lee lacked one quality that is essential to the great leader. He was not able to enforce his will on his subordinates. Lee was just too dam nice, and at critical times. You all know the story of the first day of Gettysburg when Lee ordered James Longstreet to atrack and Longstreet just refused to do it. He did not just come out and say that he would not obey, but he did not obey, and Lee failed to make him oblY_ And linked up with that same incident was Lee's failure to make "Jeb" Stuart report to him regularly and adequately. At the critical time when he wanted Stuart and needed him

badly, he didn't know where he was. And so the Battle of Gettysburg was lost. I think it was a very fortunate thing for the nation that it was lost, but it has always, to me, represented a drawback in Lee's quality as a leader. With all of his humanness-in fact he had too much, you might say, of the human quality - he simply did not have the tenacity, that hardhoiled trait, which at times you must have if you are going to make the subordinate obey. One of the toughest things that you will have to do as a senior com­mander will be to relieve other commanders. The time may come when you have a division under you that is not doing the thing that it ought to be doing, and after you have looked the situation over carefully, yourself, you come to the conclusion that the fault is in the division commander. Then you have got to have the tenacity and firmness to say, "Well, I am just sorry, but the jig is up, and somebody else is going to command that division." And the divi­sion commander has to be able to do the same thing-not as a cover-up for any failures of his own- but for the good of the whole unit. If a regimental commander is not up to the job, if after he has been cautioned and whatnot, he does not perform the way the division COm­mander thin.ks he ought to perform, particu­larly in action, then the division commander has no alternative but to relieve him. And, ifhe does not relieve him, if the senior doesn't re­lieve the subordinate who does nat measure up, th~n.heis n.0t being faithful to the men who are under him. Because that is what it all boils dowl:'l to. you have got to protect the lives of the.menwho serve un.det you.

~()\\" allof this< business ofthese human 4~~litiesmight be summed up in saying that this leader must have a devotion to service .hlthefthanto himself. The mottoof the Mili­taryA.cademy,"Duty-Honor-Country," is still ~rnarvelous standard that we can all en­de:ly()rto !iveuR to. Not oneself.-that is not t~ething that counts. What does countisdtlty and filithfulness and honor toyour country and to the menwho serve under you. So that, then!

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would say, is the first of the qualities that a great leader must have. He must have the human touch based on character and his devotion to the men under him and his devotion to his country.

Intelligence. Now the next major quality, I would say, that is essential is intelligence. You must have a good head; there is just no alter­native to that. The commander must have a keen analytical mind to solve the problems that are constantly facing him. He must have men­tal capaciry. He must not be a narrow-minded person with lack ofscope and at the samc time, he must have great flexibility of intellect. Sev­eral years ago, I had a discussion on this particu­lar subject with a professcr from one of the tech­nical institutes. I said I had arrived at a hap­hazard definition of my own and I wondered what he thought of it. I said, "My concept of intelligence was the ability to adjust oneself to unforeseen circumstances." It is easy enough for anybody having made a plan, to follow that plan if everything goes according to schedule. The difficulty always arises, particularly in war, when something unexpected develops, some­thing that you have not foreseen. Then what do you do? It is usually better to stick to a relatively poor plan than to be always varying, but on the other hand, to .stick Obstinately to something that is no longer applicable to the changed cir­cumstances is silly. So, it had always impressed me that the key thing was to be able to adjust yourself to unforeseen circumstances.

Well, the psychologist told me that I was all ",rongand I won't go into the technical reasons ",hyhe gave thlit view. J still stick to it for my purpos~. BlIt, YOllmust then apply that intel­lect to thehandling of Ill~n. It is.pretty difficult toputyourJinger of' what istacdessncss'What ~ lack?fjudRl1let\t?But, I think rnClStofWhave lW..d ~n()ughexp"~ien\et() krlow wl\atlalll.driv­ingat.Youlllllst r~lDper this intelligen\eto suit the Illen and the situation with which you.are confronted. And unless you do that, then your in~e1lect is ofno value at all. And yet next to the human touch, I say that the second quality

MILITARY REVIEW. May 1990

PERSPECTIVES

that is essential to real leadership is a fine in­telligence.

Courage, The next of the essentials, I would say, after the human touch and intelligence, is courage. Now, that is a rather obvious·. thing, particularly on the physical side. The leader

Lee was just roo dam nice, andat critical times. You allknow the

story ofthe Jirst day ofGettysburg when Lee orrleredJames wngstreet to

attack and wngstreetjust refused to do it ..• Lee failed to make him obey. And linked up with that same incident was

Lee's failure to make "Jeb" Stuart report to him regularly and adequately.

who is afraid to get up front, the leader afraid to take the same chances as his men, is never going to get anywhere at all. The man who tries to run any organization from a desk is going to be acomplete failure.

In time of war, it takes some courage,though not an awful lot, to get up and be right up front where you can see what is going on, and unless you do that you are not going to command the respect of your men and you are not going to know enough of what is going on to be able to make these decisions-to change plans with circumstances.

But even more impprtant than sheer physical courage is intellectual courage, the courage pf your cpnvictip!1S. I frequently hearpu(in civil life that in the Army, men are afraid to speak their mind-that when they are told to do solllething by a senior commander, Or asked for anopil)i?n, that the tendency isto give "the old man what he wants to hear." I flatly denythat.! have seen many, many officers try it, but rhey have never amounted to a hill of beans. and I have never seen any of them get any\vherejn the service. It has been my experience thauhe men I served under wanted me to tell them

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what I thought and that is what I always tried to do. And as far as I can see, it has not hurt me a bit in getting along in the Army. But it does take intellectual courage, at times, to be able to do that, particularly if the man you are working

In time ofwar, it takes some courage, though not an awfullot, to get up and be right up front where you can see what is going on, and unless you do that you are notgoing to command the

respect ofyourmen and you are not going to know enough ofwhat is going on

to be able to make these decisions-to change plans with circumstances.

for is not a topnotch leader. And yet we must do that. We must give our honest opinions.

Health. The fourth and last element that I am going to discuss among these essential qualitit~s for leadership is good health. Now, that may surprise some ofyou. As a younger officer, I heard many talks on leadership. But it was only dOWn at Benning, not many years ago, I heard a talk by General Troy Middleton, one of the really great leaders that we had in World War I and who came back on active duty in World War II and did a magnificent job. He is the first man I evet heard emphasize the necessity of good health as an essential for a leader. But when you stop and think about it, it is abso­lutely and utterly essential-good physical healthand more important, again-good men­talhealth.

If y~u are not well physically, if yoll do not keep yourselves fit physically, it is bound to react on what you do, on what your point of view is~even such things as deafness. I served once under a very fine manwho, unfortun.ately, ",~s i\el1:ing more and more deaf each month. As fine. a man as he was, his deafness interfered with his. real efficiency. And I could cite other instances ~ men who have stomach ulcers inev­

itably, at times, feel badly and that affects how they handle their troops, if they are in com­mand of troops. It mitigates against their effi­ciency and their ability to handle their job.

Good health is utterly essential to a leader, and good mental health is even more important than good physical health. The same colonel I was talking about a while ago who refused to give his lieutenants responsibility, had been passed over for promotion and, unfottunately, every time a new promotion list came out and he wasn't on it, the poor regiment caught hell. He was warped mentally, and it materially affected his ability to run his regiment. For­tunately, 1 have served under great men and only rarely have I served under men who have had that weakness - the weakness of being overly ambitious, of being overly sensitive of their own prerogatives-and in each instance that it was there, we had our difficulties.

So I would say, in summing up, that the four qualities you must have are, first of all, the human touch based on character and integrity and loyalty. You must have intelligence-a flex­ible intelligence. You must have courage, phys' ical and mental, and you must have good health -again physical and mental.

Now, these things you are bam with. I re­member that during the war, General George C. Marshall came up to See me when VII O:>rps was in a place called Cameliminster,southeast of Aachen. It so happened that I had been priv­ileged to serve under Marshall when he was assistant commandant at Benning years ago, and we were talking abollt different chaps who had been down there at that time, and would say, "How is so and so doing?" He is marvelous. This. next man,"\Vell,he hasn't quite mea­sllred up," and soon. And finally Marshall said, "\Veil now, what is it-you have either got to have this business of leadership in your mak~llP or yOU haven't. Isn't that it? You have either got this sp""k of leadership or you haven'r." I said, "Yes, I guess that's right."

That is pretty nearly true and yet that is,ina sense, a pessimistic outlook because we cannot

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Senior people . .. are nevergomg to get loyalty [unless they] are loyal to their own subordinates. 1remember that General Fox Conner . .. said that the only instructions

that he really got from Pershing when they started tbe headquarters over there was ·'Wen, Fox, you are going to be the plans and training officer. Don't make too many

mistakes/' Sure, there were gomg to be some mistakes made, but Pershing always backed up his subordinates. One ofthe great things that Mr. Baker did was to back up Pershing all

the time. So loyalty, then, is something you can just learn to do by practice. AA 4$

all be born great leaders. Fortunately, I think there is something you can do about it. You can improve your personality. You have to start with what God gave you, unfortunately, but there is something that you can do about it. In a sense, just as important as the inherent qualities of leadership are the techniques of leadership and commamtCan you learn how to lead?

The Techniques Now, what arc some of the things that We

ought t()lookoutforifwe aregoing to make ourselves better leaders --to make full usc, we might say, .of the. God-given talents that •we have tel start with. The hrstofthem,l would say, is to know your business, to get tokn()W your business. The officer ought to know better than th{~ man under him how to handle allthe

weapons in his unit. Know your business and if you can do that and are willing to work hard, that will overcome a hell of a lot of deficiencies in the talents that God mayor may not have given you. That is the first thing~get to know your business.

I do not know whether they still do it, but when I took the course atBenning, all the com­pany officers used to take machineguns horne with them before the test came in mounting a machinegun.The groupthat I was with got to be experts at the business of. mounting a machinegon.Andwhen I later had charge of that verysaluescction as ahinstructor there, I always prided myselfthat I could mount a rnachinegun just as fast as Sergeant Wolf could, whichwas something, lean assure you, because \ve had a magnificent group of noncommis­

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1£1 did not have time to get over to the 9th Divi~ion myselfand see wlJat was going on, I could caR Eddy on the

phone and he would tell me what the con" dinons were. There never was any doubt

about it in my mind that they were correct, because I knew thathe personally had been around on the ground and had

seen what was going on. ag r r JWIiMJMw;;;m ,i @ +M& H& **

sioned officers there. But we instructors wanted to know as much about it as Wolf did, and McNemy and McGony, and if we could do that, then we knew our business. It made a world of difference in the instruction at the school, because the group of instl11ctors there was outstanding. The class knew that those fel­lows knew what they were talking about.

Well, if you do that with your organization, whether it is a squad or company or platoon or division or an army, you can get, from your meh, a tremendous amount of confidence. But i{yondo not know what you are talking about, then I can assure youthatY(lu are going to become one of those ~ople"\Vho havetobl1lk doze their way to get discipline or to get results. So that is one of the first things one can do. Get to know your techniques,getto know yourtao tics, whatever the organization is.

40

Now, the next thing that you can do is to get out and see tor yourself, firsthand, what the con­ditions are. Now this holds particularly in action. I had 20-odd divisions pass through VII Q)rps overseas, and all of them were crack men, with one or two possible exceptions where we had to make some changes. But one of the great things I always knew about the 9th Division, which General Manton Eddy commanded, was that if I did not have time to get over to the 9th Divi­siem myself and see what was going on, 1could call Eddy on the phone and he would tell me what the conditions were. There never was any doubt about it in my mind that they were cor­rect, because I knew that he personally had been around on the ground and had seen what was going on-he was not talking secondhand. That is the only way you can know in action, for sure, what conditions are.

If I can be personal for a moment, it was my routine, always, to leave headquarters around 11 o'clock in the moming to visit each divi­sion daily, and as I rode along I would take a look at the roads as I went. I was a greatbeliever in keeping transportation moving. That is the way you get speed. Keep your roads open, and if you don't do that, thenyou are goingto lose time all along the line; and 1used to try to keep ahead of my corps engineer. I knew as much about the conditions throughout the roads as he did.

Well, the same thing holds true with these division commanders. The real fellows are the ones that get up front.l do not mean recklessly, or with a sense of bravado at all, but where the critical area is, there is where the commander has to be. Your plans are going to vary. No mat­ter how perfect the concept is, c.onditionsare going to vary and the commander has to make spotdecisions to keep his units rolling.

I remember one night after we broke through theGerman position, on aboutthe16th.()fJune Ithink itwas, at the base of the Cherbourg pen­insula; going up into Eddy's area.1 hadnotgone by headquarters. It waslate in the day and I found a····· battalion commander.·•. there,·deadon

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his feet, not literally dead, but mentally-phys­ically. He was a fine battalion commander, but he was just worn out and nothing was happen­ing. Nothing was moving. Well, I got Eddy on the phone and in a few minutes he was up there and the two of us-he did the directing, of course-shifted the battalions, and I gave Eddy instructions then that we were not going to stop all night long. We had broken through these Gemlan positions, and we were not going to stop until we got to the sea. I did not care what the conditions were. We simply had to keep going that night. And the next morning a fresh battalion with some tanks drove into the town on the far side of the peninsula. Had we not come up there, I am confident that it would not have gone through that night because the troops were too tired. And ifwe had been soft at the moment when we had to be hard, we would never have made the breakthrough with the speed that we did. But we could do that only because we knew what the conditions were.

Well, you can only do that if you get out and see for yourselves, so that you will know what you are talking about. You have got to analyze each new problem through. Make use of what­ever intelligence that you have, and it does not take an awful lot of intelligence. We teach the estimate of the situation in the Army. But unfortunately, too frequently we think it applies only to a tactical situation. But if you will ana­lyze all of your missions, either in peacetime or wartime, you do not have to have an awful lot of brains to figure out a common sense solution. But, if you don't think, if you don't stop and analyze; of course you will do dumb things; and if something happens then, you are lost as far as your men are concerned. You are not being their leader.

Now, having analyzed the situation, the next impprtanr t~chniqueis toe;<plain t()yourlllen ",hat the proJ.,l~m is and rhe~easonw~yyouare trying to d9 ",hateyeritis you are doing,Again, if I can be persolll1l, overin. Germany when I was a company commander, One of the things

assigned ro uS to do was to go rhrough the woods in the Mountibal Forest in the bridge. head area. It was midwinrer with about 2 feer of snow on rhe ground. We had to go out each day and check the maps, check rhe ground against

The men I served under wanted me to tell them what I thought and that

is what I always tried to do. Andas far as I can see, it has nothurtme a bitin getting

alongin the Army. Butit does mke inteHectual courage, at times, to be able to

do that, particularly ifthe man you are working for is nota topnotch leader.

the maps and decide where we were going to put our defenses in the event the bridgehead should ever be attacked by the Germans. It was an arduous job. It wasn't nearly as comfortable out there as it was back in Koblenz, where we all had nice barracks. Early in the game, I decided that the only way in the world that we could make rhis thing work well and get it done rapidly and efficiently was to tell the men what the problem was. Questions ofsecrecy came up. Well, should you let the men know what it is all about? I decided I .was going to do it. I told them all about it and each day before we started out, I said what the job for that day was going to be.

Well, one of the most flattering things I have ever heard in my life was to hear one of our sergeants, about the second or third day out, at a break, say to some of the others, "The thing I like. aboutthis captain of ours is that he tells us ",hat it is all about and that makes it easy." Tell yourmenwilatit is all about. Take them into your c<>nfidence.

One ()fthe favorite storiesrhat Ihave g\lCS back to the time ofFriedrich von Steuben, that Prussian who came OVer here to put a little disci· plinein the Continental Anny. You relllembet, George Washington had his troubles with that

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It was late in the day and I found a battalion commander there, dead on his feet • •• He was a One batta­

lion commander, bllt he was just worn out and nothing was happening. Nothing

was moving. Well, I got Eddy on the phone andin a few minutes he was up there ••• shift[ing] the battalions ••. ifwe had been

softat the moment when we had to be hard, we wouldnever have made the breakthough with the speed that we

did. Bllt we coulddo thatonly because we knew what the conditions were.

<lany. It was a ragtag, bobtailed affair without any discipline at all. And so he took von Steu­ben, who volunteered to come over here to help out. Von Steuben had wrirten to an officer friend of his in the German army, after he had been in this country for a year or two. The letter was quite remarkable. I am going to paraphrase it slightly for you. He said to this chap, "The genius that is the character or the nature of the American people~the genius of this people is different from ours. In the German amlY you tell a man to do something and he does it. In the American Army, I must first explain the reasonwhy, and then it is done," Now I say, that von Steuben, writing at about 1778 or 1779, put his finger on the ""ence of Amcrican disci­pline.lt isdiscipline based noton just the rough rule but a discipline based on leadership and understanding.

And that has been my experience through­out. my servke. If you only take your men into y()ur c0l'lfi<lence, tell them what you are trying to d()al1d ",hyrou are trying to do it, the Amer­icansoldier",Hlmeet you more than halfway. And that is something yOll can learn todoby pt<lctice and by application; You have got to be loyal tothesesuhordinatesof yours if you e"er expect to retain their confidence. Loyalty works down, not up. Too many people, senior people,

in the past have not realized that. They look to loyalty on the part of theit subordinates. They are never going to get loyalty from their subordi­nates unless they themselves are loyal to their own subordinates.

I remember that General Fox Conner, who was General John Pershing's plans and training officer at Chaumont in World War I, said the only instructions that he really got from Per­shing when they started the headquarters over there was "Well, Fox, you are going to be the plans and training officer. Don't make too many mistakes." Sure, there Jere going to be some mistakes made, but Pershing always hacked up his subordinates. One of the great things that Mr. Baker did-Newton D. Baker who was our secretary of war and one of the greatest of our secretaries· of war-was to back up Pershing all the time. So loyalty, then, is something you can just learn to do by practice.

In addition to being loyal, you have got to give them something to do. You have to learn to decentralize to your subordinates. I have no patience with commanders who say, "We can't get along without-we can't let this man go on this special detail because he is essential." No­body is that essential. If you get a man so good as all that, let him go for awhile and let his sub­ordinate take command. Give this fellow under him a chance to exercise command. It will develop him and it will also take some of the load off your shoulders.

And there is another thing that you must learn to do. You have to learn how to relax. You have to leam how to trust these men under you to do their share of the job. That's important. If you want to retain your good health- physical and mental health- you have to learn to relax and that isn't always easy to dt'>, particularly in combat.

Even though we did not live in the rear in some big headquarters, I always believed in making ourselves as comfortable as we possibly could do, even though the men up front could not have such advantage. Because we worked night and day, day in and day out, without any

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The senior commander has to learn, among other techniques then, bow to be able to express bimselfto get out and meet civilians who frequently are skep"

tical about this Anny ofours. Be able to outline to them what the Anny aspires to do, howit is organized, howit works or creaks, and explain to them the reason why . ..

Marshall couldgo up before a congressional committee and outline to them the most complicated sort ofa problem in a very simple way.

relief at a big headquarters, it was our endeavor to make ourselves as comfortable as we could. It took an awful lot of ingenuity on the part of our engineer and our young officers at the head, quarters, but we had hot water shower baths, so that when we came in at the end of the day, or the people who were on a night shift, before they finally got to sleep in the morning, could get a shower and relax. Most of us were out in the field until late in the dav, so at the headquar~ tefS, we ate late. When we came· in, we had a highball before dinner, if we had any liquor. That is the only time we eVer had it, but it isa false idea for senior leaders not to ever do that sort of thing.

Ir is impossible to get suchfacilities. or such •Jnaterials togo aU the way around everywhere, but itisveryessential that the senior comman~ ders, .at· the. end of the day after· the job-the primary jobs at any ratc-is done, be able to relax, to have a good meal in relative comfort. Then we would go back to the map room and review the operations of the day and the in­

structions that had been issued in/the field. When we got through with that we could go to bed, knowing that we had done everything that could be done. And unless the bombers came around, you had a pretty good chance ofgetting a night's sleep.

Now, the final technique that you have to learn is a sense of showmanship. That is more important than many people believe it is, par­ticularly infantrymen. I am an infantryman. I thought the cavalry always had a verve that the infantry lacked. We used to look down our noses, at times,;}t the silly things that the caval, rymendid, butwewere wrong. A sense ofshow­marishipbuilds morale, it builds prideof unit:. George Patton was a great one fi)r that sbrt.bf thing and that is why, despite Georgie's occa~ sional flare,ups, the men under him were really crazy about him. That is why they fought sowell for him. They knew that he would look after the welfare and the morale and the newspaper pub~ Hcity and the Third Anny.

One of the great minor leaders of this war

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was a feUow by the name of Patty Flynn, a reg­imental commander in Eddy's division. Patty was much too old to command a regiment, by all the rules of the game. But he had an undying desire to do something-to fight. He was a cav­alryman and there was nocavalry fighting over therc, so he appealed to General Dwight Eisen­hower, whom he knew well, to be given an intimtry regiment. So he was assigned to the 9th Division. And Eddy, recognizing this fel­low's spark, assigned him to a regiment that had losr a fine commander and it had begun to run downhill. TIl is regiment had taken consider­able casualties in North Africa, and it was ap­parently in bad shape and needed somebody to give it a lift. After Patty had been there for a shott time, the division commander noticed that the men in the regiment were painting a strange device on their helmets-- AAA with a line across the "A"s painted on the side of their helmets. It began to crop up throughout the whole division. Eddy asked Patty, one day, "What does this thing mean-what's going on here!" Patty said, "Well, this is the motto of this regiment. It means:. 'Anything, Anywhere, Anytime' -bar nQthing." That was the motto of the regiment from that time on, and boy.­they did anything, any place and any time, bar nothing.

Patty had just lifted them up by their own bootstraps. Unfortunately, he was later killed in action, leading a platoon. He really did not belong there, as a matter of fact. That was one of Patty's weaknesses. He got too excited and too interested. He got too far up in front, past the point where the regimental commander ought to be, and he was shot in the head by a German and killedin action. It was the kind of death that Patty wanted, but we all felt the terri­ble loss.

So, you can learn thesetypes of things, tech­niques that ",illmakeyou a better leader.(ietto know your bU~iness and work at it hard. Be loyill to the men who are under you. Get up frol}tand see for youtselfwhatis going on. Vary your actions depending upon what the situation is,

based on your awn firsthand knowledge. De­centralize to rhese subordinates. Learn to relax. Get to be somewhat ofa showman, and you can overcome your shortcomings in talent and personaliry.

Large Units_ Now then, how does this apply to large units? Or does it apply? Is there any great difference in the application of these prin­ciples and these techniques to large units? There is no real difference, as far as I can see.

The only rhing is that the field is larger and in addition to the units themselves that you command, you have a responsibility to the pub­lic at large. Public opinion begins to affect what you can or cannot do with your unit. And you have to consider that at the higher echelons. The senior commander has to learn, among ather techniques then, how to be able to ex­press himself in public. That is a very important thing for a senior commander, to be able to get out and meet civilians who frequently are skep­tical about this Army ofOUts. Be able to outline to them what the Army aspires to do, how ir is organized, how it works or creaks, and explain to them the reason why. That is a very impor­tant attribute for a leader.

Again, Marshall had that marvelous faculty, also Eisenhower and Bradley, and it went a tre­mendous way toward securing, for the Anny, the needed assistance on Capitol Hill in the business of appropriations during the war. Mar­shall could go up before a congressional com­mittee and outline to them the most compli­cated sott of a problem in a very simple \Vay. The Congress trusted Marshall. But aside from that he could explain to them what it was about. They came to have such confidence in him that towardthe end they didn't even WOrry tootlll.lch about the explanation. Ithinko\le of ~emaryeloustributes. to.Marshall dltlle at ~e

. timeqfthe at()mic bomb developments. After thefirsr billiop d()llars had been spent and they still had notcompleted the job, Marshall went ul' beforeac0tllmittet:meetingof the Senate­Ithink. itw~a dosed session of the Senate Appropriations Committee. He said he needed

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anothet billion dollars, and unfortunately, this time, he could not give them the detailed expla­nation of what it was fot. All that they asked him was "General, ate you sure that the billion will be enough?"

A senior commandet has to develop the art of negotiation and compromise. He has to be able to sit down with othet men of othet set­vices and other nationalities and be able to negotiate with them and be able to arrive at satisfactory compromises with them. That is an art, I can assure you. It takes ttemendous judg­ment to know when to give in and when to stand firm, and that is something that takes years of experience to develop. But it can be developed and it has to be developed as you go along through your formative years as a leader. The rigid man will never compromise; he lacks that judgment, that tact, that knowledge, of how to vary with the changing situations that I spoke ofearliet. This is exttemely important for the higher commanderbecause the stakes are so much greater.

It is more important than ever that the senior commander knows how to judge men and pick able subordinates. Over the years, he must regis­ter, in the back of his head, the. abilities of the men that he has been serving With, so that when he is faced with difficult missions, he can seek out and assign, to the particular jobs, men in accordance with their talents. That was one of the great faculties that Pershing and Eisen­howet had. Marshall had it as well-to be able to select men and fit them into the proper type of job. For a senior commander, that is ex­tremely important.

But along with all of these things· that the senior commander has, I would like to go back to the first one of the qualities that L men­tioned, the human touch.~e<:atl~~.th~~eisa tendency, as you get older,t()get:a little:bit more self-centered, a little bit more proud of yourself, there is a tendency in higher com­mandto get farther away from the men who do the real fighting. And no marter how good you may be, if you do not refresh yourself through

MILITARY REVIEW. May 1990

PERSPECTIVES

Get to know your businessatld work at ithard. Be loyal to the men who are under you. Get up front andsee for

yourselfwhat is going on. Vary youractions depending upon what the situation is,

basedon yourown firsthand knowledge. Decentralize to these subordinates.

Learn to relax. Get to be somewhat ofa showman, and you can overcome your shortcomings in talent andpersonality.

contact with the subordinate officers and the men under you, you will lose this common touch, and with it will go your leadership.

Finally, I would like to say that the Army today offers to all of us great challenges in lead­ership. Today we hear from some sources that we can win the next war, if we have to fight another of the damnable things, with gadgetS. We can win them with airplanes, with atomic bombs, withsubmarines orwith guided missiles or something else of the sort and that we can do all of this without an. army. I do not believe it. It is going to. take team work ofall of the services to win. But the Army has a privileged position in a sense. In the air, the airplane is the key thing and at sea, it is a ship. But I have always felt that what makes the Army special is that the key thing in the Army is man himself. The human being is the essentialweapon. No mat­ter hoW good these gadgets are, they have to be operated by man and that is the essence of our life in the Army. Handling men, with all of their strengths, .their foibles .and their weak­n willalwaysbe key. They are our Armen­essesti"res as tb.e Frenchman would say. It is a chal­lenging thing. To me, it is the most attractive part of Army life, to be associated with men you can lead and who look up to you,' if you have these qualities of leadership. That's what the Army is all about, and I arn very proud to be part of it. "'i..

45

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and the BATTLE of the BULGE

Li(~utenant Colont,~l Paul G. Munch, US Army

The impottrlQce of thc.~ rclationshipbetween commanders i'i immense, o{t(m tht~ primary determinant in combat. The author 4k'Scfi~ here the other relationship that often spell., victory or defeat in b...ttle .....that between· a c()mmandt~r and his staff. He prt'S(~tits a vividiHustrntiQn. of the trust and cdmpetcndc.'S that aJIowcd Gt!()rgc 5•. Patton Jr. and his ThhdArmy staff to make their ('fidem c6nmbutions in the Battle ofthe Bulge.

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HE TACTICAL skills and attributes re­quired of a commander to be successful

on the modem battlefield have been greatly debated, but the need to maximize the poten­tial ofastaff to increase the comnlanCrS chances of success has been largely ignored, This re~

mains a paradox since a COIllI1mnder1sstaff is an integral part of the command element and a vital key to success on an increasingly complex battlefield.

It is also surprising frOll1 a historical stand~

point, since most successful commanders have recognized the importance of their staffs. For instance, when Field Marshal Sir Bernard L. Montgomery was asked to list the attributes of a successful general, the first item on his list was i'Have a good chief of staff,1l1

Like Montgomery, George S. Patton Jr. also recognized the importance of his staff After the war, he suggested "no one lllan can conduct an anny, but that the success of any anny depends on the harmonious working of its staff and the magnificent fighting ability of the combat of­ficers and enlisted men. Without this team­work, war cannot be successfully fought."2

If an efficient and effective staff clement is key to a commander's success, it would be help­ful to study the workings of a successfid staff. In this regard, few staffs can match the accom­plishments of Patton's Third AmlY staff dur­ing the Battle of the Bulge. Although over­shadowed by the flamboyance of its commander, the Third Army staff was key in turning the tide against the Gennan offensive,

The Third Army Staff Prior to the Battle of the Bulge, not many

officers shared Patton's enthusiasm for his staff. But, the staffs perfonnance during the Battle of the Bulge would change many minds. For in­stance, OIllar N. Bradley later stated:

"Indeed, I had once agreed with the observa­tion of another senior commander who said, 'Patton can get more good work out of a medi­ocre bunch of staff officers than anyone I evcr saw.' His principals were almost without ex-

Patton set high standards and demanded excellence, timeliness and hard work from the entire staff. He told them:

". .. It is inevitable for men to be killed and wounded in battle. But there

is no reason why such losses should be in­creased because ofthe incompetence and carelessness ofsome stupid son-of..a-bitch. I don't tolerate such men on my Staff."

ception holdovers from the Sicilian campaign where their perfoIlllalKe could be most charita· bly described as something less than perfect. However, five months in Europe had seasoned that staff and the greatly matured Patton suc­ceeded in coaxing from it the brilliant effort that characterized Third Army's turnabout in the Bulge.'"

If so much of the Third Anny's success de· pended on its staff as Patton and Bradley sug­gested, how did Patton effectively use his staff to enhance his amlY's success? More important, what can we learn from Patton's handling of his staff?

Command and Staff Relationship Much of the Third Army's success can be

attributed to a strong mutual trust between Pat­ton and his staff. Patton once told General Dwight D. Eisenhower, "I don't need a brilliant staff~ I want a loyal one.1l4 He got what he wanted.

Upon assuming command of the Third Army during early 1944, Patton replaced most of the senior staffofficers with either the veterans \vho had served with him in Africa and Sicily or with cavalrymen he had known before the war. They were totally loyal and carried out his or­ders in an unobtrusive and highly effident man­ner. He, in tum, trusted, rewarded and backed them to the hilt.s

Their unobtrusive manner sometimes con~

cealed their talent. Brigadier General Hugh ].

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Afterhe was infonned ofthe latest intelligence, personnel, logistics andair clata, be asked questions oradvice ofhis staffmembers, outlined that days actions and left for the frontline areas. Upon his rerum, he was briefed on the day's events ... Likewise, he required one officer from

each staRsection to go forward each day and visit the corresponding o£6.cers of

the next lowerechelon.

Gaffey, the chief of staff who pulled them together was considered a "staffofficer ofgenius and a tank expert."6 Both Gaffey, who departed to command the 4th Annored Division during early December 1944, and Gaffey's successor, Brigadier General Hobart R. Gay, "were equal­ly competent in the exercise of their intricate

craft; both were in the mind of their master: they would be asked to do what lesser men would think im~)()ssible and achieve iL"7

At the staff-section level, many considered Colonel Oscar W. Koch, the G2, the most pen­etrating mind in the US Anny's intelligence community. Likewise, some suggested that Colo­nel Walter ]. Muller was the "ablest Cjuarter­master since Moses."8

Patton set high standards and demanded excellence, timeliness and hard work from the entire staff. He told them:

"I've won in battle and I'm going to win again. I won because I had good commanders and staff officers. I don't fight fix fun and I won't tolerate anyone on my Staff who does . . . It is inevitable f()f men to be killed and wounded in battle. But there is no reason why such losses should be increased because of the incompetence and carelessness of some stupid son-of-a-bitch. I don't tolerate such men on my Staff."9

All of the staff members knC\v the high stand­ards expected of them, but they also worked with a sense of purpose. The staff worked around the clock to get a job done, but when the work was done, they relaxed. There was no compulsion to look occupied or to take part in "busy work." If a staff officer did not perfann to expectations, he was removed. lo

Although he had choscn most of the senior members of his staff and felt comfortable with them, Patton remained distant from the main body of the staff. He preferred to lie apart from them with a few members of his command groUp.ll Such an approach had double benefits. Patton was afforded the opportunity to relax, thoroughly think through current problems and plan future operations. It also prevented him from interfering with the operation of his staff and getting involved with too many de­tails. (It is interesting to note that in earl ier staff assignments, Patton had received several poor efficiency reports.)

Patton's distance allowed him to maintain a predictable and organized relationship with his

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Patton remained distant from the main body ofthe staff. Such an approach had double benefits. Patton was afforded the opportunity to relax, thoroughly think through current problems and plan future operations. It also prevented him from

interfering with the operation ofhis staffand getting involved with too many details. w eM. @?W&

staff. He had a daily meeting at 0700 with the chief of staft~ the heads of sections and General Otto P. Weyland of XIX Tactical Air Com­mand. 12 During these informal, open-forum meetings, as at other times, he promoted open and frank dialogue between his staff and him­self. The resulting discussions promoted con­structive criticism and provided Patton an ex­cellent sounding board to formulate and de­develop his plans. 13

Once he had reached a decision and issued an order at these meetings or elsewhere, he was adamant. 14 To eliminate misunderstanding, he normally issued orders directly to his subordi­nates but required that short, written orders reach the subordinate prior to his carrying out the order. He suggested that army orders not exceed a page and a half of typewritten text and that they could usually be done on one page with a sketch map on the back. These orders would tell what to do, not how to do it,15

In addition to his 0700 meeting, he also had a more formal general staff meeting every day at 0800 and 1700. These briefings had a twofold

objective: to keep him and the staff informed of the most current plans and operations, and to knit all of the staff sections together. These were short briefings, never lasting over 20 min~

utes, After he was informed of the latest intel~ ligence, personnel, logistics and air data, he asked questions or advice of his staff members, outlined that day's actions and left felr the front­line areas, Upon his return, he was briefed on the day's events, 16

In the forward areas, Patton gained a true feel for the situation, Likewise, he required one officer from each staff section to go forward each day and visit the corresponding officers of the next lower echelon, These visits provided better information for staff actions andpro~

moted a bond of understanding and solidarity between all elements of the Third Army that was unequaled elsewhere. J7 The line and staff knew each other well and functioned on that basis. 18

By the fall of 1944. the ThirdArmy staff was a smooth-running organization. The relationship of Patton to his staff is instmctive, He strength~

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ened the strong mutual trust between himself and his staff with an established command-staff relationship and effective two-way communica­tions. To this relationship, the staff added com­petence, efficient staff procedures and an effec­tive working relationship between the various staff levels within the Thitd Army. The staff proved its worth duting the Battle of the Bulge.

foreshadowing the Battle When the Germans launched their offensive

on 16 December 1944, Patton's Third Army had been on the offensive since 8 November. When they finally captured Metz on 13 Decem­ber, Patton would proudly state that this was the first time Metz had been taken by assault since the year 641. Intent on retaining the initiative, the Third Army was now poised to break through to the Rhine River. The ground attack was to commence on 19 December.

The Allied command had been surprised by the Germans' attack. Bradley initially thought it might be a spoiling attack to force a halt on Patton's advance into the Saar. 19 In any event, he called Patton on the evening of 16 Decem­bet to direct the telease of Patton's 10th At­moted Division to General Courtney H. Hodges' First Army. Patton protested. He felt it would hutt his chances to reach the Rhine, but Brad­ley was finn. Patton ordered the 10th Armored Division north.

While this was Patton's first official notice of the Germans' Ardennes offensive, he had antic­ipated the attack and, on 12 December, had even directed his staff to make"a study of what the Third Army would do if called upon to counterattack such a breakthtough."20

Patton's intuition about the German offen­sive in the Ardennes area was based on the solid information being collected and analyzed by Koch. During November, the G2 section identi­fied a numbet of Gennan units leaving West­phalia and Third Army's front. Koch believed they were regrouping somewhere. On 23 No­vember, he wrote in his daily periodic report: "This powerful sttiking force, with an estimated

500 tanks, is still an untouched strategic teserve held for future employment" and concluded they might be used for a "coordinated countet­offensive."l1

Through early December, Koch continued to pursue information on this poSSible threat. On 7 December, he warned of "enemy reserves with large Panzer concentrations west of the Rhine in the northern portion of 12th Army Group's zone of advance." Two days later, Koch informally briefed Patton on the possibility of a German attack and their capability to mount it. On the 11th, Koch again warned, "Overall, the initiative still rests with the Allies. But the mas­sive armored force the enemy has built up in reserve gives him the definite capability of launching a spoiling offensive to disrupt Allied plans."22 Koch's predictions ran counter to most other higher headquarters. Others were predicting only minor counterattacks. "Counter­offensiveu and "counterattack" are distinctive terms meaning different things. ULTRA (the higher-level intelligence) intercepts were un­available to confirm either view due to the Ger­man secrecy surrounding the offensive.2J

While visiting several division headquarters on 12 December, Patton "decided definitely to place the 6th Armoted and the 26th Division in the III Corps near Saarbriicken, because, if the enemy attacked the VIll Corps of the First Army, as was probable, I could use the III Corps to help by attacking straight north, west of the Moselle River."2' That day Patton directed his staff to make a study of what the Third Army would do if tequested to counterattack a break­through to the north ofThitd Army.15

Four days later during his normal morning meeting, still unaware that the Germans had begun theit attack through the Ardennes an hour earlier, Patton was briefed on the "trans­lated" intetcepts from the previous evening. They indicated the German armored concen­tration around Trier was breaking up and mov­ing to an unknown destination. The Germans had also just gone on radio silence. Patton was convinced that the attack would be through the

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Ardennes.26

He asked Gay, his chief of staff, and Colonel Maddox, his 03 (operations and plans), how they were progressing on the study that he had ordered on 12 December. After they updated him, he made his instructions more specific. "I want you, gentlemen, to start making plans for pulling the Third Army out of its eastward attack, change the direction 90 degrees, mov­ing to Luxembourg and attacking north."27

As a consequence of the Third Army's ag­gressive staff work, Patton was not overly sur­prised by Bradley's phone can during the eve­ning of the 16th. He was disappointed that he could not continue his offensive toward the Rhine, but not surprised by the German offen­sive. The continuing analysis and planning by his staff and Patton's recognized tactical intui­tion had allowed him to anticipate the offensive and even draw up contingency plans.

The Battle During their normal morning briefing on the

17th, Koch reported that the Germans were continuing their attack on VIILCorps in the First Army's area, but they also appeared to be moving into the area fronting on Third Army's own XX O:>rpS.28

Patton thought it over for a moment, then said, "One of these is a feint; one is the real thing. If they attack us, I'm ready for them, but I'm inclined to think the party will be up north. VIII Corps has been sitting still-a sure invita­tion to trouble."29

The extent of the breakthrough became clearer on the 18th, the third day of the offen­sive. It was serious. General Hasso von Man­teuffel's panzers had smashed through the 28th Division to overrun Troy H. Middleton's VIII Corps reserves. Further north, two regiments of the 106th Division had already been encircled, and the remainder of the division was desper­ately hanging on at St. Vith. The situation did not look good.

While somewhat ad hoc, reinforcements were on the way. The 7th Armored Division from

[patton] had a daily meeting at 0700 with the chiefofstaff, the heads ofsections and General Otto R Weyland ofXIX Tae.. tical AirCommand. During these iniol'-­mal, open..forum meetings, [he] promo-­ted constructive criticism andprovided Patton an excellent sounding board to

fonnulate and develop his plans.

Lieutenant General William H. Simpson's Ninth Army was being rushed south to strengthen the northern shoulder. To the south, the timely arrival of Patton's 10th Annored Division had helped steady a weak right shoulder, and ele­ments of that division raced to reinforce the 9th Armored Division at Bastogne. In addition,the 82d and WIst Airborne divisions were en route to the area from Reims.30

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At 1030 on the 18th, Bradley summoned Patton, Koch, Maddox and Muller (Third Anny 02, 03 and 04, respectively) to his head­quarters at Luxembourg. The severity of the sit­uation was greater than Patton had anticipated, He qu ickly volunteered to halt the eastward attack of the 4th Annored Division and con-

The GZ section identified a number of German units leaving Westphalia and

Third Army's front. Koch believed they were regrouping somewhere . .. Patton

directed his staffto make a study ofwhat the Third Army would do ifrequested to counterattack a breakthrough to the notth ofThird Army. Four days later during his nonnalmomingmeeting . .. he made his in­struction~ more specific. "I want you, gende­men, to statt making plans for puJ1jng the

Third Army out ofits eastward attack, change the direction 90 degrees, moving

to Luxembourgand attacking north."

centrated it near Longwy. Patron also offered to remove the 80th Infantry Division from the line and start for Luxembourg in the morning, and suggested the 26th Infantry Division could be alerted to move within 24 hours.)!

That evening at 2300, Bradley called Patton to ask him to attend a scheduled 1100 con­ference the following morning at Eisenhower's Verdun headquarters. Patton called a staff meet­ing for the following morning and went to bed.32

Patton started his staffmeeting by saying that the Third Anny's plans had changed. The of­fensive toward the Rhine was off "We're going to fight but in a different place. Also, we are going to have to move very fast."J3

He then began to develop a rough concept of operation based on the assumptions that he could use the VIII Corps from the First Anny (M iddleton) and the III Corps from the Third

Anny (Major General John Millikin) on any two of three possible axes. From the left, the axes of attack were in order of priority as fol­lows: from the general vicinity of Diekirck due north; from the general vicinity of Adcm on Bastogne; and from the general vicinity of Neuf­chateau against the left nose of the Gennan salient.J4

With that guidance to his staff, Patton de­parted f()[ the conference with Eisenhower. After the war, Patton would suggest that consid­ering rhat between 0800 and 0915, "We had a staff meeting, planned three possible lines of attack, and made a simple code in which I could telephone General (Jay which two of the three lines we were to use, it is evident that war is not so difficult as people think."35

At Verdun, the mood was somber. After a briefing on the overall situation, Eisenhower began to speak:

"George/' he said to Patton, "I \vant you to go to Luxembourg and take charge. ll

uYes, sir.l) "When can you get there?" "Nt1W," .

"You mean today!" Eisenhower asked. III luean as s(x)n as you have finished with me

here," There was a pause. "When will you be able to attack!" Eisen­

hower continued. 'iThe mOD1ing of December twenty--second/'

Patton said, "with three divisiot1s.l!36 Colonel Charles R. Codman, Patton's aide,

described the reaction: "There was a stir, a shuffling of feet, as those

present straightened up in their chairs. In some faces, skepticism. But through the room the cur­rent ofexcitement leaped like a flame. To disen­gage three divisions actually in combat and launch them over more than a hundred miles of icy roads straight into the heart of a major attack of unprecedented violence presented problems which few Commanders would have undertaken to resolve in that length of time."3?

Within the hour, the details of the counterat-

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TheenffitdmebnUmro~h became clearer on the 18th, the thirdday ofthe offensive . .. pa.nzers had smashed through the 28th Division to ovemm Troy H. Middleton's VIII Co.rps reserves. Further north, two regiments ofthe 106m Division had already been encircled, and the remainder ofthe division was desperately hanging on at St Vith.

Within the hour, the details ofthe counterattack were settled. Patton phoned the code number to Gayand started toward the battle in Luxembourg. Patton was almost continuously at the front consulting with his commanders andobserving the progress of the battle. Despite the complexity ofthe movementand battle, bri1liant staRwork aDowed

Patton to remain at the front and control the battle almost entirely by telephone. HW4AW%@WMA¥

tack were settled. Patton phoned the code num­ The Third Anny had been a key element of the ber to Gay and started toward the battle in Lux~ Allied success. embourg. He was confident that his staff would During the course of the battle, Patton was take the necessary actions to start the 4th almost continuously at the front· consulting Armored Division moving to ArIon by way of with his commanders and observing the proW Longwy, the 80th Division to Luxembourg via ress of the battle. Despite the complexity of Thionville and place the 26th Division on alert the movement and battle, brilliant staff work pending specific orders to move. allowed Patton to remain at the front and con~

Within two days, the Third Army was a full trol the battle almost entirely by telephone.38

participant in the battle. A week later, the Ger­ The effort of the Third AmlY staff between mans were stopped at their high-water mark. 18 and 23 December is impressive. Under the

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mounting pressure of the Ardennes offensive, Patton's staff worked overtilne to assure success. For instance:

• Maddox's 03 section changed the army from a three-corps front, nmning north to south, to a four-corps battle line, split in two. One ran east to west in the Ardennes; the other ran north to south in the Saar.

• Colonel "Speed" Perry, who had served as Patton's guide into Palermo, moved hundreds of combat and supply units in 133,178 motor vehi­cles, traversing more than 1,6 million miles,

• Muller and his G4 section established an entirety new supply system, set up scores of new depots and dumps and shifted 62,000 tons of supplies in just 120 hours, wotking around the clock.

• Colonel Elton H. Hammond's signalmen constructed a vast new communications net­

work, using some 20,000 miles offield wire, and kept it going under extreme winter conditions in the face of vicious enemy interference.

• Koch's 02 section prepared and distrib­uted hundreds of thousands of new maps and terrain analyses of the changed battle area, drew up estimates of the enemy situation and kept the order of battle up to the minute.39

The performance of the Third Army staff during the Battle of the Bulge assured success and more than justified Patton's confidence in them. One commentator would later suggest Patton "demonstrated over and over his ability to anticipate critical points and places and to drive his staff not only to the limit but, seem­ingly, beyond the limit of human endurance. In the final analysis, it was his direction of staff officers which made possible coordination with­in his army and its spectacular victories."40 "1..

NOTES

1, MAJ H, A. Deweerd, Greal Soldiers of World War fI (New York: W. W Norton & Company, 1944). 117. The list o! nine ware: Have a good chief of staff; Go for simplicity in everything; Cut OUI all paper and tram subordinates to work on Wtrbal instructions and orders; I0ep a firm grip on basic fundamentals - the things thal roa"y maner; Avoid being involved in details -leave them to your staff; Study morale·-i! is a big thing in war. Without high morale you can achieve nothing; When the issue hangs In the balanCil, express confidence in the plans and in the operations. even It Inwardly you leel not too certain of the outcome; Never worry; Newr bellyache,

2. GOOl'Q{l S. Pallon Jr.• war As I Knew It (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Com­pany, 1947),329,-30

3. Omar N. Bradley, A Soldiers Story (New York: Henry Holl and Company, 1951),473.

4. H. Essame. PartlX1: A Study!n Command(NewYork: Charles Scribner's 5oos,1974),121­

5. Ibid. 6. Ibid. 7. Ibid 8. Ibid., 122, 9. COL Robart S. Allen, Lucky Forward (New Yak: The Vanguard Press,

Inc" 1947), 19, to. Edgar F: Puryear Jr" Nineteen Stars (Orange, VA: Green Publishers. Inc,.

1971).273. 11. Essame, 122. 12. Ibid., 124. 13. John M. vermillion, 'The Pillars ot Generalship.~ Parametel'$ (Summer.

198?}:7. 14. Essame, 125. 150 Pallen, 357. Patton also suggested. "Never lell people how to do things.

Telilhem w17af to do and they will surprise you w~h lheir ingenuity:"

16. Puryear, 273-74. 17. Patlon. 18.Allen,59. 19. Bradley, 445. 20. Patton, 186 and 188. 21. Ladislas Farago, Patton; Ordeal and Triumph (New)t)rk: lvanObolensky,

Inc., 1963), 695~96.

22. Ibid.. 696 23. Russell F. Weigley, Eisenhower's LIeutenants (Bloomington, IN: Indiana

UniWtrsity Press, 1981), 458-63. 24, Patlon, 186. 25. Ibid. 26. Farago, 697-98. 27. Ibid., 698. 28. Ibid., 703. 29. COL Charles R. Cadman. DriYe (Boston: Little, Brown and Company,

1957),230. 30. Bradley, 446-47, 31. Patton, 189-90. 32. Ibid., 190. 33, Charles Whiting, Patton (New York: Ballantine Books, Inc., 1970),89. 34. Patton, 190. 35, Ibid. 36. Codman,231-32. 37. Ibid., 232. 38. Bradley, 473. 39. Farago, 710. 40. Famous American Military Leaders 01 World I'mr II, ''Army Times," eds.,

(New York: DlXId, Mead & Company, 1963p4.

Lieure""nt Co,mel Thul G. Munch commands the 565rh Engineer BarraIian, VII Cml)s, West Gennany. He graduated from the Vrrgini<I Military Institute and Georgia Tech, and received an MMAS from the US Anny Com1Mndand General SraffCoilege. His jJret-WIIS assignmencs include command and staffpositions in Germany, Korea and £he Continental United States,

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i

Lieutenant Colonel (P) Rudolph C. Barnes Jr., US Army Reserve

The author sees the dramatic changes sweeping the geopolitical scene as mandates for change in more than the force structure and equipping ofour military. He cites the need to reorient the military toward greater participation in the expanding political environment of low..intensity contlict (LIC). He warns that tbe conventional warrior wiJl be ill equipped to handle the diverse challenges of LIe and ca1ls for the developmeot of soldiers trained to operate in this new role as "diplomat warriors:'

DIPLOMACY and military operations are seldom considered together, but as in­

SW.l1nents of national policy, they have always been complementary. Diplomacy is the pre­ferred means of conducting foreign policy, but military oper,ations are often necessary to pro­ject national power beyond the limits of diplo­macy. Carl von Clausewitz recognized this rela­tionship when he described war as an extension of politics by other means'! While complemen­tary. military operations and diplomacy have tmditionally been mutually exclusive, with mil­itary operations the domain of the Department of Defense and diplomacy the province of the Department of State.

TIle balance between military force and diplo­macy is detennined by the nature of the threat to national security. Where the threat to na~

tional security is clear and direct, conventional combat operations are appropriate to protect US security interests, and considerations ofmil~ itary force preempt diplomacy. Where the threat is ambiguous and indirect, however, diplomacy plays a dominant role, and military force must be subordinated to political objectives. The problem for Us policy makers is how to prepare

In Panama, US actions were linked to political, economic and covert military ac'"

tivities controHed by the US ambassa~ dor ••. But when Noriega declared a state of war between the US and&nama and threat.. ened US lives and property • •• the mili", tary chain ofcommand preempted the

ambassador's controlofmilitary activities.

for both kinds of threats; the fonner can be met by conventional military forces, but the latter requires a new type of soldier-the diplomat warrior.

The Panama intervention illustrates the di­chotomy between military force and diplomacy. Until General Manuel A. Noriega was per­ceived to bea clear threat to US interests in Panama, US actions were linked to political, economic and covert military activities con J

trolled by the US ambassador in Panama. But when Noriega declared a state of war between the US and Panama and threatened US lives and property there, he and his regime became

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Decades ofexcessive military expenditures and foreign-aid commitments by the Soviet Union to maintain Eastern Bloc and other satellite countries have left it economicaRy

debilitated. The dramatic democrati­zation ofWarsaw Pact countries in Eastem Europe, coupled with growing [domestic] unrest _.. has emasculated the Soviet Union

as a threat to the United States. While specific changes in Soviet military strategy remain unclear, one thing appears certain:

traditional Cold War strategies based on conventional war . .. in Europe

are now obsolete.

the target ofa major conventional combat oper~

ation, and the military chain of command pre­empted the ambassador's control of military aetivitic'S. While OperationJust Cause was dear­ly a military success, publicized confrontations between US combat troops and foreign diplo­mats connected with the Vatican, Peruvian, Nicaraguan and Cuban embassies reflected an apparent lack of c(x.>rdination between military commanders and diplomats in Panama. The achievement of US political objectives in Pan­arna will depend on close coordination between military and diplomatic activities there.

Since World War II, there has been a trend toward the merger of diplomacy and military operations. Despite, or perhaps because of, tech­nologies that have produced awesome military destmctive capabilities, weapons of mass de­stmction have not been widely used by the United States or Soviet Union. And with few exceptions, like the Cuban missile crisis, these superpowers have also avoided direct military confrontation. Avoiding the risks of mutual assured destmction, they have focused instead on competing for geopolitical influence in politically unstable, but strategically important, ateas of the Third World. The result has been the proliferation of political warfare, euphe­

mistieally known as low-intensity conflict (LIC), a condition of violent peace, which might be described in Clausewitzian terms as an exten­sion of war by other meansJ

Conventional military conflict between the United States and Soviet Union has undoubt­edly been discouraged by the prospect of mutu­ally unacceptable losses, but economic and political factors have also been important. Eco­nomic power has always been a prerequisite for military power, and dominant nations that have failed to adjust their military commitments to declining economic strength have only acceler­ated their own decline. Professor Paul Kennedy has described this phenomenon as "imperial overstretch," and noted rhat the extensive mili­tary commitments of both the United States and the Soviet Union make them vulnerable to such overstretch.3

Decades of excessive military expenditures and foreign-aid commitments by the Soviet Union to maintain Eastem Bloc and other sat­ellite countries have left it economically debili­tated. The new Soviet openness (glasnost') and political restructuring (perestroyka) reflect fun­damental shifts in both Soviet domestic and defense policies needed to strengthen its econ­omy. The dramatic democratization of Warsaw Pact countries in Eastern Europe, coupled with growing unrest among ethnic minorities and demands for independence by Soviet republics, has emasculated the Soviet Union as a threat to the United States. While specific changes in Soviet military strategy remain unclear, one thing appears certain: traditional Cold War strategies based on conventional war between NATO and Warsaw Pact nations in Europe are now obsolete.

Like the Soviet Union, the United States has also experienced relative economic decline as a result of excessive military expenditures and foreign-aid commitments to defend the free world. The principal beneficiaries of this largess have been Japan and West Germany, countries that have been able to focus their energies and resources on economic growth, while the

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With few exceptions, li.ke the Cuban missile crisis, these superpowers have also avoided direct military confrontation. Avoiding the risks ofmutual assured destruction, they have focused instead on competing for geopolitical influence in politically unstable,

butstrategicaHyimportant, areas ofthe Third World. The result has been the proJife1'" ation ofpolitical warfare, euphemistically known as low,intensity conflict (LIC), that nUght be described in Clausewitzian tenns as an extension ofwar by other means.

United States carried the burden of theiT de­fense. The emergence of these new industrial powers, coupled with the relative economic decline of the United States and the Soviet Union, has transformed the former East-West bipolar geopolitical environment into a multi­polar free-far-all in which former allies and adversaries now compete for world power and influence. In this fluid geopolitical environ­ment, economic and political power are as im­portant as military power; and the focus of com­petition among world economic powers is likely to be in the Third World, with its abundant natural resources and lucrative markets.

The changing geopolitical environment and increasing budget deficits have caused US pol­icy makers to question the spiraling costs of sophisticated weapons systems and massive US

troop commitments overseas, as well as their relevance to changing national security objec; tives. With the decreasing likelihood of con­ventional war in Europe and the need to protect national security interests in Lie situations, weapons of mass destruction and massive troop commitments have become all but irrelevant. New strategies and force structures are required, and they must include an emphasis on diplo­macy to be effective.

The importance of diplomacy in LIC can be attributed to the requirement of public support for mission success in that environment. With­out public support, no incumbent government can survive for long against a determined insur­gency nor can any insurgency succeed without a base of public support (or at least apathy), To paraphrase Mao Tse-rung, public support pro-

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The emphasis on political objectives and the requirement that indigenous

forces be the primary actors in LIe call for military leadership that contrasts

sharply with the "take charge"and ufol.. lolV me" variety ofleadership required in combat . .• Instead, ability, tactand per-­

suasion are required to assist andmotivate indigenous forces to achieve politicO'"

military objectives in a hostile and ambiguous environment.

Wi_; • iJ2 tiiA @$@M@

vides the friendly sea in which the insurgent must swim to survive.

Legitimacy is a prerequisite for public sup­port, and militan' operations can compromise legitimacy. To be effective, US military opera­tions in LIe must meet a difficult double tcst of legitimacy; they must contribute to the political legitimacy of supported forces and also be legiti­mate by US standards. Legitimacy in the area of operations is essential for indigenous public sup­

port, \lihile legitimacy in the United States is necessary to sustain the congressional support required f()r protracted military operations in a politically controversial envirol1ment.4

Perceptions of legitimacy arc shaped by the electronic and printed media, and military operations in LIe are especially vulnerable to media exploitation. Indiscretions that would be overlooked in conventional conflict can threaten legitimacy and mission success in LIe In this unforgiving environment, military oper­ations must conform to legal, moral, political and cultural nonns to mobilize the public sup­port needed for mission success. As legal and political advisers to their commanders, the mil­itary lawyer and the civil-military officer are diplomat warriors who help provide the re­quired publ ic support by ensuring the legit­imacy of military operations. 5

A Webster's definition of diplomacy is skill in handling affairs without arousing hostility, a teml synonymous with tact. Such a concept is out of place in conventional conflict, where hostility is the essence of successful operations. There the threat is clear and direct, and the center of gravity is normally the use of over­whelming military force to destroy the enemy. In contrast, the threat in LIe is ambiguous and indirect, friend is seldom distinguishable from foe; legitimacy is the center of gravity; and the use of overwhelming force is likely to be counterproductive to politico-military objec­tives. With US forces normally in an advisory role, diplomacy is essential to achieve politico­military objectives through indigenous forces.

Civil Affairs (CA) personnel are the mili­tary's frontline diplomats, and their contrasting roles in conventional combat and LIe illustrate the differing requirements of the two environ­ments. In combat, military objectives predomi­nate, and the primary role ofCA is to minimize civilian interference with combat operations. In LIe,. political objectives predominate, and the primary role of CA is to mobilize the public support essential for mission success.6 Other special operations forces (SOP) such as psycho-

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logical operations (pSYOP) and Special Forces (SF) share. leading roles with CA in LIe and, like CA, have only supporting rotes in conven~ tional combat. These contrasting roles help explain the inadequacy of conventional mili­tary forces in LIC, a lesson painfully learned by the United States in Vietnam and the Soviet Union in Afghanistan.

The military interventions in Grenada in 1983 and more recently in Panama represent a blend of conventional combat with LIe. Un­like Vietnam, these combat operations enjoyed "'t[~O n-uhll ~.1t'''''........__...t' -t ....... .;.ha. 1 l_~f...u.A c.i"("lf..o.C' "' ...... ..-l v,",,""",-" pU:l...'" .. L uU.,t..'!--,'-J.lL UI. ... .LL..... '\...lJ.1LL'\-U VLO\. ..... " U.LI.U

the area of operations due to their surgical na­ture, clear military success and quick with­drawal of combat forces once military objec~

tives were achieved. Following combat opera­tions in Greneda, CA personnel played a key role in achieving US political objectives there. Until the fledgling Grenadian government could function effectively, CA personnel worked with the Grenadian government and the US Agency for International Development (USAID) to reestablish essential services, serving as an extension of both the US military and diplo­matic corps.? The inability of the Endara gov­ernment to provide essential services in Pan­ama following the US intervention there has provided a similar opportunity for CA person­nel to contribute to US security objectives in that strategically important country.

The emphasis on political objectives and the requirement that indigenous forces be the pri­mary actors in LIC call for military leadership that contrasts sharply with the "take charge" and "follow me" variety of leadership required in combat. For the US adviser in LIe, aggres, sive leadership traits considered ideal for con~

ventional conflict can be disastrous. Instead, ability, tact and persuasion are required to assist and motivate indigenous forces to achieve politi~

military objectives in a hostile and ambiguous environment. Mission success in LIC requires that US military advisers be diplomat warriors to provide "leadership from behind."8

Combining military and diplomatic skills is

·tJSMflS ~hecking Panamanians for weapons, 23 DJ.ilcember1989.

Perceptions oflegitimacF are shaped by the electronic andprintedmedia, and military operations in LIC are especially vulnerable to media exploitation. Indiscre­tions that would be overlookedin con"

ventional conflict can threaten legitimacy andmission success in LIe. In this unfo!'" giving environment, militaryoperations mustconform to legal, moral. political

and cultural norms to mobilize the public support needed for mission success.

not a new idea; senior officers in all services have been encouraged to seek advanced mili­tary training and civilian postgraduate work to prepare them it)r high-level leadership posi­tions. General ('Allin L Powell, chairman of the Joint Chiefs ofStaff; qualifies as a diplomat war­rior, having served in both diplomatic and mili~

tary assignments with equal distinction. His predecessor, Admiral William J. Crowe Jr., had a similar background, confirming the value of

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diplomatic skills to high-level military lead­ership. When characterized as the classic diplo­mat warrior, Crowe once noted that his PhD. from Princeton helped him see"... that there are political dimensions to everything."9

It should not be surprising that Crowe was able to see political dimensions to everything

The military interventions in Grenada [and] Panama represent a blendofconven­tional combat with LIe. Unlike Vietnam,

these combat operations enjoyed wide public support in the United States and

the area ofoperations due to their surgical nature, clear military success and quick

withdrawalofcombat forces once military objectives were achieved.

from his lofty perspective, since even conven­tional military operations involve diplomacy at the strategic level. What makes LIC unique is the predominance of political objectives at the tactical level, where the rubber meets the road. All US military personnel working with indige­nous personnel must combine diplomacy with military competence. Current defense doctrine recognizes the need for language training and cultural orientation for such assignments; but because training in these skills is not readily available to junior military personnel, few are prepared for diplomat warrior roles. to

The emphasis on diplomacy should not ob­scure the fact that the diplomat warrior must first be competent in military skills and that the effective application of military force is essential to mission success. Events in both Grenada and Panama confirmed the need for quick-reaction, conventional forces to protect US security interests, and even in unconven­tional LlC environments, organized violence is essential to achieve politico-military objectives. Insurgency and counterinsurgency are the sub­stance of LlC, and both require effective mili­

tary operations to complement the political, economic and social activities required for ulri­mate victory. While military force must be con­strained ro avoid collateral damage and a loss of legitimacy, it must also be effective to achieve legitimacy. Hence, government military forces that cannot protect the public from insurgent forces jeopardize the public support necessary for legitimacy and political control.

Both insurgent guerrillas and counterin­surgency forces must compete for legitimacy and public support while attempting to neu­tralize their opposition. As political underdogs, insurgent guerrillas may forego diplomacy for sabotage and subversion to undermine public confidence in an incumbent government. Only the most desperate insurgents, however, con~

duct terrorist activities and sacrifice legitimacy for dramatic effect. Not all terrorists are ineffec­tive insurgents, however. Narcoterrorists, as contemporary cousins of the Barbary pirates, are affluent international criminals who use ter­rorism to neutralize law enforcement. In Co­lombia, Peru and Bolivia, drug lords and their terrorist squads have challenged the ability of government to maintain law and order.

While countemarcotics operations are nor­mally law enforcement operations for which military forces are inappropriate, when drug lords challenge the legitimacy of a government, they should be treated as insurgents. In Peru, for example, drug lords support insurgents who provide them protection in return. In Panama and Cuba, drug lords have been protected by corrupt government officials. Success against drug cartels allied with powerful pelitical forces requires the full range of LIe military, eco­nomic and political activities. The Panama intervention and atrest of Noriega reflecr the US commitment to the international drug war and its priority among LIC activities.

Like rhe insurgent, the drug lords and their terrorist squads must have a friendly sea in which to swim, depending on a measure of pub­lic support or apathy to survive. Too often, the drug lords are afforded undeserved legitimacy

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Not allSOFs under USSOCOMrequire an emphasis on diplomacy . .. The Rangers conduct strikes and raids such as those in Grenada and Panama, both ofwhich were

considered peacetime contingency operations anddoctrinally included in LIe ... the US Navy's SEALs and the US ArmY5 Delta forces are oriented to counterterrorism operations requiring quick..reaction surgicalstrikes against spedJic targets in highly sensitive envi..

ronments. Even SF, CA and PSYOP forces have specializeddirect action missions. lbiilJ.% we bYAH&

and safe haven in fiefdoms where drug produc­tion is the only source of income for poor peas­ants. In these areas, a combination of military, economic and political activities will be re­quired to isolate drug lords from their base of support, a prerequisite for their capture.

Humanitarian assistance, civic action and disaster relief are activities that can help mobi­lize public opinion to achic\ye politko-mili tary objectives in LIC, such as denying drug lords safe haven. Long- and short-term projects to improve the quality of life in underdeveloped or devastated areas include the construction of roads, bridges and schools, and also medical projects. Disaster reliefcan be especially critical when public support is at risk. USAID is nor­mally the lead agency for hwnanitarian assist­ance and civic action, but CA personnel, work­ing through their indigenous counterparts, are especially well suited to conduct such projects in the hostile LIC environment. 11

As a result of 1986 legislation providing for the US Special Operations Command (USSOCOM), there is now an environment in which the unique politico-military skills re­quired in LIC can be deve1oped. 12 The SOFs that are assigned to the subordinate units of

USSOCOM include the Army's SF, CA and PSYOP forces. A primary mission of SF is to instruct indigenous forces on the martial arts of LIC; CA is responsible for civil-military re­lations and mobilizing public support; and PSYOP, the military media. While military intelligence is not one of the SOFs, it must pro­vide the intelligence so critical for special oper­ations in Ue. The primary mission of these forces in LIC is advising and assisting indige­nous military forces in accomplishing their politico-military objectives, requiring a blend of unique military skills and diplomatic finesse.

Ambassador Charles A. Whitehouse, as assis· tant secretary of defense for spedal operations and LIe, and General James J. Lindsay, the commanding general ofUSSOCOM, have em­phasized the need for special training for the personnel of USSOCOM and its subordinate units to accomplish their unique politico­military missionsJ3 At the John F. Kennedy Center for Special Warfare at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, new courses are being offered to these personnel that emphasize the unique leadership skills required in UC.14 It has even been sug­gested that a "LICschoolhouse" be established for both military and civilian personnel at the

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Humanitarian assistance, civic acdon and disaster reliefare activities that

can help mobilize public opinion to a" chieve politico-mi1itary objectives in LIC .•.

USAID i~ normally the lead agency for humanitarian assistance and civic action, but CA personnel, working through their indigenous counterparts, are especiaJJy well suited to conduct such projects in

the hostile LIe environment. 6iMliWM 4kWU @

National Defense University or Foreign Service Institute to augment military training. IS

Joint civil-military training for the diplomat warrior is appropriate since most US activities in Lie are joint ventures involving US military personnel, dvilian agencies and indigenous forces. Just as military personnel need to under­stand the essentials of diplomacy, so do their civilian counteqxlrts need to understand unCOIl­

ventional military operations and security meas­ures necessary to survive and function in the ambiguous and hostile LIe environment.

Not all SOFs under USSOCOM require an emphasis on diplomacy. Notably, the US Army's Rangers epitomize combat operations that are the antithesis of diplomacy. The Rangers con­

duct strikes and raids such as those in Grenada and Panama, both of which were considered peacetime contingency operations and doctri­nally included in LIC. Other SOFs also have direct action missions: the US Navy's SEAls and the US Army's Delta forces are oriented to counterterrorism operations requiring quick­reaction surgical strikes against specific targets in highly sensitive environments. Even SF, CA and PSYOP forces have specialized direct action missions in addition to their indirect missions.

The one common denominator of the varied military missions of SOF in LIe, both direct and indirect, is that they must be conducted in politically sensitive environments for which conventional forces are not well suited. Accom­plishing politico-military objectives in such an unforgiving environment requires that military decision makers and those advising indigenous forces combine the leadership traits of a profes­sional soldier with the finesse of a diplomat­the components of the diplomat warrior.

The aftermath of the Panama intervention will likely reaffinn the importance of the diplo­mat warrior, not as a substitute for his conven­tional counterpart, but as a complementary defense capability necessary to protect US se­curity interests in hostile environments short of war. In such politically sensitive environments, neither diplomacy nor conventional military operations alone are adequate to protect US security interests, but the diplomat warrior, rep­resenting a blend of both disciplines, can help indigenous forces achieve politico-military ob­jectives. Whether assisting a new government in providing essential services following com~

bat, providing humanitarian assistance, disaster rehef, supporting countemarcotics operations, counterinsurgency or even insurgency, the dip­lomat warrior is an essential defense capability in the contemporary geopolitical environment.

Itwould be a mistake to think that the diplo~

mat warrior is limited to LIe. Visionary military thinkers have recognized the increasing impor~

tanee of civilians in conventional warfare, and predicted a variety of diplomat warrior will be

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an integral part of our Hfourth generation" con~

ventional forces. 16

The diplomat warrior will bring a new look to the military. As a bastard stepchild born of the uneasy relationship between diplomacy and military operations, this unique soldier must be able to bridge the formidable gap be­tween these two disciplines. To succeed, the diplomat warrior must understand the rela­tionship of military operations to the political objectives of contemporary warfare and be able to provide military leadership with the fines;, of a diplomat.

There is a need for a national political con­sensus and strategy to give direction to US involvement in peacetime military operations, but despite the lack of national policy, it is clear that Congress understands the value of the dip­lomat warrior to US security objectives. It over, came stiff Pentagon resistance to mandate the

DIPLOMAT WARRIOR

$ ;

General Colin L. Powell, chairman ofthe Joint Chiefs ofStaff, qualifies as a diplomat warrior, baving served in hotb diplomatic and military assignments with equal dis­

tinction. His predecessor, Admiral Wi1Jiam J. Crowe Jr., bad a similar background _•. Men characterized as tlJe classic diplomat warrior, Crowe once noted that hi~ Ph.D. from Princeton llelped bim see u• •• that

there are politicaldimensions to everything!' !iii 2

creation of USSOCOM; and if recent legisla­tion is any indication of future defense pri~

orities, Congress will continue to provide the hmding and oversight to ensure thar the diplo­mat warrior becomes an effective extension of both our military and diplomatic corps. "h.

NOTES 1, Patrick M. Cronin, "ClausswilZ Condensed," Military Review (August

1985):40, General Carl Von Clausewitl is Credited with recognizing war as an extension of politics by military means

2. For a proposed doctrinal description of the Jow,.intensity conflict (UC) environment, see For Comment Draft of Joint Chiefs of Statf Doctrine for Joinr Operations in L~/ntensity Conflict(hereafter referred to asJCS PUB 3-07), 12 September 1988, Washington, DC, 20301-5000, I..{}; see also LTC Rudolph C. Barnes Jr., "The Politics Qf Low-Intensity Conflict,ft Military Review (Febru­ary 1988):2.

3. Paul Kennedy, Too Rise andFailof The Groat Powers (New' York: Random House, 1987). af) extensive and well·documented history <lIthe relationship between national economic and military strength since 1500.

4. For a discussion of the interrelationship of public support and legitimacy in lIC, see LTC Rudolph C. Barnes Jr" "Civil Affairs: A L1C Priority," Military Review(September 1988):38

5. For a discussion of the functions oltha military lawyer and civil-military operations in L1C, see Rudolph Barnes, "legitimacy and the lawyer in L1C: Civil Affairs legal Support," TheArmy Lawyer, October 1988, 5.

6. Barnes, "Civil Affairs," Militery Review (september 1988). 7. Delbert L. SpUrlOCk, "Grenada Provides Classic Case," The OtIicer

(August 1984):17; RudOlph C. Barnes Jr., "Grenada Revisited: Civil Affairs Operates in Paradise," The Officer(July 1985):14.

8. MG William H. Ailey Jr., "Challenges of a Military Adviser,ft Military Review(November 1988):34.

9. lime interview, 26 December 1988, 72.

10. See generally, JCS PUB 3-07. 11. Rudolph C. Barnes Jr" "Civic AcUon. Humanitarian aFJd Civic Assis­

tance, and Disaster Relief: Military Priorities in Low Intensity Conllicl." Special Warfare (Fall 1989).

12. For a description of the unusual legislative history of US Special Opera· tions Command (USSOCOM) and the Assistant Se"retary of Delense tor Spe.­cial Operations and lie (ASDISOUC) by a key ollicial, we R. Lynn Rylander, ':ASO-SOllC: The Congressional Approach to SOF Reorganization," Special Yiarfare(Spring 1989). Thelaw mandatingthecrealionolUSSOCOM and ASOI soLIe is the Amendment to Goldwater·Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986 (Public law 99·~ 433. 1 October '1986). Part B, Special Operations Matters, 10 US Code 167, 1311, as amended from time 10 time therealler,

13. For an overvie'N of the mission of US military forces in Lie by the new ASDISOliC, see Ambassador Charles A. Whiteho!.Jse, "Lov/lntonsiIY Conflict andlhe Third World," RDANationat8ecurityReporl,voL 7,no. 7,JJJIy!9B9, 13: for an overview of USSOCOM /)"j its cO'l1mal1df!r, see James J, Lindsay, "USSOCOM: Strengthening the SO.. Capability," Special IM:Irfere (Sprir"K] 1989):5·-7­

14. Steven Bucci, "Fighters \Is Thinkers: The Special Operations Staff Officers Course and the Future of SOF;"' Spe-ciai Warfare (Spring 1988}:33

15. WiIliamJ. Olson, "Organilatioilal Requirements for lIC," Military Review (January 1988):16

16. William S. Lind. at aI., '"The Changing Face 01 War: Jf1101he Four1h Gener" ation,~ MifitaryRe'liew (October 1969)5-11

lieutenant G)kmel (P) Rudolph G Barnes Jr., US Army ResenIC, i) a1\ a1tml1c)' at law in Prosperity, South CArolina. He receit-wa RA fnml The Citadel, an Iv1.PA, and a J.D. fram the University of South CArolina, and is a gradU1lte of the US Army Cornmandand General StaffO)Uege. His Reserve a.~sjgnments hat'/: included swffjudge advocate, US Anny ]FK Special Waifare Cenrer, fx:rrt Bretgg', North Cardiwi, mmd Sf>ecial project officer; The Judge Advocate General's School, Charlottesville, ViT~'inia. Presently, he is the staff judge advocate, US Army Resert'e ,Special (1)cratirfns Com­marul. Fort Bragg.

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THE CURRENT debate on attrition and maneuver has contributed to the resurg­

ing interest in Major General]. F. C. Fuller and Captain Sir B. H. Liddell Hart, the two most original and important military thinkers of the 20th century. Today, Fuller and Liddell Hart are widely read by American officers, but this was not the case before 1941. Moreover, with the exception of Geneml George S. Patton Jr. and General S. L. A. Marshall, American officers prior to 1941 made only a marginal contribu­tion to the debate over mechanization.

Even those who did contribute, such as Pat­ton, admitted to not having read either Fullcror Liddell Hart. In fact, when Patton met Liddell Hart for the first time in 1944, his impression was not overwhelmingly favorable: "He is very well read but ... has no personal knowledge of the facts of life so far as war is concerned- in that he is not alone. He is a funny looking man, tall and skinny." This seems to indicate that Liddell Hart made as much a physical as a cere­bral impression upon him. Marshall, an enthu­

siastic apostle of Fuller and Liddell Hart, wrote a foreword to Fuller's treatise, Armoured War~

fare. Although he advertised its value to Ameri­can officers, his efforts had little effect. The Infantry Journal did not review it, and at the Infantry School between 1932 and 1939, no more than six officers had taken the original British edition of the book (published under the tide, Lectures on FSR III) out of the library.!

In a sustained comparison of Fuller and Lid­dell Hart, one test really counts with soldiers, and rightly so: What was their military experi~

ence and what knowledge was gained from that experience? Fuller, a practical soldier, as his World War I experience testified, was first and foremost a romantic visionary; Liddell Hart was perhaps even more so. When they are criticized for sweeping generalizations, this should always be borne in mind. Furthermore, Liddell Hart was not a professional soldier. He was a jour­nalist who, by virtue of his personality and intellect, rather than his limited military expe­rience, made himself a force to be reckoned

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with both inside and outside the army. Before 1914, Great Britain had not produced

any first-rank military theorists. Yet after 1918, two military theorists emerged from the trau­matic experience of World War 1-Fuller and Liddell Hart. Their work was a response to the Great War and the widespread feeling, evident among junior officers, that whatever had gone awfully wrong ought to be rectified before the next war.

Much more than simply representative fig­ures of a reforming impulse, they were men of pronounced individuality. Liddell Hart initi­ated their friendship in 1920 when he began to send Fuller copies of his early writings. Given that Fuller was already a colonel who had turned down a promotion to brigadier general, the seriolCsness with which he treated this young captain as an equal does him b>reat credit. Fuller encouraged him but replied with an admonition that was to mark out his own path as much as that of Liddell Hart over the next 40 years-namely, the desire to move away from the tactical plane that had preoccupied pre­vious Btitish military writers. After reading sev­eral of Liddell Hart's articles, Fuller observed, "... I cannot help feeling that your views on the principles ofwar are based more on a special case and particularly a tactical case than on the general conditions of war itself."

Fuller and Liddell Hart were to pioneer the technique of studying warfare in the round as a social phenomenon. Their correspondence constitutes probably the greatest interchange of ideas in the history of warfare. (What we would not do for a similar correspondence between Henri jomini and Carl von Clausewitz.) Their letters are characterized not only by trenchancy, insight and a profligacy of suggestion and spec­ulation, but also by real wit, and sometimes, eynicism and despair. Fuller and Liddell Hart read each other's books in draft, commented on them and ranged widely over the prevailing mil­itary issues of the day. They occasionally col­luded in advancing the cause ofmilitary reform, as when Fuller asked Liddell Hart to pose a

question at his RUSI (Roy"l United Services Institute for Defence Studies) lecture on mech­anization about the need to set up a special force to experiment in this areaJ

Their friendship was motivated by a com­monality of interest. They shared a commit-

Both concluded that to avoid the deadlock ofmodem war, it was important

to do more than just improve infantry techniques. Restotingmobility on t1re battle­field required not only adopting the tank and other annored vehicles; it demanded nothingless than a revolution in military thinking, especially concerning the rela­tionship ofweapons on the battlefield.

ment to seeking out lithe truth" as a basis for informed discussion. Fundamentally, Fuller and Liddell Hart were late Victorian and Edwardian rationalists who found much that appalled them in the conduct of human affairs.

They wete dedicated to the belief that World War I had been a catastrophic event in world history and had been conducted ineptly. They argued that the instruments which could trans­form the nature of war and avoid a repetition of 1914-1918 were at hand ifonly soldiers had the wit to use them. Both believed that generalship as an art could be restored by harnessing the weapons developed by the mechanical, elec­trical and chemical advances of the Industrial Revolution.

War could then be used to fulfill rational and clear-cut objectives, and its propensity toward sheer destruction, restricted. Greater weapon power would reduce the need for large armies and would increase professionalism. Therefore, future armies would be small, with a high mea­sure ofcohesiveness, elan and professional skill. The passion and brutality of conscript armies would be banished from the bartlefield. Gentle­manly, limited, but decisive campaigns would

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After 1918, two military theorists emerged from the traumatic experience ofWorld War I-FuDer and Liddell Hart. Their work was a response to the Great War and the widespread feeling, evident amongjunior o£Bcers, that whatever had gone

awfully wrong ought to be rectified before the next war.

be waged. Thus, by various means the utility of war would be restored.

Both Fuller and Liddell Hart, whatever their disenchantment with the British High C1m­mand in World War I, believed that warfare was an inescapable element in the affairs of man­kind. They never subscribed to pacifism, but s<)ught rather to apply the fruits of reason to refine the barbarism of modem war. In this effort, Liddell Hart was more radical than Ful­ler. By the late 19305, Liddell Hart came to per­sonify the informed critic's view of the disasters of 1916-1917 •for he had a passionate commit­ment to ensure that "this bath of blood," as he called Passchendaele. would never again be repeated. 3

What were these reformers like as men? In stature they could not have been more dis­similar; Fuller was 5 feet 5 inches tall and Lid­dell Hart, 6 feet 5 inches. Both were bald and had penetrating eyes, though Liddell Hart's were more kindly. Both inspired considerable awe and sometimes fear. Fuller was aloof, arro­gant, occasionally bombastic, but always dog-

matico Readers of The Anny in My TIme and Memoirs ofan Unconventional Soldier will know with what ferocity his scathing wit was some­times vented upon the British anny. Even though he had what some have called personality de­fects, Fuller's entire career was underlaid with his strengths, tremendous courage, vision and fundamental integrity.

Though Liddell Hart was undoubtedly more approachable, affable and clubbable, he too could be arrogant and offensive. Guests arriving at his country house for the first time armed themselves with appropriately weighty topics of conversation, as "The Captain" was not noted for small talk. If the guest was an expert, Liddell Hart, ever the journalist, did not waste a second in exploiting that expertise. As Michael How­ard wrote: "{Andl when one visited him, to be entertained with excellent food and wine and endless whisky - everything the heart of man could desire except sleep-he would be lying in wait with a deceptively small piece of paper on which he had jotted down in his microscopic writing a few dozen topics on which he wanted

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inforrnation or discussion."4

Because Fuller and Liddell Hart were such forceful and powerful personalities, the nature of their relationship changed drastically. By 1927, Liddell Hart had rapidly surpassed Fuller in terms of political connections and influence. This change in Liddell Hart's status produced tensions, which resulted in quarrels mainly over their political differences.

By 1930, Liddell Hart had become an estab­lishment figure. He moved easily and comfort­ably in the circles of the liberal intelligentsia. Fuller, on the other hand, did not. His intellec­tual and social life was largely dominated by Gennan attitudes. He was a member of that "other" literary circle, which was right wing, pro-German and Roman Catholic. Fuller was not only a supporter of The Link, an organiza­tion designed to foster Anglo-German friend­ship, but addressed its meetings, including the most virulently pro-Nazi and anti-Semitic. He continued to do so until the declaration of war in September 1939. Needless to say, such be­havior only confirmed the opinion of conser­vatives in the army that Fuller was a reckless man of poor judgment.s

Apart from his age, the pernicious result of Fuller's unwise political activities was that his talents were not better utilized in World War n. It is indeed a tribute to the universal respect that he had won by his abilities, not only that he was not interned with other fascists in 1940, but that demands for his recall were to be heard as late as 1942.

Liddell Hart was also in disgrace at the out­break of World War n, but not for ideological reasons. Unlike Fuller, he had always been a champion of the League of Nations and collec­tive security, and was appalled by the appease­ment of Germany. Fuller's fascism exasperated him. He pointed out that Nazism was the en­emy of free inquiry and independent judgment in the pursuit of ttuth; Fuller would have been the fil1lt to have been imprisoned if such a dic­tatorship had been instituted in Britain. From 1937-1942, their friendship was broken, and

MILITARY REVIEW· May 1990

FULLER/LIDDELL HART

would not be restored until their fundamental commonality of interest was renewed by their abhorrence of Allied strategy in World War II.

Fuller and Liddell Hart were not partners but collaborators who set about fulfilling their

They both analyzed the Schlieffen PIan of1914 with some care. They agreed that it was overambitious as a strategic envelop­ment because its main thrust lacked the mobility to secure the pIan ~ objectives, and the operation simply could not be sustainedlogistically. The result was

stalemate andattrition.

ideals in ways that each thought the most suit­able. Both were light infanttymen, and the idea of military movement was fundamental to their outlook. Fuller wrote two books on the British light infantry, British Light Infantry in the Eight­eenth Century and Sir John Moore s System of Training (1925), and Liddell Hart wrote, The Fu­ture ofInfanrry (1933). They advanced the thesis that future wars would require lighter, more flexi­ble, mobile and, above all, thinking infantry­men who could reacr and exploir fast-moving situations, unlike the plodding, overladen and, on the whole, immobile (in both thoughr and deed) infantry masses of the Great War.

At different stages of their careers, both Fuller and Liddell Hart devoted their energies to improving the quality ofconventional infan­try tactics and training before turning their attention to the tank. Both concluded that to avoid the deadlock ofmodem war, it was impor­tant to do more than just improve infantry tech­niques. Restoring mobility on the battlefield required not only adopting the tank and other armored vehicles; it demanded nothing less than a revolution in military thinking, espe­cially concerning the relationship of weapons on the battlefield. They maintained that weap­ons should be fielded in order to express their

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They were dedicated to the beliefthat World War I had been a catastrophic event in world history and had been conductedinepdy. They argued that the instruments which could transfonn the nature ofwarandavoida repetition of1914-1918 were at hand ifonly soldiers had the wit to use them. Both believed that generalship as an art could be

restored by harnessing the weapons developed by the mechanical, electrical and chemical advances ofthe Industrial Revolution.

tactical functions and not just as representa­tives ofanns of the service. The distinction was subtle, but clear.

In pursuit of this objective, they undertook the massive task of rethinking the very nature of war and developing a logical and practicable sequence of the principles of war as the first step toward developing military doctrine. Until very recently, the British army had traditionally de~

dined to contemplate military doctrine. Al­though the intellectual fruits of these efforts are felt in virtually every staff college in the world, in the 1920stheywere perhaps overripe.

FuUer's codification of the principles of war, The Foundations of the Science of War, though a

book of great length and learning and no little insight, was poorly received due to its con­voluted style. Liddell Hart never wrote a book specifically on the principles of war, though a distillation ofhis teaching can be found in Strac­e/tY: The Indirect Approach, a highly individual interpretation of their historic implementation, rather than a cogent analysis of the principles themselves.

This systematic attempt to first establish principles, which by definition acknowledged the failure of previous military theories, led to an unfortunate direction in their thought. They both expressed an excessive contempt for the intellectual attainments of senior officers.

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The private papers of Liddell Hart are lit­tered with reflections on their cerebral inade­quacies: on their "military trades unionisrn/' their willful blindness to "truth," and their criminal neglect of the need f,)r novel thinking and drastic structural reform. Liddell Hart came to see that military professionalism in Britain had served to cement the existing ossified stmc­ture. He looked elsewhere for models, and where better than the United States. In the 1920s, he focused on William T. Sherman, and in the 1930s, on T. E. Lawrence as altemative models of commanders. Shennan, although scruffY, neurotic and freethinking, was a profes­sional soldier; Lawrence, a donnish, youthh,l figure given to philosophical flights of fancy, not unlike Liddell Hart himself, was a guerrilla leader. Sherman and Lawrence could adapt their military methods to the circumstances they faced and were not blinded by dogma. Indeed, it was adaptability that both Fuller and Liddell Hart sought in their ideal commander of the future.

Sherman and Lawrence were much more in­tellectual than Fuller's hero, Ulysses S. Grant. But both Fuller and Liddell Hart would have agreed that intellect, whether trained or un­trained, was a prerequisite for successful com­mand, and that this requirement would become more important the more intricate and sophis­ticated modem warfare became.

Fuller's most important contribution was in the sphere of mechanization. He played a cm­cial role in the evolution of early tank tactics; the scheme to launch a tank attack at Cambrai was originally his. Further, the composition of "Plan 1919," a plan for a decisive tank attack to win the war in 1919, and a document to which any soldier would have been proud to have put his name, was in many ways the apogee of Fuller's professional military career. In addition, he had played an important part in the paper victories that ensured the survival of the infant Tank Corps after World War I. It is no wonder that Liddell Hart was so deferential when first approaching him.

Although this article is not an exhaustive study of Fuller's and Liddell Hart's writings on mechanization, some comtnon themes and major differences deserve extended treatment.

[Liddell Hart] focused on William T. Sherman [and] IE. LallTCnce as alternative models ofcommanders. Sherman, although

scruffy, neurotic and freethinking, was a professional soldier; Lawrence, a donnish,

youthfu16gure given to philosophical flights offancy . . . was a guerrilla leader.

[Both] could adapt their military methods to the circumstances they faced and were

not blinded by dogma.

Both in their detailed technical treatises and sweeping historical surveys, Fuller and Liddell Hart agreed that the development of armored forces would make strategic and operational envelopments more decisive and efficient as a means of waging war. They both analyzed the Schlieffen Plan of 1914 with some care. TIley agreed that it was overambitious as a strategic envelopment because its main thmst lacked the mobility to secure the plan's objectives, and the operation simply could not be sustained logis­tically. The result was stalemate and attrition­a very inefficient means of waging war, as Fuller and Liddell Hart never tired of pointing out.

Prior to mechanized forces, envelopment was difficult to achieve. Because the numbers of troops involved rendered their command, cOn­trol and supply difficult, especially in the con­fined spaces of Westem Europe, they frequently arrived on the battlefield exhausted. Mecha­nization would provide a solution because ar­mored vehicles permitted troops to fight and move across the battlefield. Earlier improve­ments in military transportation, such as the railway, had only enhanced strategic mobility. At the operational level, troops still had to dis-

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[LiddeD Hart) claimed that the deeper the annored forces advanced, the greater the psychologicaldislocation of

the enemy~ command, and the less would be the need to engage the enemy in a decisive battle. Whereas FuHer believed that the introduction ofarmored forces would render the decisive battle more inJport1lIlt, liddeD Hart argued that it would be relegated to a less significant

place in military priorities.

mount and then move on foot across the battle­field.

Five aspects of the operational art that Fuller clearly described should be digested by all sol­diers preparing to wage maneuver warfare:

• From the military point of view, 1 hour is not 60 minutes, but what is accomplished in 60 minutes.

• The most effective form of defense is mo­bile defense, which permits the defender to pro­tect his fighting power and installations without surrendering the initiative.

• In the offense and defense in maneuver warfare, the main aim should be the dislocation of the enemy's command and organization, and not just the destruction of his fighting troops, though this should not be neglected.

• All plans should be based on the defensive­offensive, the strongest form of war. Even light­ning offensive advances should be founded on a secure base; if they are not, movement forward would lack backbone.

• The pursuit is the most important act in bat­tle because, if correctly organized and launched, it guarantees the annihilationofthe enemy and the attainment of the political object of the war.

Liddell Hart subscribed to these five points, but he felt strongly that Fuller neglected the art of strategy. He may have been right. Nonethe­less, he agteed that Fuller was the most original

thinker who wrote on the subject of amlored warfare- "original" in the sense that Fuller started from a blank piece of paper and thought out the subject for himself. It is clear that others (including Liddell Hart) read him and not vice versa.

Liddell Hart, on the other hand, was the most persuasive advocate of mechanization. One is stnlck less by Liddell Hart's technical grasp than by the faith he showed in the rank as a means whereby the full strategic potential of mobility could be realized, along with improv­ing the art of generalship.

Liddell Hart was a great believer in unlimited objectives. He claimed that the deeper the armored forces advanced, the greater the psy­chological dislocation of the enemy's com­mand, and the less would be the need to engage the enemy in a decisive battle. Whereas Fuller believed that the introduction ofarmored forces would render the decisive battle more impor­tant, Liddell Hart argued that it would be rele­gated to a less significant place in military pri­orities. As he pointed out in SlTategy: The In­direct Approach, strategic maneuver would ren­der the battle, if it need be fought at all, a fore­gone conclusion. More serious is Liddell Hart's attempt to universalize the indirect approach. Although it is a valuable operational tool, the indirect approach cannot be employed dogmat­ically; under certain circumstances, a direct ap­proach is just as valuable. The indirect approach is not a cure-all, as Fuller himself pointed out.6

The relationship between strategy, the oper­ationallevel of war and technology is truly sig­nificant in the writings of Fuller and Liddell Hart. They both tried to foretell the future by arguing that the strategy and tactics of future armies should be based on weapon power. Their development of this commonplace assertion was anything but commonplace. What really counted in modem war, they contended, was not the number of men but the number and efficiency of their weapons, whether they are mechanized, chemical or aerial.

Land warfare would tend to follow the same

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FULLER/LIDDELL HART

The operational techniques theypioneered were proved basically sound; and the disappointing political fruits ofWorld War II, with Soviet domination ofEastem Europe and communistpenetration ofEast Asia, tended to reinforce their claims ro prescience.

general trends as naval power; that is, weapon power would be concentrated on mobile and capital-intensive weapons platfonns, a trend that in land warfare has yet to work itself out. This trend had a number of implications for the structure of armies. First, the organization of annies would have to be modified to ensure that new weapons systems were used to their full potential. Instead, new weapons have been imposed on existing structures, rather than new structures developed to accommodate the greater power ofnew weapons. Likewise, geography has exerted a much greater influence on doctrinal change than technology. Although Fuller's and Liddell Hart's views about the future ofthe Brit­ish army were not popular at the time, their keen awareness of the potential of technology has much to teach us in adapting existing admin­

istrative and command structures to future tech­nological challenges.7

However, their views are flawed in the re­spect that they believed technological change would reduce the size of annies, as numbers would be rendered obsolete and immobile by machines. Ofcourse, there is some truth in this argument. Of the 11 million men mobilized by the US Armed Forces from 1941-1945, less than two million were deployed in its 90 Army divisions, and of these less than 700,000 made up tank crews and infantry fighting on the ground. Greater weapon power has been de­ployed by smaller numbers, yet the develop~

ment of this force has demanded the reintro­duction of the mass anny, which is basic to the waging of war in the 20th century.B

By 1940-1941, the reputations ofboth Fuller

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and Liddell Hart were waning, Fuller had litrle to offer on matters of defense policy, and his views lacked authority once he had hitched himself to the fascist wagon. As defense corres~

pondent of The Times, Liddell Hart increas­ingly cornmented on defense policy. His views

[Liddell Hartl began to claim that technological trends indicated the

primacy ofthe defensive in the next war, which would be ofSornme-like battles.

As historian Brian Bond has observed, it is difficult to see how, under the conditions

that Liddell Hart outlined, there would be any need for the armored forces that

he simultaneously called for.

on national policy were largely extensions or developments of the indirect approach. He advocated a policy of "limited liability," which argued an avoidance of (Iny commitment to France and restricted British land forces to two or three high-quality aonored divisions; the bulk of the British contribution would come in naval and aerial forces, The reasoning behind this style of thinking, no matter how clever it was articulated or debated, was based on emo­tion and nor clear thinking: a passion amount­ing almost to an obsession to avoid a tepetition of the Great War,

Liddell Hart had so convinced himself of the need to avoid future entanglements, that he was prepared to deny the importance of his own best writing, He began to claim that tech­nological trends indicated the primacy of the defensive in the next war, which would be of Somme-like batrles. As historian Brian Bond has observed, it is difficult to see how, under the conditions that Liddell Hart ourlined, there would be any need for the annored forces that he simultaneously called for, The German vic­tories of 1939-1941 revealed Liddell Hart's thinking to be wishful and misleading.

Liddell Hart, like Fuller, lost reputation but not honor. One of his most savage critics was Marshall. He claimed that Liddell Hart's writ­ings, "because of the ready acceptance of their skillti.llly put but incomplete tnlths by an admir­ing public, can be considered one of the more baneful influences upon military thinking with­in the English-speaking democracies during our time."9

In 1942, Fuller and Liddell Hart patched up their differences. They were convinced that the conduct of a second world war-especially its escalation to a l'total" war-would be as disas­trous as the first, and would, like the first, lead to yet another world war. So, they profited in hvo ways, TIle operational techniques they pioneered were proved basically sound; and the disappointing political fruits of World War II, with Soviet domination of Eastem Europe and communist penetration of East Asia, tended to reinforce their claims to prescience,

They reestablished their reputations by dove­tailing these two aspects in books about World War 11-Fuller, in The Second W"rld War: A Strategical and Tactical History and Liddell Hart, in The Other Side of the HiU, The Rommel Pape".s and finally after long delays, History of t1Je Sec­ond World War. They were remarkably suc­cessful in explaining the techniques of blitz­krieg and in condemning the Allied conduct of the war, especially the doctrine of uncondi­tional surrender and the strategic air offensive. Liddell Hart publicly championed the cause of the German generals arraigned at war crimes trials, notably Eric von Manstein. These books also exhibit a certain intellectual perversity that is crucial in understanding their personalities, Fuller and Liddell Hart took intellectual delight in championing the unpopular or minority cause. By the early 1950s, their views had be­come the majority verdict on the war and its outcome, thereby bolstering their claim to be prophets without honor in their own country.

What is their place in history? Fuller's is very secure; ironically, he was remarkably indifferent to it. "One outstanding advantage of old age is,

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that one does not care a damn for the future," he wrote in 1962. "Why should one? As it will never be seen," Increasingly the view is that Fuller is the greatest military thinker of the 20th century, for all his defects. In Marshall's view, he was the "most far-sighted military thinker of the Machine Age." Much of that greatness reposes in Fuller's profound under­standing of the operational level of war and how it relates both upward to grand strategy and downward to tactics. This aspect of Fuller's work will become more greatly appreciated as our interest in what is now tenned "operatiomtl art" increases. 10

Although Liddell Hart developed themes that were implicit in Fuller's thinking in a more radical way, his reputation will be scmtinized more closely. In his lifetime, he strove to secure tangible evidence of his influence and impor­tance, and be had a major say in what was writ­ten while he was still alive. This effort, which denotes a certain lack of self-confidence wholly foreigo to Fuller, seems to have rebounded upon Liddell Hart. Men who seek to have history written in their favor rarely succeed in the long run. The signs are that books and articles on his

FULLERILIDDELL HART

They both tried to foretell the future by arguing that the strategy and tactics of future armies should be based on weapon

power. Their development ofthis com­monplace assertion was anything but com­monplace. What really counted in mod­

em war, they contended, was not the numberofmen but the number and

efficiency oftheir weapons.

pre- I939 career are becoming more critical, per­haps excessively critical, as a reaction to the praise that was heaped upon him during his last years and immediately after his sudden death in 1970.11

Clearly, the debate on attrition and maneu­ver is a replay of the arguments of the interwar years. But what may not be doubted is that Fuller and Liddell Hart were men of such fas­cination, mental range, intellectual vitality and productivity that many more books are going to be written about them and their remarkable friendship. "'k

NOTES 1. Brian Holden Reid, "Tensions in the Supreme Command: Anti-Ameri­

canism in the British Army 1939.· 45, .. in Amenean ConneotlOOs, AmerICan Iden­tity: Essays in Hooorot MarcusCunlilte, ed, Brian Holden Aeidand John Whfte, (london: Macmillan, forthcoming); Jay Luvaas,rne Education of an Army <london: Cassen, 19$4), 369 and 374, 082; Martin Blumoosoo, The Patton Papers 1940-1945, VQI. 2, (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1974), 426. Forreferences to Palton's meetings wilh Fuller 1917-19, see The Parton Papers 1885,·1940, vol. 1, (1970), 446, 469 and 669. Patton had read Fuller's Tanks in the Great war (london: John Murray, 19201 see pages 735~36; but by 1929 he had turned against the tank, descfibing Fuller's and Liddell Hart's writing as "puerile," see page 860

2, Fuller to Liddell Hart. 10 June 19.20., Liddell Hart Papers 1/30212; Harold A, Winton, To Change an Army: General Sir John Burnett-Stuart and British Arl7lOlJffK1 Doctrine, 1927-·1938 (London; Brassey's, 19B81 74,

a R H, Liddell Hart, A History of tho WJrfd War, 1914~19'8(London; Cas­sell, 1934), 434,

4. Michael Howard, The Causes of wars (London; Temple Smith, 1962), 19B,

5. Michael Holroyd, Hugh Klngwll/: A Critical Biography (London:

Heinemann. 1964, 1971),26--27; RichardGriffrths, Fellow T~/~rsoftheRJght

(ooP, 19801314; Brian Holden Reid, J. F. C. Fulls/: Military Thinker(Nfm York: Sl. Martin's Press, 1987), 192·93.

6. Edward Hagerman, 71la American C/vi11Nar and the Origins of Modem »er/8Ie Ondiana Universily P18ss, 19BEl1 .'tw,

7, Barry R. Posen, The Sources of MilitlJlY Doctrine{Comeli UP, 1984), 222

"" 226. 8. John Keegan, Six Armies in Normandy (London: Jonathan Cape, 1982),

86. 9. Brian Bond, L1ddeII Hart (London: Cassell, 1977),98-99 aI1d 114---15;

S, L. A, Marshall, Blitzkrieg (New York; Morrow. 1940), 18-19. 10. Ful!er to Liddell Hart, 14 AuglJSt 1962, UddeH Hart Papers, S, L A,

Marshall, ~Foreword, in J, F: C. Fuller, Armourod warl"are (US ed" 194-3), lx.0

11. JohnJ. Mearsheirners n8W and highly critical study, Liddell Hart 8ndthe weight of History, has yetto be publiShed in Britain and I have been unable to read it before preparing thiS !$cture. The author is grateful to the trustees of the Liddell Hart Centre for MilitaryArchives, King's ColIegEI, LondOn, for permission 10 quote from the Liddell Hart Papers.

Brian HolJen Reid ~ Leet,.,.er in War Studies. Kings CoUege. London. England. and reslJeni historian at the British Army StaffCoUege. Comber!ey, where he;1 relponsib!e for the _hing of military history on the Higher Command and Staff Course and Army StaffCourse, Afellow ofthe RO)'li H~toriad Society and RO)'li Geographiml Society. he is fimner editor of the Royal United Service Institution Journal.

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1 ward a

PROFESSION L ILITARY ElHI

Ueutenant Colonel (P) Mason .I<~. Smith, US Army

Thc author t1nd,~ that formcr Marine Lieutcnant Colonel Oli,-cr North came Ul' sh,m ufthe desired standardofethical behaviur whcn hc li...J in the cungres.'lwnaI hearings of thc lran/Cuntra a{(air. North:~ shurtcomings, according to the author, wcre tile result ufa malfurmed hierarchy ofethical valu,,,,. He gOL'" UII tu call for a deRnid,-e set ufpmft.'$SkJnal ethical values fur the mili­tary, b."t~(..J on .1 higherorder ufmomI values.

FOR MORE THAN 200 yea". the US (lei"" that re'luire us to pert,'rm re"xm"hl, fm AmI) has o1",nly ,tnJggbl to "v"lv" irs the good of ourselve, and each othec' Within

partk\llar mp!ill idelltit" All ,',hieal dik-mllla th~"" houndark'S lie uniqU(' resr~)J)'ihditk~ and generated by thi, 'tnlggl<·. th" res"lt of " com· ohHg<lt!ol)S for all citizens, hut in partkubr for JX'tith,<:',tct!skm' b(?tWet~fl action and vallK-'s. t.hg~~~(>.hHVC chc.tSen spt'ciali"cd roles in our con~lstcndy.(;onftonts .. {hi$ institution, Th7ItS(,~,k1Xii§oldierlng in this nuclear ag(~ ,is,n spe-­confrontation has hcwl1le "cute ,ince the first d,diled role that demands a sl",cialired way of II"wi nudear weapOlb, The twoatomie bombs thinking and acring~a unique code of ethics, that signal",! thlH",d of Workl Wad[ have cast More' than 30 year» all", one of our mo't a ",,,lear sh"dow over the US ps,d"" dvil and prominent soldien; articulatdy characterized military ,IIike, 'TIl;' ,l",dow do",!> thinking a, what he saw as the challenge of thi, century, actiol1sandblsi<: .. v~\ltlc systems. da~h, ... Thcsel-l~~~~ltfr~15tcrizatjon has precise application as vJluc5yst~"tns provi:de a gelll~ralizcd fmml'·work~e:*~t¢ri'lptt9sctthc b(H,mdaries of a soldicrls for lx>th thinking and acting, Th"" set hound· ethic.

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Military Alliances, bakmces of/)ow(r, leagues of nations, all in tW'l'1 failed, leaving the onl)' txah to he by way of the mKible of ,""t The Wter destnlc­tiwness of war now blocks ow this alte)wui<!e. \Ve have had our laSt chance. If we will not devise some greater ana more equitable s)'stem, our Armaged~

dun will be at ow door. The problem basically [<

theological and involves a spiritual recrudes­cence, an improvement ofhuman character. . It mlLlt Ire of the sJ)irit if we are to save the flesh.

Gweral DOllgias )I.'bcArthur. Speech to the Joint 1'vketin!; of C':ongress,

19 April 1951

Thtee decades following MacArthur's speech, the National Conference of Catholic Bi~hLJps

(NCCB) took up his challenge in a controver­sial public letter." The debate that followed dealt mostly with the larger issues of nuclear war and peace, but within that debate lies the foundation for the recrudescence, the rebirth, of a soldierly ethic.

As the NCCB correctly concludes, the shadow of nuclear weapons does touch us in the most basic ways in which we live our lives. Polit­ical policies and military plans that place our lives, our existence, in jeopardy are fundamen­tally and rightfully unsettling. By the same token, statements that challenge these policies also challenge the boundaries set by our sol~ dierly value systems. Unfortunately, extreme positions taken within these debates have too often ruled discussion. As a result, our thinking and our sense of moral obligation anchored in these value systems become distorted. In a word, we become so stratified by the extremes of debate, tbat we often forget life is lived between extremes.

From its controversial roots, MacArthur sets the context and the bishops look for middle ground, in a debate of particular value to our Army and our Armed Forces in general. Both reaffinnthe itnportance of religion as an essen... tial support to publicorder and morality.> In the process, each establishes a linkage between conscience, authority and basic human values.

It is this linkage that requires us to act respon­sibly for the gocx1 of ourselves and each other. This linkage defines our values and the ethi­cal standards that govern contemporary 501­

dieting.

Ethics and Soldiering Just thinking about values, ethics and soldier­

ing is in itself a ~omplicated process. Richard A. Gabriel warns in To Serve With Honor that a confusion evolves I'tom this thought process, which usually centers upon two issues.

The first confuses professional ethics (and val­ues) witb the ethics (and values) of the good moral life.- Gabtiel argues that we make an error "of the first order" when we attempt to associate membership in a profession with heing a good man. Simply because a man lives according to the tenets of a profession does not guarantee his existence as a good man. In the beginning, human beings have no moral character. Each person develops his or hers by the way that he or she lives. We shape our moral character by the goodness or badness of our acrs. By perfonning these acts, we then become either good or bad people.

The adopted code of a professional man, in our case a professional soldier, helps shape rhat soldier's moral character, but is not his total moral character. The goodness or badness of his professional acts may contribute to the values found in his total moral character, but are not his total moral character. In fact, it could even be argued that in order ro have a morally stmight professional soldier, we must firsr have a momlly srraight man.

The second issue confuses an ethic of virtue with an ethic of duty. 5 Simply because a man possesses certain traits ofcharacter, .or· virtues, does not guarantee that he will always act eth­ically. At its extreme, to make this assumption attempts to deny a. man freedom of choice. Choice involvestbe intellectual "ctivity called deliberating. The outcome of deliberating isa practical judgmentto either perfoml or nor to petforman act. Choice always involves values.

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Conceivably, guidelines can be developed to help each person make an informed and mor­ally correct choice in line with certain values, but (~vnel,hip of that choice remains with the

It is this concept ofrightness or wrongness in an actand man's ability to

distinguish between the way things ought to be, as opposed to the way that they ac­tually are, thatgive ethics and the process ofvaluing their applicability. Man, in the exercise ofthis freedom, can voluntarily assume an obligation to do what is right

and avoid that which is wrong.

individuaL In each unique adventure. he or she is free t() choose to act either ethically or un~

ethically, Setting aside these two issues establishes the

uniqucIlCS.5 ofour own human acts and the near complete mastery owr them that each of us experiences, By doing so, we have established the role of personal freedom in decision making and have also shown a linkage between values and choice, Qur personal freedom in decision rnaking appears to be as broad as the values we have available for choice, The question now becomes where or to whom does a soldier look for his particular values?

Ethics, Values and Obligation P!riUlSophy is the antithesis ofpragmatic action,6

Soldierly values are values that Were dis­covered by otherso!diers and handed down through history, They refleet the traditions, customs and usages ofa particular way of life,fit to society and tested overtime, Each generation sifts arid sorts these valuc.', accepting thoscthat they find genuineanddiscarding the otl-l~rs' In order to ~ppreciate the significance of this sift­ing and sorting process, we must look more closely at the relationship between ethics,val­ues and m(lra! behavior, In this relationship, we

should find a philosophy to guide our actions as soldiers,

In a study of the relationship between ethics, values and moral behavior, we find two basic concepts, The first deals with a fact of man's ex­perience; he can distinguish right frnnl wrong. In addition, he has a feeling, an awareness, for what he "ought" to dO,7 The second concept is derived from the first-man can intuitively assib1f1 a hierarchy of value to each "ought." He can then sort the moral oughts from all other values.s It is this concept: of righ.tness or \Vmng~ ness in an act and man's abiiity to distinguish between the way things ought to be, as opposed to the way that they actually are, that give eth­ics and the process of valuing their applicability, Man, in the exercise of this freedom, can volun­tarily assume an obligation to do what is right and avoid that which is wTong.

Ethics and its inherent process of valuing can subsequently be defined as the observance of those moral obligations that man freely chCloses~ through reason~ as being that which he ought to do, Gabriel gives more specificity to

this definition, He leads us to believe that tbese moral obligations are also linked to a person's role in the social order. He specifically defines military ethics as the observance of "those mor­al obligations and precepts that are appropriate t.o a person's role within t.he military profes­

>5100."9

In moving towatd this definition, we have arrived at a position that allows man, in his moral behavior, to accept unique obligations within his special social order, However, in doing so, we have implied the existence of a higher order. In other words, those values ac­cepted within a special order now "affect man only in some particular and optional aspects of hislife, whereas true moral values affect t.he m~rvas man,"lO When he leaves his special speial order, rhe true good, to which he bas become attuned either in this special socia! order or by his very nature, does not lose its intrinsic value as good, Therefore, man does not lose his obligation to follow that goodwhen

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'f. ~fIV

The adopted code ofa professional mao, in our case aprofessional soldier, helps shape that soldier's moral character, but is not his total moral character. The goodness or badness ofhis professional acts may contribute to the values found in his total moral character, butare not his total mora/character. In fact, it could

even be argued that in order to have a morally straight professional soldier, we must first have a morally straightman.

H¥ '4"

he leaves, or more important in the case of a and hierarchy in the development of mordl soldier, joins his special social order, I1 value consciousness. It is necessary in order to

It is important to understand that man may interpret and apply a standard against the US adopt a moral code, as a result of his role in Army definition of an ethic, a definition devel­society, that must subordinate itself to a higher oped within a special social order. ethic when these roles come into conflict.J2 It In August 1981, as part of its basic statement is the relationship between this higher ethic of purpose, the US Annypublished certain and the values tied to his specific role in society "fundamental principles" thQught to be "har­that guides man's moml behavior. nessed to a setofvalues and ideas ... consistent

with our nation's heritage and linked to our The Professional Army Ethic national goals and objectives."14 .It· defined

In the end, all men must be responsible to their these harnessed and linked values as the profes­Ollm ccmsciences for what they bel¢ve tetike right sio~lArmyethk. Soldiers. were advised that and MOOg.] 3 . . theDS Army holds·.resolutely to four funda­

The previous discussion of ethitsin general mental and enduring values: loyalty to the in­is fundamental, if we are to understand order stitution, loyalty to the unit, personal responsi-

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'.When he 1.'avt'S his sped.11 social order, the tttl(> go(m, to which he h'l~ hecome attuned either in thi~ siX'dal

social ordcr (,(' bf his vcr}' nature, does not lose its intrinsic ~'aille 'l~ go<m.

Tht're(ore, man dot'S not lose hi~ obligation to (ollt)W tbat good whtW he l(~aves, or more important in the cas<' 0(11 s<,l<lier,

joim his ,~pecial rocial ord(~r.

l"lility and Sdn(~S-Snc5s> This "f()rmaliz·cd St)klicr's philo~ophy >,. providelsj the value base for military ~rvi(c ~n th,' pn)l<:s,,,ional s('ns(:,"l~'

It .additionally <ls!'wnes that th.is philosophy builds, upon certain prnf(~ssional "soldierly (ItJaI~ itie~"; uanmitnwnt 1 compettnn:, c:mdor and courag(~. Tlu: interactive protluct (If thest:' val~

ul-s'and _qualitif.~s is 'prc'Sumed ref be an ethical soldier. j(,

These trait' listed as the Atmv ethic att', without a douht, slIlllxJrtablc qUHlities f6,luired of a pr,,!("sional soldier. Ilowevcr, dwy fail the Pf(:"vjou~ly -established test as (~thkal or moral values. Each oft:h(%t~ qU(lht:k1i affcc(:sa~()klkr

only in silttle (",rrieHL'f ard o/,!ion,d as/Jeel of his Ufi? i7 Th(~rt~present conventions that have ,noml·hnplk:tttions, hurAte txmnd in etiquette, taste ;ind practicality, ()n dw oth(:r hand, a tnw erhiGl1 or moral value should affeC!" ",ILlier as it man, F()( example, nsoldier is expected to he lo'fAlto hts instlrudnn, If that iOStirtltkm ceast:; to exi,t. he is "I1'''(I'<xl as II ,oldier, Hete he can no longer Ix: loyal to that which (:(:.ases to be. Bur th" ill"erlte Ilf hb institution, on the other hnfl{C wilt noraft<:et his bas!ccxbtcnce as a hUl1'llln being, Hc qm srill bc true to himself. Thi' {(mn of existence, which distinguishes trmnfrOUl t~(~ry()t:hcr being, remains cot15i&t:cnt and CHfl neither be assumedn:or discarded ,It leLsurc~

A cOlltemlX,tMY example elf rhis distincrion C~Ul bc t(:mn.d in <:ongressional t(~timony .prc~ ""n",d by Matin" Lieurenant C<,loncl Olivet

Nnrth at til<' 1987 !r,miC:()ntra he;:H'ing~, Tn thc;-;,c hCdrings, Nt!rth ldcl1KH1~

stratc:" thil1: his understanding of hJ)'alty to

instttutj,)f) hJY~11ty to unit ha:;, becomt' ((H\~

voluted, N'Jrth defined his lovalrV to unit as a nelrly exclusi,,'c k ....yalty to the L:Xcc'utivc branch, irH\"lx'ctlvc of ;"ny con~titutional\y mand~lted institutiunal k,valtv, But, ho\\'t~'cr else in error, his (lct'initi()n ot"kJ\~~lltv aff~-..cts hirn onlv in some particular and option:ll aspect cl his life. },,-'1orc imr'ortd,nt and pertin('l1t to this analysis, he adlnits to having lied to (A:I[1,t;ressY" The issue is rHlt to whum did he owe lovaltv or to whom ,hd he Ii<:: it is thar he lied, S:,dly, regardless of all other irnplic.ations, he ceased to be tnIe to himself

\Ve can appro;ICh this same point from an()thcr perspective. Some actton:; are right or '\vrong ~inlply because someon.e \\"ho has tilt: authority c(mdones or f()rbids thenL This au~

thority ::;l:cms from positive lm\/ an.,l the "state has the right to t(:ldiid some action not othcr~ wise \vroog f('f the :sake of good order."]9 Undcr~

st~.'{ndably, confusiun may result from a conflict between <JCts·appa,rently authorizerl or (knied by legitimate auth{)rlties, Some acts. h(Nt'cvcr, by their very nature are rccogntz(;d as good and l'cannot be made a snmdard of conduct. by any lawnr custom,"20 These (lets, or· nonnative iKtkHI.S, srand on their own. As itl the case of North, it is tht'Sc acts that muS-t form the basis (e.r an Anny ethic; for we arc bound in conN &dcI1Ct:, liS he was bound tn consdence, to

(>bSccrve these nonns.

Law and the Rule of Conscience 'flU? {mlsecHtiml(umj thmrk its own ol>e<liem ,o~

dieTS for being in a j)ositi011 to prosc<.'ute. Al!'nsl }xU. Nuwmt'f;fg i,Xt,Jt l1i;iib< I

So t,,,, in rhis short arrid,,_ I have trkd 1'0

establish a Ilnkagt bctwetm conscience, author~ itI' and hasic human v"ltre", This linbg<: is fun' drmll~n!al to our lll1dl'rstallding of good moral behavior, becnust:~ it requires that we acr rcspon~

sibil' fot the gtxxl ofoursdves and each oth"r.

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I have tried to show that when a man joins a special social order, the special social order of a soldier, he voluntarily adopts the unique obliga~

tions of his new social order. He does so while still owing allegiance to a higher set of values. Validation of the ethic ofhis new social order is now determined by how closely it emulates, or has internalized, these higher values.

A closer examination of the current US Army ethic shows that it contains qualities that are indisputably necessary for good soldiering. However, even though a good soldier must have these qualities, they may not necessarily be moral values of a good man. If they are not those of the good man, and if we, as a profes­sion, have not identified moral values common to hoth good men and good soldiers, then we must do so. This identification process should force us to look beyond current professional boundaries, to other forms of authority for guid­ance and validation. When we look elsewhere, wenm the risk of encountering confkt be­tween authorities, and the question of obedi­ence could become a central issue.

Obedience of a soldier in support of a just cause is the centerpiece ofsoldierly values. jodI, Hitler's lieutenant, taunts us when we. begin to consider against whose standard the just cause is measured. Again, referring to the Iran/Con­tra affuir and testimony before its Select Com­mittee:

Nields [Counsel to o,mmittee]: I take it you did con.siderably more which you did not teU the committee about? [North previously acknow1­edged that he had made false and misleading statements to congressional committees about his involvement with the Contras.]

North: I will tell you right now, o,unsel and all the members here gathered, that I misled the congress. I misled ...

At the meeting [at the WhiteHouse inAugust 1986 with members of the House Intelligence Committee]?

At that meeting. Face to face? Face to face.

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MILITARY ETHIC

You made false statements to them about your activities in support of the contras?

I did. Furthermore, 1did so with a purpose, and I did so with a purpose of hopefully avoid~

ing the very kind of thing that we have before us now, and avoiding a shutoff of help for the Nic­araguan resistance, and avoiding an elimina­tion of the resistance facilities in three Centtal Ametican countries wherein we had promised those heads of state on my specific orders, on speei!", orders to me -1 had gone down there and assured them of our absolute and total discretion,zz

The principle used to arrive at a just cause is fundamental. If means applied towatd an end

The US Anny holds resolutely to four fundamental and enduring values: loyalty to the institution, loyalty to the

unit, personal responsibility and selJIess­ness. This "formalized soldier's philosophy .. . provide{s] the value base for military service in the professionalsense."It addJ.

tionaHr assumes that this philosophy builds upon certain professional "soldierly

quaJjties":c0mmitment, competence, candorand coWage. The interactive

productofthese values and qualities is presumed to be an ethical solJier.

"undermine the values we seek to pursue," then these means simply cannOt be used.23

A second example worth considering leads us to this same point. As the Iran/Contra affair began to unfold, William Casey, then director of Central Intelligence, authorized establish­ment of an office ofpublic diplomacy (SILPD) to be housed at the USDepartffient of State. This office, chartered to work under the guid­ance of. a •restricted.· interagency group moni­tored out of the White House, apparently "cre­ated a sophisticated apparatus that miJ<.ed prop­ag~ndawith intimidation, consciously misle~d-

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ing the Ametican people and at times tramp­ling on the right todissent."z4

The executive officer to the director of thiS oIganization, Lieutenant Colonel Daniel ("jake")

Ii

[In the IranlContra]hearings, North demonstrates that his unde1" standing ofloyalty to institution atId

loyalty to unit has become convoluted. North de6ned his loyalty to unit as a nearly exclusive loyalty ro the executive branch,

irrespective ofany constitutionally mandatedinstitutionalloyalty .•• The issue is not to whom did he owe loyalty or ro whom did be lie; it is that he lied.

Sadly, regardless ofall other implications, he ceased to be true to himself.

Jacobowitz, and five other soldiers, trained in psychological operations, staffed S/LPD. They reportedly focused their activities upon the conduct of a "huge [domestic] psychological operation,"25

Executive Order 12333 restricts the intel­ligence community including the Central In­telligence Agency (CIA) from activities "in­tended to influence United States political proc­esses, public opinion ... or media."26 It ap­pears that this office was established at State, rather than at the CIA, largely to citcumvent these authorities.

Returning to the principle used to arrive at a just cause, have the means employed here also undennined the values they sought to pursue? If so, the result should be an "uncomfortable ten­sion" between conscience, authority and basic hwnan values.27 This tension, common to both of these examples, stems from a conflict be­tween the "rude pressures of necessity on the one hand and the seductive lure of a higher humanitarianism on the other."Z8 The first position embraces opportunism, which calls for the absence of ethical constraints in favor of a

short-term gain. The latter "invites us to inflate the worth of the ends for which we are fighting, identifying victory with liberty, welfare, and sometimes survival· of humanity as a whole."29

The issue raised in both the North and CIAI State examples is the clear inability of a soldier to absolve himself of a moral duty regardless of position or authority. The duty invoked here involves a requirement to make moral judg­ments for which every man is held responsi­ble.30 This duty, properly recognized in rhe US Law of Land Warfare, calls upon a soldier to apply standards of judgment and allegiance to a higher order than that of loyalty to his institu­tion, IOYdlty to his unit and so forth." Here, "choice between one's role in the Inilitary and other roles can be resolved only when the sol­dier can clarify his own values."3Z That clarifi­cation begins with accepting the genuine, in­trinsic worth of every other human being.

The NCCB reminds us rhat human decency and actions that support the dignity of man mtc_t be the common denominator, for:

"No society can live in peace with itself or with the world without a full awareness of the worth and dignity ofevery human person and of the sacredness of all human life.""

Conclusions Leading Toward an Improved Professional Ethic

There is good evidence to support the fact that professional soldiers owe an allegiance to a higher set of values than those found in the present Army ethic.. If the bishops are correct when they assert that the sanctity of human life embodies these higher values, and man is bound in conscience and in law to pursue the sanctity of life, then we must encourage an ethic that reflects and supports these two cor­cel'ts' Inpart,we~lready have. The cUrrent Anny ethic and the Law of Land Wetrf£l~ both contain elements that point toward these val­ues. HOWever, the bishops cllallenge 1.,IS to. raise 0trt standards~roseek outabsolute principles an.d to relegate pragmatism to its proper and significantly less prominent position, By doing

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so, we evoke every Inan to make moral judg~ ment. about his specific acts-judgments that are based upon his own clarified values.

Following this line of reasoning, it seems appropriate to offer a proposaL Each precept of this proposal is specifically written to comple~ ment, not to replace, the existing Army ethic. Each precept builds upon those eXisting, prag­matic qualities (loyalty to institution, loyalty to unit, and so forth) necessary to good soldiering. But more important, these additional precepts attempt to recobfllize a soldier's allegiance to a higher and more noble purpose preservation of the dib~1ity of man.

Precept # I: Soldiers are men and women with moral obligations shaped by their (:onsciences~ This precept recognizes man's first overwhelming obligation to follow that which he inherently ancl unequivocally knows to be right, that which he ought to do34

Precept #2: Every soldier holds a special position of trust and responsibility to all men, not just to his fellow countrymen. We have affiffi1ed, within this short article, the principle of association applicd to the profes­sional man. That is, in order to be truly profes­sional, a soldier'sethical position must relate to mankind as a whole, and not Just to some par­ticular subset of mankind delineated by na· tional boundaries or cultural differences. Two corollaries to this ethical precept logically emerge. They apply particularly to those who exercise authority over others,35

.. Corollary # 1: A leader's firsr duty, the pur­suit of peace, is to mankind; his second duty is to the welfare of his men; and his third dutyis to the execution of his mission. in this hierarchy, the latter is dependent upon the second to accomplish the first. This. concept is fit w an understanding of the complex nature of deter­rence. in this era, forces exist, first, to deter war (rhe put$uit of peace); and second, if deterrence fails, to prosecute that war to a desired outcome. In order to a\:complish the latter, a leader's force must fi5t be trained (his obligation to the wel­fure ofhis men) and subsequently deployed, pre-

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MIUTARY ETII!C

pared to perronn its war-fighting tasks (execu­tion of mission).

'II Orrollary #2: In order to execute his duty to mankind, a leader must strive to reduce to a minimum the violence, destruction, suffering and death of soldiers and civilians alike.'" The pursuit of peace is indeed that duty which a sol­dier owes to all mankind. It. is this universal and singular element of a soldier's ethic that gives it selective profeSSional credibility. For it is this bent toward peace that obligates a profeSSional

, The issue raised in both the North and

CWState examples is the clear inability ofa soldier to absolve himselfofa moral

duty regardless ofposition or authority ••. This duty, properly recognizedin the US Law ofLand Warfare, calls upon a soldier to apply standards ofjudgment and alle­

giance to a higherorder than thatof loyalty to his institution, loyalty to his

unit and so forth.

to limit violence, which he must inflict, to that which is absolutely the minimum nece&sary to achieve peace.

Precept #3: Violating one's sense of honor is never justified. A soldier's sense of ethical integtity is the centerof his effectiveness as both a leader and a follower. Gabriel tells us in simple tenns, that "some things are not done ."37 There is a point beyond which man knows that he cannot pass. Regardless of the consequences, his conscience dictates that he must go no further. A soldier, no less a man, is bound by this equation. "[It] is at the center ofa leader's effectiveness," at any leveL38

Precept#4: A soldier must follow aU law­ful orders, but he must never exeeute an ot'l1erthat is morally wrong. Little need be said here, as this is a fundamental preceptof the Law of Land Warfare, reaffiffi1ed at Nurem­berg and in the mOre recent My Lai incident.39

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Guidelines addressing questions of right and wrong can indeed be shaped by law, culture and tradition, but our decisions must be finnly rooted in conscience-the first ethic.

A man only reaUy gets the best out of tile men lie commands by something a/>proadung a complete fusitm of his (Jam identity witll tile co7porate wllole they jlJ'rm. Gcneml Sir John Hackett~()

It is clear that there is a linkage between con­science, authority and basic values. It is also clear that each soldier, in his or her chosen re­ligious tradition, owes an allegiance to a higher set of values than simple loyulty to institution,

loyalty to unit, persGnal responsibility and self­lessness. Each of these qualities is necessary for good soldiering, but each affects the values of a good man only in some peripheral and volun­tary way. The NCCB has directed our attention to the values of a good man. It asks us to think about our duty and the profession of soldiering in terms of these values. It inspires us to develop an ethic based upon mle of conscience and the recognized worth of individual human beings. It is true, fllsing this unique identity of man with his soldierly corporate structure is a com­plex and awesome task. But, if we do it right, we are assured of getting the best out of the soldiers we command. ~

NOTES

1. Mol;jlObligatioll and theMili/ary: Collected Essays(Washinglon. DC: The National Defense University Press, 1988), ix.

2. National COl'lfcrence of CalholiC Bishops, The Cha.llengeo! Peace__ Gods Promise and Our Response (Washington, DC: United Slates Catholic Con­ference; 1983).

3,lbid.,iiand2. 4. Richard A. Gabriel, To Serve With Honor (Weslport, CT: Greenwood

Pres:>, 1982), 8. 5.lhid, 6. Ibid., 23. 7. W. T. Jones, ~Public Roi!ls and Differential Moml Assessments of Role

f'(lrfotmance," EtlIics, voL 94, 00. 4 (July 1984):609, See also. Austin J. Fagothuy, $, J.. Right ~"d Reason: Ethics in Theory andPmctice(SI. Louis. MO: C. V. Mosby Co., 1963), 21; and Marshal Cohan, Thomas Nagel and Thomas Scanloo, War and Responsibilities (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1974), S.

RJones, 610. 9. Gabrlel. 29.

10. Ibid., 54, 11.Jones,51t. 12. Ibid., 613. W T. Jones nlakes a slightly different assessment. He argues

that the mornl problem is not which rOIa makes the greater claim, but ralherthe issue is "to decide What to do When the circumstances for which tho rore was designoo have changoo so much thaI thQ beha~iorcalled for by the role may no 1000000r be appropriate:'

13. GabrieL 54. 14, US Department of the Army Field Manual (FM) 100-1, Too Army

(Wllshmgton, DC:US Government PrinllngOHi<:e (GPOI, 14 August 1961), 23. 15,ltiic:l. 16, Ibid.. 23~2£; WiRiam H, Shaw, "Nuclear Deterrence and Deonlology,"

EthiC.~, vol, 94, no, 2(January 1884):259 l7. Albert Flor$l and Deborah G. Johnson, "'CollectiVe Responsibility and

Prolessiona! Roles," Ethics, vol. 93, no. 3 (April.19$3):542. 16,CangrossionfJlOUarterfy, voi. 45. no. 28(11 July 1967}:1527 and 1530. 19. Fagothey, 76.

20. Ibid 21. Guenler Lewy. "Superior Orders, Nuclear Warfare, and the Dictates of

Conscience,' in ~randMorality, ed. Richard A. Wasserstrom, (Belmont. CA' Wadsworth Publishing Company, Inc., 1970), 131.

22. CongresskJrJalOuarterly, 1527. 23. Lewy. 132, 24. Robert Parry and Peter Kornbluh, '"Iran-Contra's Untold Story," Foreign

Policy, (Fall 198B):3. 25. Ibid., 19-20 26. EKecUtiW Oroor 12333, 4 December 1981, 46 Federal Register 59941. 27. Terry Nardin, Law Morality aM rhe Relations of States {New Jersey:

Princeton University Press, 19831291. 28. Ibid 29,lbid.,291-92 30, ShaW,258. 31. US Department 01 ttle Army FM 27-10, The Law of Land Warfarowith

Change 1, (Washington, DC:GPO. 15 July 1976), 182. 32. Gabriel, 54. The possibifityof a disconnect between values and soldierly

roles has nol entirely escaped !renior army leadership. 1986 was designated as the year 01 ''Army Values" - tacit recognition that these "values" coold stand some reexamination.

33. The Chall&nge of Peace, 68. 34. FM 100 --1, 23-24: US Department of the Army FM 22 -100, Military

Leadership (lNashington, DC:GPO, January 1M3), 4-18. 35. The Challenge CJf Peace, 94: Denis Thompson, "Ascribing Responsibility

to Advisors ill Government,~ Ethics, vol. 93, no. 3, (April 1982):5~59

ThompSQn takes us into a re<.llm once removed from direct participation -the role 01 advL<;e1 or secondary agent

36. The Challenge of Peace, 94. 37. Gabriel. 141. 38, Ibid. 39. Ibid., 41­40. GeneraiSir John Hacketl, The Profession ofArms(london: Sidgwickand

JackSon, 1983),228.

Lk.>Jllt>rUmt Cokmel (1') Mason E. Smith ischiej; Architecture and Pout;; Di~!isiol1,]4~ J6, US Spa", Command. He received a B.A. and an. M.A. frmn Creighton University and a Master of Military Art and Science frotn the US ATtn) Omimand arul General StaH College (USACGSC). H(, previr'US assignnlL'1Us include command of the 124th and 54th Signal Battalions; communicarUm~.:electronics staffofticer, SHAPE Headauar, ters; and facuIt)' nlL'mbt>r, USACGSC, Fort I.:..eaVLlltvorth; Kansas. He also servedas a senior service college fellow at the Atlantic CouncU of the United States.

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What We Learned From the Hanoi Hilton: Reflections on Leadership, Ethics and Survival

By Captain Stephen C. Danckert, US Army

I was 18 years old when I met Captain Richard Stratton. A local, boy-made-good, the fonner Viet­nam prisoner of war (POW) had returned to his hometown to address my US Air Force Junior Reserve Officer's Training Corps (USAF JROTe) graduation banquet. I had just finished Scott Blakely's account of Stratton's captivity, Prisoner at War,l and I was mesmerized by this war hero.

Stratton spoke for more than 90 minutes. The audience- USAF JROTC cadets and their par­ents-barely took a breath during the entire speech. With an almost scholarly precision, Stratton re­counted tlw tale of his capture and captivity. His eyes were unimaginably old, but he had a quick wit and a ready laugh. In the days before former Presi­dent Ronald Reagan made patriotism respectable again, Stratton burned with a fierce love of his country.

The man stands out in my memory because he taught me something that spring night. I learned, once and fc)rever, that certain things matter-that justice, hope and honor exist, just as surely as the continents ofAfrica and Australia. Mostly, I learned that these things are more important than victory and that even the defeated can know heroism.

Stratton is a hero. He won no victories, con­quered no nations, vanquished no armies. He is a hero of another sort. In a world of torture and treachery, he dung to his honor, to his very human­ity. Stratton and his fellow paws fought the enemy every day of their captivity, fully knowing that vic.. tory was hopeless but that struggle was necessary.

There is a lesson here for all of us. We do not speak much of ethics nowadays, certainly not with any genuine conviction. Instead of honor, we talk about "values" and "ideals." Or we revert to super­ficial cant, reminding ourselves of the "four Cs­courage, candor, competence and commitment." Ethics has become another Madison Avenue slo-

CPT Danckert is currently iL~signed w the 32dAir Defense CAJmmand, Federal Republic of Germany. He l\ an honor graJuate of Norrheas!ern University, Boston, Massachusetts.

gan, a ritual incantation offered up to some half­remembered god.

It was not so in the prisons of Vietnam. Honor was so real one could almost reach out and touch it.Z

Stratton and his comrades governed their lives by it. The rows knew that the enemy could inflict

more pain than any man could endure. "Victory" ­defined as giving no more inf()mmtion than name, rank and service number-was impossible. So the POWs fell back to the redoubt of honor. They gave f~llse infomlation whenever they could; one pilot idenriiled his commander as Donald Duck. And, they made the Vietnamese sweat for every ounce of information extracted, whether tnle or false. The POWs broke when torture become unbearable, but not before then - never before then.

Such stubbornness may sound foolish to a civil­ian. It may sound foolish to many in uniform today. But it was the POWs' commitment to honor-and, implicitly, to each other-that kept them alive. If victory was impossible, honor was all they had left. It was enough.

We must learn this lesson today. Too often our ethics studies focus on bloodless ethical models, contrasting "ideal Army values" to "individual val­ues" to "cultural values." Such rot is not what sus­tained Stratton in the prisons ofVietnam. It will not sustaln future leaders In times of failure and distress.

Father James Schall, the noted scholar and the­ologian, said that education is not designed to pre­pare us for success. It is designed to prepare us for failure, So too with ethics. In those moments when all is lost, a man must tum within himself to find his soul. His soul ought to be strong enough to with­stand that discovery.

Honor is not a formula for success. It is a formula for survival. The most remarkable thing about Strat­ton and his fellow POWs is not that they came through Vietnam with their sanity intact. It is that they came through Vietnam with their humanity intact.

Humanity-the ability to love, to laugh, to hope and to show mercy-is the very essence, and the only real end, of ethics. To the degree that we lose

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our decency, we become selfish automatons, career, seeking missiles oblivious to the duties, the in, justices and the pt.."Ople in our path. When we miss our target- "success" -we survive, if at all, as d~li­pondent shells.

Stratton and his comrades knew this, Perhaps, that is why they fonned a school in their prison. Like the schoolmen of the Middle Ages, who prc,erved humane leaming while the Datk Ages thundered outside, the POWs kept the flame of learning, the spark of hope, alive. Hope is a virtue too lofty for those ambitiOUS for victory.

These, then, are the lessons of Hanoi. As yet, \ve have not applied them, \Ve continue to teach cadets and young officers about "values," lIsing the dis, credited "values clarification" model. This model has wrought only skyrocketing illegitimacy and ram, pant corruption in other contexts, We continue to ignore the importance of cohesion and small,unit bonding in our personnel policies. We do not require our officers to read the works of Virgil, and Livy, and Dante, and all the others who have had -something important to say alx)ut human conduct.

Most disturbingly, we have not freed ourselves of the present age's obses,'iion with success. Even when we discuss truthfulness and courage, we speak of

their importance to career success. We have not learned the essential lesson of Hanoi: that honor counts more than victory.

Seventy years before Stratton addressed my junior ROTC squadron, G. K. Chesterton wrote on the importance of honor as the world approached the abyss of the great war. "If we are to win," he wrote, ;'it will be by a stubborn sanity and an ancient instinct ofhonor ... which cOlmts courage so much higher than victory that all its heroes have heen defeated heroes, from King Arthur to Joan of Arc, and which has defended our passes in the perilous hour with something half uttered in the horn of Roland and the lion of Themlopylae."3

If the echoes of Roland's hom have long since hded away, the call to integrity has not. Stratton and his fellow POWs heeded that call. Mav we always strive to follow their example. '

NOTES

1. Scott Blakely, Prisoner at War (londoo: Penguin Books, 1975). Blakely's account is 100 best Ihave read of the roN experience in Vietnam

2. James Bond Stockdale, ~LearningGoodness," Chronicles ofCu/lure (July 1968), to. Admiral Stockdale. lhe senior American PCNV in Vletnem, IS an eloquen! spokeman lor ethics and humafle learning in the training of officers,

3. G_ K Chesterton, Collected Ylobrks, Vofume XXVII(San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1988).315,

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Noriega Overthrow May Help Stabilize a Turbulent Region

By Trevor Armbrister Sea Power, January 1990

At the end of 1989, as the Cold War era seemed to be thawing in Europe, events in Central America were as tense as they have ever been, In Nicaragua, the ruling powers seemed to harden their stand against progress toward a democracy, as they ended the cease fire with rehels in that country. In El Sal. vador, the communist rebels lalffiched their own "Tet-style" offensive to weaken the democratically elected government. In Honduras and Guatemala, political violence seemt.."C! to be. on the increase. And, in Panama, the United States had to intervene militarily to unseat a despotic ruler and protect the vital Panama Canat opening the United States to the old criticism of ((Yankee imperialism." But, the author concludes, US intervention in Panama may

signal a turnaround for policy initiatives in Latin America,

"Over the last three years, IMikhail] Gorbachev has more than doubled -from $250 million to $515 million-the annual value of arms the Soviets sent to Nicaragua'5 Sandinistas," states the author. Indeed, the Sandlnistas maintain the largest anny in Cen~ tral America. The author points to Soviet aid ship~ ments that include assault rifles, torpedo boats and the possible shipment of MiG·29 fighters to Cuba­all evidence of a continuing communist effort to destabilize democracy in the region.

The author notes, "Throughout the region last year, developments were almost exclusively grim and the United States was perceived- by friend and foe alike-to have been the loser of the game. Mili· tarily, the balance of power shifted to the other side."

The "Omtras" were forcc'<l to retreat into Hon· duras and received only humanitarian aid for subsis~ tence. In El Salvador, the rehels USf.'<l Soviet~upplied surtace~to-air missiles for .the first time against gov-

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emment aircraft. The aircraft have been the biggest advantage of the counterguerilla forces in their fms~ trating war. Rebel attacks grew in intensity in Guate~

mala, while terrorist attacks, including several against US servicemen, occurred in Honduras.

"Economically, the region was in worse shape at the end. of 1989 than it was 10 years earlier," says the author. "And this despite ma~5ive infusions of Amer~ ican aid."

<lIn elections everywhere, the people of Central America have shown that they do not want radical solutions to their problems/' he says. "Yet because economic conditions have worsened, their faith in democratic institutions has begun to wane."

The interests of the United States extend past the security of the Panama Canal. "There are larger issues-debt, immigration, dnlgs," he says. The C..entral American l&.'iue has been with the Bush administration since the beginning, starting with what to do with the US-backed "Contl'dS" and the Centml American peace plan. This problem was inherited from the previous administration and has yet to be resolved,

Forces within the government of the United States have wrestled with the problem of Central America for the last decade, leaving the impression with many in the region that we lack the will to protect our interests there, Support for the rebels in Nicaragua waned in Congress, and the new admin, istration seemed satisfied with conciliatory measures toward the communist government.

As 1989 drew to a close, it appeared that commu­nist ambitions in the area were becoming more pro~ nounced, and the United States seemed unable to cope with the problem. And, at the time, it looked as if the United States was completely impotent in dealing with the situation in Panama.

But on 20 December 1989, the United States moved to protect its interests in Panama and, in doing so, demonstrated resolve in the region. "There was no doubt that Washington ... sent a strong message to friend and foe alike/' states the author. The move by President Bush in Panama may have marked a crucial turning point of US policy in Cen, tral America, regaining the initiative in that region.

The author quotes the fomler chief of US South­ern Command, Geneml Fred Woerner, .who told Congress, "It is time to take full measure ofour inter~ ests in Latin America:'

"By its actions in Panama, the Bush administrk tion seem!s! to signal its belief in the validity of Woerner's advice." the author says. He thinks this marks a new beginning in Central America-one of commitment to the region and resistance to less democratic forces there.-JMP

SUMMARIES

The Limits of "International Law" By Robert H. Bark

The National Interest, Winter 1989-1990

According to Rohert H. Bork, the issue of inter~ national law is not easily defined or understood within our own country or among the international community. This has resulted iri a number of ac~ tions taken by our president being judged differently by different groups, adding to the confusion over legal interpretation.

"Whenever an American President uses or sllbsi~ dizes force against another country, the halls ofCon­gress resound and the pages of newspapers sizzle with pronouncements by his political opponents (and his allies) that he is (and is not) a lawbreaker," he says. This has led some to question the validity of the concept of international law.

In fdct, the United States appears to be a major violator of intemationallaw if one listens to some circles. Bork states, hm.vever, "The word 'law' is a capacious one and before we accept a sense of guilt it would be well to inquire further."

International law ranges from international agree­ments on fishing or treaties to the broader exten~

sions of law that apply to the use of force. Bork observes, "There are a great many statements of principle that pur/xn-t to be law."

The author then examines whether any real defi­nition of intemationallaw can apply to the use of force. Even the most "predatory" governments use legal staffs to justify or deny the correct application of force to accomplish national goals.

Judge Bork, now a legal scholar for a conservative think tank, examines the illustration of the use of international law as it applied in the case of Nic~ aragua during the 19805. The support of anncd insurgents and the mining of national waters was declared a violation of international law, but the United States chose not to participate in that dis~ pute. This is not altogether uncommon, as ('only 47 of 162 nations entitled to accept that compulsory jurisdiction" do so.

Additionally, the court proceedings are not with~ out some political undertones. The invasion ofGre, nada was condemned as a violation of international law in the United Nations by a larger vote than the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. It is clear that cer, tain agendas and philosophies are more accepted in the interpretation of the law.

The author, examining SOffie of the other writings of legal scholars, wonders if all the ambiguities can be resolved when international law is called to examine any issues in the use of force by one sov~ ereign nation against the other. Bork draws no con,

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du;.:ion.~ about thi, but note:) thilt the ttS(' of the hnv usually gocs agmn",t the \V('HCm (k'mocratic cOlllrnunitits.

"11w major diffk~ulty with iTv.em.alional btw is that it (onvtrts what arc essentially pH,hlcm.5 iJf

intnnational momlity, as defined by a r'cmicular rxAitical (omrnunity, into arguuH.'flt8 ,lbour law that ,-\1'(; blgd)' dE'ltwd of moraht)"" hl~ states..

The b·$Ut' of intt!1'l;lticH),lllaw b <lho raist,-d t(x poJitkai reasons in thb country, "Those \\·h.o di:sap­

pro',,'{' (ILl Pre:-;idcflt's acti\IIlS on the f1writs, but wh.o fe:,lf they rna)' pf()\'e fx,pubr, can tmnsfonn the dis­pute from one alxnH subs-wnce to on.c about legal­ity, .. notes the ;:,\uthOT.

B-ork dmws- SoHIC conclusions alx)ut the 1J~ ()f

intcm'.Hionallaw: "Since it do'('s not prev;w, rht' per­sistence of the idea that it cxi~ts can be pcmicious. There GU\ he nu authentic nile of hnv mnong na­tiCH\;; until 11<1\ions have;1 COHll1l0n political moral­ity or ;m: under a common sovc1'(::ignty:'-~JMP

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Antimateriel Technology Is Nonlethal

Arthur H. Westing's letter in your Fehmary 1990 issue undeservedly obscures needed discussion of retired Colonel John B. Alexander's assertion in his article, "Antimateriel Technology," (Military Re, view, October 1989) that technolob'Y has made feasi­b�e operational and tactical employment of non­lethal weapons, thereby limiting battle casualties of friend and foe. In particular, Alexander mentioned using aerosol dispersants to disable aircraft and velli, ele engines.

Relying on two international conventions and a provision of the US Constitution, Westing main­tains that such lifes<lving methodology would involve breaches of treaties and war crimes. This is not so, notwithstanding Westing's International Peace Research Institute.

True, the Environmental Modification Conven, tion of 1977 prohibits "military or any other ho,tile use of environmental modification techniques hav­ing widespread, long-lasting or severe effects as the means of destmction, damage or injury to any State Party." But, the convention is speCifically concerned only with a "technique for changing-through deliberate manipulation of natural processes-the dynamics, composition or structure of the Earth, including its biota, lithosphere, hydrosphere and atmosphere, or of outer space." That is, the use of the environment as a weapon in, but not as a medium for, combat is prohibited. Put another way, Alexander's aerosols disable engines, they do not make "Swiss cheese" out of the ozone layer.

True, the Geneva Protocol of 1925, which the United States joined in 1980 with a reservation con­cerning nonadherent states, prohibits the "use in

war of asphyxiating, poisonous or other gases" and "analogous materials," as wen as bacteriological war­fdre. But, the agreement is concerned with lethal, antipersonnel weapons-not with Alexander's non­lethal, antimareriel anns. It would be a different matter had Alexander advocated dropping cartons of cigarettes on enemy territory,

True, the Supremacy Clause of the US Constitu, tion makes treaties part of the "supreme Law of the Land." But invocation of the clause is simply irrele, vant. The provision- in our federal system-estab­lishes the primacy of federal laws and treaties over the legislation of the constituent parts of the United States. In a unitary state, such as Norway, whence Westing hails, there is no need for such a provision.

Innovation in warfare, particularly when it prom­ises to introduce a measure of humaneness into that bloody enterprise, deserves to be explored, discussed and, perhaps, implemented. While history teaches us to be leery of military innovation, it does not suggest that we should be paranoid about all ad, vances in military technology. I am glad that horses no longer die on battlefields, and 1 do not mind turning off a few tank engines if it will save human lives.

Axel Kleiboemer, Attorney-at-Law, Washington, DC

Colonel Mosby's "From My Bookshelf"

I thought you might be interested in contrasting the "From My Bookshelf' reading lists with one from a fanner Civil War officer:, Colonel John Sin­gleton Mosby. It is taken {rom The Memoirs ofColo-­nel John S Mosby, edited by Charles W. Russell.

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Mosby'~ exploits during the Civil \X/;.\, comrih­u[(·d dr<:unHtically to influellce \vhm T. Harry \X/illialns calkd th<: advt;;nt of ll)(,Kkm warfnH~. Moshy ~e('nwd de~tirkd tel pass his We as an ol'r5Cure Virginia kUtotlK')' until the Civil \\!m propcHt:d hinl

to lKtj('1fl" H(' was (xiucat(xl m the Unh't:rsitv of Vir­ginia in Ch"rlotte5vilh,' and gr;\duatcd in C,r~ek and nl;lthcmatic" l-h)wt~vcr, lacking (onl'lal iniHtary training, he bt.:'g;m hi~ military GlfCer as an obscure private in the state rnitiria.

A(crwding to t-,,'1osby, "/\ raid is a predator)' incur­sion. gcncfnlly against the supplic) ,lnd cornmunica­tilms of ;In encmv to cIl11){m~lss by striking a vuhwwbk point ,md ,1cMf'l)'ing his subsistence" Mosby liv('i,l his (kfinitiot! from 15 .Iune 1862 unti19 April 186), Not ,lrnan conH~nt with the [()tIline of (!llties, he wa~ CIWfgy with depth.

Emlv in the war, 9 December 1862, M05by wrote his wif~;, "Send Hlt' ~om(' hoob to fcad." Hi~ wite, Pauline, sent the fulllJwing;

• Plut1lfch '5 Bmi/ILI Ln-n< Heside.; pr;K,tin: (or tv10shy in H',lding da;;,sical Greck, Plut,lrrh, more ,I IH(lraliH th;ll1 a hi\tofian. wflJte in:'>tTtKtivc hiogfk phies ,tl'X1U( Gfu:k <lnd H,i HH;l1l warriors and statcs~ Ill-en" Plutarch lIsed til(' livcs uf great men to illus­tmte pt-[.",(1I1<I1 (!lanKIer and individu{ll actions; duty ptrfonncd and f('w,m:!cd; individual insolence punish(·d; and thoughtlc~"i t(:mpcr disciplined,

• Thomas BabingUlll 1\:1acaulay's Histur)' of Eng·, kmd. Macaulay, the 19th (~entury historian, \vrotc com\X'lIing namltivc and brilliantly dcpict('d I)er~ ~(m<l ilies, evcnts and milit;ll·i' actions with tel iog detail and meaningful all\l5ions, M\lCaulay (on~ Scfl.'lll.sly iT1litatt~d Sir Waln:~r Scott's UM::: of d(,5Crip~ tion lmd local color to propel incrthbtoric.al fact's into ,icticlns. Macauky, the histod;m, bel i('wd he sho~lld not Glllfirw hirns{~lf ro hattles, si(.'g(~s and dipliJrnacy, but C;lptllt'(~ cCHltempmary life and, lih· S<'on, hbwrk;llrom'lll(:(~.

• Sir Wa!ttr Scott'li n(wds and poems. In mldi~ lion H. I intercsting reading, Scott's usc <:~f dcS{~ril.1tion wld loc:al colnr pnNided ;.UI example lor t\1tlS)y to (,tt\ulm{; in his inH.'1\ ig('nCt:~ f('!Klrts,

• William Shakespean::, S lakeslX"arc's works wefe ('I)rel1illnnWnr f{)f refldcrs hd~ll"c the ilgeof radiollod wlcvision.

• L.(Jrd Byron. Byron was the coT1telllptmuy, Ht~ (~rary hero of the 19th lX~ntury, His {'l<)ctic charancrs symbolized passionat(· yet unrepentant individuals rdying on a~)lu((; self against th(~ c:-slabhshmmt. "'Byronbm' influenced an attitude of sdf~assertion

.... to form a phil~)S()I)hy of the nin~'l:ccnl:h ~eI.lt~ry of th(· gfl~at hero W.10 stands outside tht: JunS(hc~ tion of the ordinary criteria d good and evil."

• WilHam Haditt\ Lifl' of N(I!x,feorL Hazlitt, a

LETTERS

romantic c.".-"'lyi::-L 'Nl-H"l ":"t,H"tcd life ,,,ith the Fr(;nch Hcyolution and livl'd t(l ~('c the >('nd of iL" wrote a popular wntcmrxmlry bing-rapl,,!" of Napoleon that \\"<IS f(~;~d bv t..1"shv !tJf its narrative stvle, as much as f;;x Nap(Jle~m':-; military exploits. '

These selected readings, along with The [---Ife of \-1ari(Jll rCild by !'v1o!'thy as a child, significantly ltlt1U­cneed his a(hic\'clTl(~nts. "Perh;lps his lifelrmg fond­ness for Byron's poetry rt'~ulted from a fcding that there \vas a rcsnnblance between the experiences of Byn'J11, a" rcprcscmed in his poems, ,U);,:} his O\..'{"\ ....­

the \var of the many \\'·ith one. Or, as ~,to5by writes after h,lVing fcadT1u' Uk II[ i\1arion, '[ n:1Tlembcr hmV' I shoutnl when I fC;ld aloud the way· the great rmnisan hid in the swarnp and (,utwitted tilt.' British.' "

MI\J S. CarroH. USA, J I2th ,\-lilit~uT Intdligt'r1c(' Halt"liOll, rON U(l(.u, J('.UI,~'

Brezhnev Doctrine Alive and Well

I was disapPc1inted by se\,ef(ll articles in the Deccrnbcf 1989 issue of ~Ailic(.lr"'" Hn"jeu), most not<l­bly "A Difk'fcm: Lesson From the \XJ;u in Afghan­istan," ("Insights") by John J. \'Valsh and" Pen:StTil)'k:l and ()rdn: Altcmati,,"(' Futures and Thdr Impact on the Soviet Military" by Jacob W. Kipp.

c.:Cmtrary to what Kipp claims" the Leonid Brezh­nev doctrin(~ is not only alive, it was used indircctly in early 1989. \Vlwn Solidarity tried to form a non­communist govcmment, the Soviets issued smre~ ments (most notably in Praula) all but ()pcnly ofdcr~ ing Solidarity not to ft:JrHl a nonc:omll\unist govern~

ment, So Solidariw gavc the C:ommuniSH~ control of the armed f{.Jrccs, the :>ccrt't police, f(m.~ign trade, the presidency, the infrastructut'(~ and dt· facto control (l\'cr foreign polky. What we have in Pobnd is not a nonolmmunist gOV(:n1l1lenr, hut a quasi··social.· dell'H)Cratic gowrnment:,

In bet, what has. happened is that the Soviets have made dear to Eastern European nations that any rdonns tht'Y make do nothing to loosen the Soviet:" tctnlomic and military hamoK'rlock on thern. "nlis is nota rcnundation of the Brclhncv doctrim: (which was not written by Brezhne\', but by Vladimir I. Lcnin~ but a rewording of it. The &Nicts simply c<umot afford not to have an eml1lfe,

(30rbacht~v's intention is not to abo ish the corn~ Illunist system. Nor is it his intention to refonn it. His intention is to changt its app(~arance and, at th(~

same time, give himself all the political ~X:lwer there is to have in tlw Sovi(~t Union; that is, make himself sole dktator.

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I believe we are witncs",;ing the return of Lcnin's New Economic Policy (NEP) in the Soviet empire. The NEP, started in 1921 by Lenin, was both asur­render to the peasants and a massive deceptlon cam­paign. The Soviets saw the NEP as a fundamentally aggressive and ideological campaibTfl. designed to quiet the people, expand tl:Xeif.,Ttl trade, divide the West and promote world revolution. It strengthened the economy and tricked the democracies, ulti­mately leading to our present predicament.

The Soviets have deceived the \Vest in Afghanistan. Not only have they continued military aid to Afghanistan, they still have some 30,000 KGB (Committee of State Security) border guard troops in the country and the Soviet air force con­tinues to txnnb the country, flying from bases in the Soviet Union. S/JetHulZ raids arc probably continu­ing as welL

In his Afghan article, Walsh draws too many, usu­any inaccurate, parallels with Vietnam, The Sovit:ts were never defeated in Afghanistan. They withdrew and then orchestrated a sham "debate" in the state~ run press to decdvt.~ the United States into cutting

off military aid to the Afghan rebels. They also with­drew because the Afghan anny was by then rebuilt and capable of fighting by itself.

\Xla lsh's Vietnam analogy is also untenable. The US bombing of Hanoi did not coalesce the people of North Vietnam into supporting the North Viet­namese army and Vietcong invasion of South Viet' n3m. They "supported" the war effort because if they did not, Hanoi \v()llid have killed them.

Walsh mentions Grenada and the allegedly unjustified levels of force and violence used there. I refer you to Captain Daniel P. Bolger's article, "Operation Urgent Fury and Its Critic";" (Military Review, July 1986).

There is a need f(x expertise in unconventional warfare, but with 20,000 Soviet and Warsaw Pact commandos doing terrain analysis, prac.ticing sabo~

tage and assas~inations in Western Europe and Soviet spy rings ripping off the 8th Infantry Divi, sion's and 11 th Armored Cavalry's battle plans in the Federal Republic of Germany, it is not wise to neglect: the NATO mission.

Michael Daly, Wakefield, Massachusetts

BULLETINBOARDBUUETINBOJUWBUUE1INBOARDBUL Military Review Writing Contest Reminder

Articles for the 1990 Military Review writing contest will be ac.cepted until 30 June 1990. This year's topic for entries is "The Post-Cold War Army." The author of the winning manuscript will receive $5('x) and the article will be published in Mili~ wry Review in the fall of 1990. The award for second place will be $200; tbird place will earn $100. Confine your essays to between 2,000 and 3,000 words and make them original manuscripts not previously offered elsewhere for publication. Send your articles to Military Review, US Army Command and General Staff College, Funston Hall, Fort Leavenworth, KS 66027-6910.

Military Review's Book Review Program Miliwry· Review publishes lxx)k reviews about new books in the fields of military

art, science, history, strate!,,')' and related areas. Readers indicate that these reviews often help them decide whether to buy a book. Our reviewers are you, our reading audience, who have offered your help in reviewing according to your many and varied areas of interests. A revlt.'Wer can generally expect to receive one 'Ifree" book a year for review and is asked to prepare a review varying from 100 t0400 words, within 45 days after receiving a book. If you think you have the qualifications to review books for Military Review, please call our Books and Feature.:; Editor at AUTOVON 552-5642 or (913) 684-5642, or write to Books and Features Editor, Military Rwiew, USACGSC, Fort Leavenworth, KS 66027-6910_ If you are cur­rently one of our reviewers and have changed your address or have a new telephone number, please let us know,

May 1990. MILITARY REVIEW 88

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Major General Michael F. Spigelmire, US Army

"I am delighted to have the opportunity to ~ecommendbooks for the professional reading ofour field grade officers. The intent of my list is to focus on those works that capture the true nature of battle, so that Army leaders will know what to emphasize in the training of our soldiers. At the same time, I want to ensure that the books have not been recommended several times before. These are books that are essen­tial reading, but do not always make the top of the list. "

America's First Battles: 1776-1965 edited by Charles E. HeHer and William A. StolfI.

Because we must be prepared now to fight and win the first battle of any conflict, this superb book can provide great insights on how we can do just that. It shuws the profound impact that peacetime training has on an Am1Y's readiness to go to war.

Embattled Courage: The Experience of Battle in the American Civil War by Gerald Linderman.

This is a brilliant study of two armies locked in mortal combat in the most tragic of wars. Few books bring home the harsh and brutal realities ofwarfight­ing as well as this one.

Stalingrad to Berlin: German Defeat In the East by Earl F. Ziemke.

Except for the introduction of nuclear weapons, the Soviet victory over Germany was the most fate­ful development of World War II. Both wrought changes and raised problems that have constantly preoccupied the world in the more than 40 years since the war ended. The purpose of this volume is to investigate one aspect of the Soviet victory - how the war was won on the battlefield. The author sought, in following the march of the Soviet and German armies from Stalingrad to Berlin, to depict the war as it was and to describe the manner in which the Soviet Union emerged as the predom­inant military power in Europe.

Panzer Leader by Heinz Guderian. This book gives the story of how the German

armored forces were formed from the point ofview of the man widely accepted as the father of German armored format ions, who led them into combat with

grear success until relieved by Adolf Hitler outside of Moscow in 1941. In 1943, Hitler recalled Guderian to try to rebuild his armored forces after the disasters of 1942. The book recounts the efforts Guderian made to that end and how these armored forces were subsequently squandered by Hitler in the battle of Kursk. Finally, after the failed assassination attempt on Hitler's life on 20 July 1944, Guderian became the chief of the German General Staff until nearly the end of the war and oversaw much of the subse­quent German operatiOns.

The Guinness History of Land Warfare by Kenneth Macksey.

The author concentrates on those events which demonstrate the crucial factors and phases that con­ditioned land warfare throughout the ages.

Law, Soldiers, and Combat by Peter Karsten. This book presents a historical analysis of the laws

of war and the application of the laws to contempo­rary war situations, including discussion ofviolations that occurred during the Vietnam conflict. The em­phasis of the first two chapters is to explore the con­cept of individual responsibility with regard to illegal orders-a trait that is rare in a work on this topic. The final chapter presents a series of recommenda­tions that are practical but that also show unique underotanding. Karsten emphasized individual respon­sibility in relation to ethical roots and practicality. The authot analyzes violations of the laws of war with objectivity, irrespective of political association.

On Infantry by John A. English. English looks at the development of infantry orga­

nization, weapons and how the infantryman fought

MG Spigelmire is the commandant of the us Anny Infantry School, Fort Benning, Georgia. He has also served as the commanding general, 24th Infantry Division (Mechanized), Fort Stewart, Georgia; Assistant Chief of Staff, 7th Corps, Stuggart, Federal Republic ofGennany; and commaruler, 197th Infantry Brigade (Separate Mechanized), .fun Benning, Georgia.-Ediwr

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from 1866 to the present. His book is a most im­pressive blend of rhoughtful history and common sense assessment. It is an absolute must for anyone who wishes ro understand the developmenr and applic.:'ltion of tactics in the most fundamental arm of any army-the infantry.

The Forgotten Soldier by Guy Sajer. Sajer presents fascinating memoirs of a very young

Fmnco-Gennan conscript who fought on the East~ em Front from 1942 to 1945. His book offers an inti­mate eyewitness account of the savage combat with the Red Anny and Soviet partisans, as well as c()ndi~ tions in wartime Gennany and the gmdual disin­tegration of the Wehmuu:ht. A revealing disclosure of how brutally the Gemlan anny treated its own en­listed men, this book describes the common soldier's

view of combat and other aspects of modem war~ fare. It vividly portrays the terrors of battle, the frus­trations and disillusionments of prolonged front~line service and the close bonds of comradeship that sus­tained men through otherwise unbearable hard~ ships.

The Maneuver Warfare Handbook by William S. Lind and Richard S, Moore,

This book provides a clear and succinct discussion of the maneuver warfare tactics that emphasize judi~ cious maneuver for development of combat power and force protection, rather than reliance on fire~ power and attrition. It is an excellent primer on "three-elementn or "reconnaissance~punn (vice "OnleIY push") tactics that embody AirLand Battle doctrine at the tactical level.

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THE U~BOATWAR, 1916-1945, by J. Temlaine. 841 pages. G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York. 1989. $42.95.

This book concentrates on submarine, or U-boat, warfare. The author considers submarine warfare to be a single campaign starting in 1916 and only end­ing with the close ofWorld War II. Submarines from 1916 to 1945 were, in fact, torpedo boats intended to tmvel on the surface but with the unique ability to submerge for brief periods to avoid detection. Mod­em naval and military persons accustomed to the abilities of nuclear submarines to remain submerged most of the time tend to overlook how this totally altered their wartime role and means of detection.

A major theme of this book is the almost criminal stubbomess of the allies to learn the lesson of his­tory - that merchantmen can best be protected by strictly controlled convoys. In World Wars I and II, in both the Royal and US navies, the overly aggressive approach used suggested that hunter killer techniques should be used to seek out V-boats in the open ocean. Time and again, it was shown that a better technique was to keep specially designed escort vessels close by the convoys and let the sub­marines come to the bait.

U-boat sinkings almost brought Britain to its knees and to the peace table in both world wars. Battle reports are analyzed with chilling reality in terms of hundreds of ships lost, thousands of lives lost and millions of tons of shipping sent to the bot­tom. The first sea lord, Admiral John R. Jellicoe,

admitted defeat was imminent in World War I; Winston Churchill came close to the same conclu­sion in World War II; thiS, despite the overwhelming preponderance of excellent Allied ships. For some time in both wars, the Allies lost sea control, which almost spelled disaster.

U-boat watfdre typifies the· overwhelming influ­ence of new technology. Termaine skillfully traces how each measure, and resulting countenneasure, changed the effectiveness of the U-boats in sinking merchant ships.

Although this book presents little factual data that was preViously unknown, it has great value to the naval, military and political professional. It reminds each that a guerre de course can dominate warfare. This book demonstrates the importance of maintaining technical innovation and ingenuity, by those who control the military, when applying such techniques to modem warfare.

RADM B. wetnan, USNR, Retired, Denver, Colorado

THE EDUCATING OF ARMIES. Edited by Michael D. Stephens. 240 pages. St. Martin's Press Inc., New York. 1989. $49.95.

This small book is well written and well edited. There are 11 contributors who describe, in various detail and complexity, the education of the armies of the United States, Britain, Sweden, Israel, the

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Soviet Union, China, Cuba and Indonesia. After reading the first chapter, the reader should

go to the last chapter, "Conclusions: The Educating of Annies." This will provide an overview prior to reading the chapters on the separate annies. The focus of the chapters on sepaldte armies is quite dif, ferent depending upon the amlY discussed, In some ways this heterogeneous format is a little disconcert, ing because it is difficult to compare, in detail, the approach that one country's army takes with that of another. Therefore, the reader should simply digest the discussion of each army individually,

In one of the most important and well-written chapters, Kenneth Lawson, assistant director of the Department of Adult Education at the University of Nottingham, distinguishes between training and education in a way that is useful not only to military educators but also to educators in general. While acknowledging that there is considemble overlap between the concept of training and the process of education, he notcs that, in training, the student is focusing on acquiring information and skills directed toward specific performance; whereas, in education, the student is being prepared for the broader man­date of improved intellectual prowess for leadership and decision making.

The philosophies governing the education of the US Anny and the British anny are similar. Leaders in both countries recognize that they are preparing the young soldier not only to handle rather sophisti­cated military technology but also for his eventual return into the civilian sector. The descriptions of education in the other annies focus less on the needs of the individual soldier and more on the needs of the government.

This book will hold the attention of students of the educational process and, in particular, officers expecting commands with and of the annies dis~ cussed. Ifone knows how a soldier in another anny is educated, one can begin to understand how that sol, dier thinks. The US soldier, who receives little in the way of political indoctrination, will gain an understanding of why a soldier in the annies of Cuba, Indonesia or China is so consumed by ide­ology, often to the point of placing military consid~ erations second.

COL Clarl< Watts, VSAll, Columbia, Missouri

POWER & MADNESS: The Logic of Nuclear Coercion by Edward Rhodes. 350 pages. O:Jlumbia Uni­versity Press, New York. 1989. $30.00.

The ~IChristmas Revolution" that swept away so many of the old regimes in Eastern Europe con~

BOOK REVIEWS

tinues to send megaton--size shock waves through the US nuclear strategy and anus control communities. If the Cold War is really ending, if the Warsaw Pact is breaking up. if the Soviet Union is turning from its dreams of world domination (all mighty big "ifs"), what happens to cherished principles of classical deterrence theory such as mutual assured destruc~ tion (MAD)? It is MAD, after all, that fonns the bedrock principle lIpon which US nuclear policy is built.

If the thesis of Edward Rhodes' timely and impor­tant new study of nuclear strategy is correct, the stunning events of the past months in Eastern Europe may help to expose MAD as an essentially irrational policy that has led to a "probabilistic orga, nizational Doomsday machine," conjuring up remi, niscences of Dr. Stangelove,

Rhodes, assistant professor of international rela~ rions at Rutgers University and an associate at Har~ vard's Center for Intemational Affairs, applies a deductive methodology to reexamine most of the assumptions underlying classical nuclear deterrence theory. He concludes that US nuclear deterrence policy contains an unexamined element of irra, tionality that eliminates the possibility of waging limited or controllable nuclear war.

Rhodes' logical analysis of MAD theory leads him to four conclusions that have significant implica~ tions for military planners. He suggests that future US defense strategy should: abandon unnecessary strategic modernization effortsj make major cuts in theater nuclear forces; reduce conventional forces in Europe; and discard the use of "controlled response rhetoric" (such as doomsday threats) in future discus­sions with the Soviet Union.

Much of what Rhodes says will not sit well with classical deterrence theorists or with career military officers, but the sweep and rigor of his analysis make this a critically important book for anyone with a serious interest in balancing power in our age of llMADness." This book promises to be amajor intel, lectual resource as the debate heats up in Congress and the administration concerning how to spend the "peace dividend" that is supposed to result from recent events in Eastern Europe.

Despite the complexity of his topic, Rhodes has managed to write a book that discusses serious and arcane matters with a minimum of the jargon and stuffiness that too often plague academic writing. While he has not tried to emulate Tom Clancy, he has provided an important, accessible and erni, nently readable book.

William D. Mclean, GMI Engineeringand Management Insdtute,

FHn~ Michigan

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AMERICA'S TENTH LEGION: X C"rps in K". rea, 19.50 by Shelby Stanton. 342 pages. Presidio Press, NCNato, CA 1989, $24.'15,

Shelby Stanton has written an excellent book about a tragic episode in the history of the US Arrny in Korea. X Corps, the "Tenth Legion," was Gen~

eral Douglas MacArthur's instnlIl1Cnt for seizing the initiative from the North Koreans in 1950. His inde~ pendent X Corps executed a masterful laqding at Inch'6n, followed lip by an equally bold, but lllti~ matdy disastrous, attempt to conquer northeast Korea"

Hurriedly assembled by MacArthur's controver~

sial and hard-driving chief of staff, Major General

Edward (Ned) M, Almond, X Corp, planned and launched the Inch'on invasion less than 30 days after its fonnation. This was in spite of grave doubts about the operation held by the Joint Chief" the US Marine, and the US Navy, Almond, by then com­manding general of the corps, pushed and harassed his subordinates to ever greater speed, gaining a rep~ utation for bold and dangerous maneuvers, Almond also gained the deep dislike of the Marines (es~ pecially 1st Marine Division commander, Major General Oliver P, Smith) and drove some of his own commanders and staff to distraction. After the t~\n of Seoul, X Corps was redirected to Wonsan and then to the Yalu River, where it would come close to COffir

PASSIN AMERICAN DEFENSE POLICY & LIBERAL DEMOCRACY. Edited hy Fred E. Baumanll and Kenneth M, Jensen. 200 pages. Unlvcrsity Pre-s:iot' Virginia, Charlottesville, VA. 1989, $10.95 paperlhlck.

HITLER & SPAIN: The Nazi Role in the Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939 by Robert H. Whealey. 256 pages. The University Press of Kentucky, Lexington. KY 1989, $24,00,

FOUR MEN WENT TO WAR by Bruce Lewis. 209 pages. St. Martin" Press, Inc., New York. 1989. $16,95.

w This is a compilation .of papers written for a conference at Kenyon Col­lege in 1984 on the title theme. As the world celebrates the conclusion of four decades of nuclear peace, the essays address such timely issues as the compatibility of post-World War II US defense policies with the nationJs historlcalliberal tradition and the meaning of "defense" in that context. The volume, as a whole, implidtly,>vonders if national strategic decisions preserved the peace or needlessly drained the treasury in pursuit of a chimerical balance of power that was preserved in spite of choices con­cerning force structure and nuclear options. The pieces are, for the most part, written by and for academics and may seem somewhat abstruse to the general reader.~LTC Patrick H. Gorman, USA, Retired, Winter Springs, norMa

An important but little-known preliminary to World War II is ilIumi; nated by thi, enjoyable and thoroughly re,earched exploration of the Spanish Civil War of 1936-1939. The author examine, Gennan par­ticipation in the conflict in four areas: military, political, ideological and economic. His purpose is to determine Adolf Hitler's role in Francisco Franco's rise to power in SpaiD and to assess the benefits the Germans accrued from their Spanish operations. Although not a comprehensive history, the book contains enough background material with its limited theme to satisf)' the geneml reader and makes a significant contribution to a better understanding of a largely forgotten stmggle.-LTC David L Watkins, USAR" Fort McCoy, Wisconsin

The title state, the main theme of thi, book The author tell, the World War II experiences of an American waist;gunner in a 8;24, a British paratrooper, a German tank driver and an Italian alpini officer. Although it is enjoyable reading, the characters and stories are not linked together in any manner. Also, Lewis did not interview the participants until 40 years after' the war, when memories have faded and details become cloudy. Because of the abundance of biographies covering the same areas of the war in greater detail, I do not recommend this book.-MAJBmceA. Brant, USA, Schofield Barracks, Ha.waii

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plete victoryl only to be shatten..·d by Chinese inter~ vention and driven back to the port of Hungnam. The story of the despemte battles along the frozen reservoirs and on the narrow, icy roads of northeast Korea is a story that never gets old and should be remembered each time commanders have the urge to plan "dynamic" thwsts without regard to flanks or terrain.

Stanton coveTS all aspects of this story in refresh~ ing detaiL He uses a wide array of interviews and official records to tell the most complete story, to date, of X Corps. Stanton provides a complete (and not unsympathetic) portrait of the controversial Almond who was-despite his hard exterior-

BOOK REVIEWS

bnwe, energetic and dynamic.. He also shows AI~

mond's other side as a MacArthur;wofshiping zealot and a confinned racist, Almond, like MacArthur, had tremendous flaws to match his virtues. Yet, the virtues were real and cannot be ignored.

Despite the defeats at Chosin, Almond and his staff recovered sufficiently to plan, coordinate and execute the extraction of the Marines from Chasin and then, in a magnificently executed withdrawal, the entire corps from Hungnam. The Marines have been justly proud of their role in this operation for years; perhaps it is time for the Army to take a share of the credit l even though it was AlnlOnd and Mac~ Arrhur who placed X o,rps in the predicament in

THE PRISONERS NINETEEN FOURTEEN TO NINETEEN EIGHTEEN by Robert Jackson, 240 pages. Routledge Chapllian & f-lall, Inc.., New York. 1989. $35,00,

THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF SOVIET MILITARY POWER by Leo COOpeL 2.56 pages. St. Martin's Press, Inc., New York. 1989, $49,95.

ARMS AND JUDGMENT, Law, Morality, and the Conduct of War in the Twentieth Century by Sheldon M. Cohen. 2.56 pages. WeHvicw Press, Boulder, CO. 1989. $15.50 clothbound. $15.95 paperback,

Relying on diaries and first-person accounts of captivity, Robert Jackson provides readers with a fast-paced examination of the treatment of pris~

oncrs of war (POWs) in World War 1. The "Great War" put the Hague Rules of 1907 to a rlgorous test. Although there was a general acceptance of standards br tht.~ treatment of POWsl application of the rules varied from camp to camp, The greatest portion of the book deals WIth British POWs in Gennany and dispels any notion that prisoners suffered no hardships in the last "gentleman's war." Military readers will gain an appreciatIon for the importance of planning and preparation in POW operations, However! Jackson's work is an appetizer, not an emree.-LTC Neil M. Franklin, VSAR, Montgomery; Alabama

Leo Cooper exhibits a Soviet bias; however, if the reader is interested in academic research of the arms race with a Soviet view, this book is a starting point, Cooper uses politics, economics and military power to fuse his theories on the causes and effects of the arms race. He argues that the emphasis of the United States is to bring about a cooperative between US political and military powers to redirect Soviet research and develop~ ment efforts from economics into wasteful armaments. C.....coper contends this US "imperialist" collaboration has forged the militarization of the US economy into a tool to force the Soviets into an unnecessary eco­nomic recession and political collapse,-MAj Willis L Hintt, USA, Peter­borough, New Hampshire

This small volume integrates history, tactics, morality and international law in an admirable. readable attempt to prove that intemationallaw, with regard to war and its ethicsl has not caught up with the tech; nological changes of this century. The author also differentiates between the nlorahty of war and moral conduct within war, irrespective of its murality. In the process, he delineates many of the nuances that ethics and intemationallaw must address. The book is an embryo of a master­piece, meaning that it needs to be expanded considerably if it is to have a chance at swaying international opinion.-<::OL George M. Hall, USAR, Retired, TU~'50n. Arizona

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the first place. Dl"Spite a few minor errors unrelated to Korea, this

is an accumte and careful presentation of an irnpor, tant historical episode. 1highly recommend it.

Richard W. Stewart, Center for Anny Lessons Learned,

Fort uavenworth, Kansas

FINAL WARNING: Averting Disaster in the New Age ofTerrorism by Robert Kuppem1an and Jeff Kamen. In pages. Doubleday & Co., Inc., New York. 1989. $18.95.

Robert Kuppennan and Jeff Kamen allege to offer one last opportunity f()[ America's political leaders to recognize the potential for hann Ix)sed by con~ tempomry terrorists and to design and implement defensive (preventive and reactive) measures. While pmisl''Worthy, the authors no doubt suspect the futility of theif effort. If we have not been awakened to the danger by now, the only thing that will awaken us is a mass casualty event, after which there will be accusations and a flurry of expensive pro~

IXJsals-the fonner, to fix blame and the latter, to show how "antiterrorist" one or another branch of government is-rather than efforts to control ter~ rorism per se. Regrettably, reaction has become a hallmark of our national style in many important areas, not the least of which is terrorism.

For the past decade, Kuppennan has been calling for more planning, better coordination of planning and a more "assertive" antiterrorism policy on the part of the United States. His arguments have been recognized as valid, then largely ignored. Kupper~

man and Kamen marshal their arguments around the logical projection of proven terrorist capabilities and motivations and portray them against a back~ ground of equally established patterns of unim­pressive governmental antiterrorist actions. The outcome is sobering. Their projected probabilities (more disruptions and, eventually, mass casualty incidents) are difficult tQ refute beyond closing one's <""Yes and reciting the popular mantra, Ult can't hap~ pen here/'

This work gives short shrift to the influence of US domestic politics on all government policies. With regard to terrorism, this is especially apparent con­cerning Greece, Israel and Ireland. There is a dispro~ pottionate approach to problem definition (three pages devoted to covert operations and 25 to news media) and a distinct bias toward labeling the Mid­dle East as rhe most probable source of future inci­

dents against Americans. While the reader may not agree with every inter~

pretation, on the whole, Kuppennan and Kamen identify the fdCtors we mlL~t consider in developing effective plans and policies regarding terrorism. Commenting on our national record over the last decade, the authors state, "Each administration has foolishly promised counterterrorism miracles, delud~ ing itself and the public that the terror phenomenon is amenable to a US imposed solution." By any stan~ dard, this is a welhurned and painfully accurate statement.

Final W,rning is particulatiy valuable reading for the military professional who has not stayed abreast of the growth of terrorism and the evolution of anti~ terrorist thinking. All is put together rather nicely in one volume.

LTC Donald B. Vought, USA, Retired, Department of Joint and Combined Operations, USACGSC

MOSCOW STATION by Ronald Kessler. 305 pages. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York. 1989. $19,95.

With a backdrop of gkl5llOSt', perestroyka, Ameri~

can traitors and Soviet spies, Moscow Station would appear to be just another John LeCarre or Frederick Forsythe noveL Unfortunately, it is not. Ronald Kessler's latest work is a factual account of how Soviet intelligence penetrated the US embassy in Moscow, The results of this bold opemtion have yet to be fully analyzed; but, on the surface, US intel­ligence efforts in the Soviet Union appear to have been gravely crippled.

Writing in detail and with authority, Kessler has obviously conducted extensive research into the many facets of this classic case of espionage and sex~ ual entrapment. Why did the elite guards of the US Marines open sensitive and classified holding areas to the KGB (C,ommittee of State Security)? Who were these young men and what motivated them to betray their country's trust? And, where were the career diplomats and security officers who should have checked on the guards or reported their sus~

picious actions? Kessler attempts to answer these and other ques~

tions, but he often leaves the reader with far more questions. Even the am1chair sleuth is left with nag­ging questions about Kessler's open, detailed knowl~ edge of what transpired in the embassy and how much of this infonnation may still be classified or damaging. An excellent example is the Marine guard's discussion of the lax security practices of the Moscow embassy in comparison with those of the

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BOOK REVIEWS

US embassies in Somalia or Zimbabwe. Does such detail and knowledge assist the reader?

But even more damning than the actual penetra~ tion efforts is the failure of US security procedures and counterintelligence to stand up to scrutiny. l1\fough his extensive investigations, Kessler effec~ tively portrays US security to be a bankrupt system of Uwitch~hunting," where just the approach of a hostile intelligence agency can effectively compro~ rilise the well~meaning or procedumlly correct indi~ vidual. According to the in--depth documentation presented, current US counterintelligence proce~

dures can cause even the most security conscious individual to think twice before reporting the over~ tures of hostile agents,

Moscow Station opens a Pandora's box ofquestions but provides precious few answers. In the end, the reader is left only partially satisfied; however, this book is worth reading.

MAJ Terry A. Griswold, USA, Department ofJoint and Combined Operations, VSACGSC

NEW WEAPONS, OLD POLITICS, America's Military Procurement Muddle by Thomas L. Mc~

Naugher, 251 pages. The Brookings Institution, Wash~

ington, DC. 1989. $34.95 clothbound. $14.95 paperback. Thomas L. McNaugher demonstrates that the

numerous attempts to improve weapons acquisition policies have, in fact, created harmful political pres~

sures in the technical development of these weapons systems. Although the end products are vitally needed for the nation's defenses. US military pro~ curcment policy is not the direct result of design but of accident.

This is a detailed and comprehensive analysis of US weapons procurement policy since the end of World War II. Using case studies gleaned from offi~ cial and unofficial sources, with discussions that focus on all sides of the political spectrum, the author presents this extremely complex area in a readable format.

Some of McNaugher's conclusions do not cover new ground; however, this fact does not detract from their basic soundness. He amply demonstrates the basic Ametican belief that higher technology and ultrasophisticated weaponry are superior to orga~ nized and well~, 1ained forces. Continually, "wonder weapons," that ;lre quantum leaps forward in tech~ nology, are cor ~ idered by US military planners as both the standa :' I and the expected norm, regardless of their impact ',>n overall readiness conditions be~

cause of higher start~up costs and training require; ments. In addition, the "disincentives" outlined ·by

the author, as found in the current procurement sys-­tem; are directly blamed for the current state ofdisar~

ray and inefficiency within the defense industry. It is McNaugher's contention, and a very difficult

one to refute, that everyone most directly affected in the procurement decision~making process-sol~ diers, policy makers, technicians and politicians­has some say over weapons acquisition; therefore, what has occurred is an adversarial situation in which these groups continuously fight for control over the course of weapons systems development. The bottom line result: since everyone has partial control over at least part of the process and no one has control over all of it, the resulting weapons sys~

terns are political outcomes. As a cure, McNaugher proposes changes that are

not especially unique or radical, although they ob­viously run opposite to the current system and are diametrically in opposition to the defense procure~

ment system reform movement. Among other things, he proposes: significantly less (not increased) cen­tralization of procurement; a slowing down of the time frame presently found in the research and development of new weapons systems; and a far greater use of competitive measures in the design and development process in order to decrease and, if possible, remove the entire procurement process from political perusal.

Although the cost of his basic conclusion is not cheap, McNaugher does end on a positive note­the United States will get what it pays for only after it first expends significantly more money in "ful~

ly exploring new technologies before making commit­ments."

CPT Richard D. Koethe Ill, Tennessee ARNG, Memphis, -Tennessee

TIME-LIFE HISTORY OF WWII_ Edited by Time~Life Books. 496 pages. Prentice Hall Press, New York. 1989. $39.95.

Most World War nbuffs have in their library, or are certainly familiar with, the 39-volume World War 11 pictorial series initiated by Time-Life Books in 1977. The series was one of the best sellers in the extensive Time-Life library of fine books.

Now, in the 50th anniversary year of the begin­ning of World War n, the publishers have produced a complementary, one~volume history of the "big war." This volume is not just a condensation of the previous 39 volumes. It has a completely original text and hundreds of photos,maps, paintings and other useful infonnation. It has been a while since I poured through most of the 39 volumes, but I do

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believe some of the photos are the same. Then again, many are different.

As a one-volume summation of the war, this book hits the mark. It traces events chronologically, beginning with the immediate post,World War I period in the first chapter. This is followed by three chapters on World War ll. A final chapter, "Tri­umph and Aftennath," traces events around the world that resulted from the Allied victory in World War II, events that set the stage for the East-West struggle that continues today.

The inside front and back C(}\''el'S have a chro­nology of key events of the war and associated events from 11 November 1918 to 21 July 1954, when North and South Vietnam were created. These cov­ers provide a quick, useful reference fOr the reader or researcher in a hurry. As in the original series, the book is interspersed with excellent color drawings of major items of equipment used by both sides. An easy-to-read text tells how these pieces of equipment were used. Color maps throughout add greatly to the book's usefulness.

Although $40 is a bit much for one book, consid­ering that each of the 39 volumes costs $15 new, a 5OC-page comprehensive pictorial volume about World War II for less than the price of three of the original volumes seems a bargain. The Time-Life writers and editors are noted for their accuracy and detail, and this book does not disappoint. It would be a quality addition to any library. I liked this book and recommend it.

John Reichley, Department of Academic Operations, USACGSC

NO NAME ON THE BULLET: A Biography of Audie Murphy by Don Graham. 342 pages. Viking Pen­qUin,lnc., New York. 1989. $18,95.

To my generation, Audie Murphy was an all, American hero, a role model for literally thousands of young men. He rose from grinding rural poverty in Texas to military glory on the World War II bat­

defields ofEurope and, later in the 1950s and 1960s, to worldwide fame as a movie star. He was the quin­tessential World War II military hero-a combat infantryman and man of action whose valor earned him the Medal of Honor, the Distinguished Service Cross, the Silver Star, the Bronze Star, three Purple Hearts, the coveted Combat Infantryman Badge and a host of other medals.

Despite his heroic achievements as a soldier and his accomplishments as an actor, Murphy is today, at best, a footnote in our popular culture. Older Ameri­cans recall him with varying degrees of vagueness; younger ones, barely or not at all. Don Graham's new book is a bold attempt to explain why.

No Name on the Bullet might be more aptly tided The Rise and Fall. of Attdie Murphy. Graham chroni­cles, in excruciating detail, Murphy's decline and descent. As he points out, "Audie Murphy was the real thing, not some pumped-up, aerobkized, cel­luloid palooka. And the real thing is always more interesting, morc human. more tragic ... thanthc made up, the phon}'. lt was that real hero, the lIlan behind the bronze statuary, that 1had come to find." Find him he did; Graham writes a compelling, en­grossing, eminently readable account of Murphy's life and times. As a fellow combat infantryman and avid fan ofMurphy, I found the latter chapters of the book especially painful. They reveal a dark side of his personality that evokes both sympathy and revulsion.

The author draws on a plethora of earlier books and articles. He also sifts through an astonishing array of other sources, public and private, to capture the essence of Murphy. Graham synthesizes these diverse sources into a vivid, powerful, often poign­ant story of Murphy and the major forces that shaped his life (the Depression, World War II and Hollywood).

This book richly deserves a wide reading audience and, perhaps, even a movie. For Murphy, the latter would, indeed, be poetic justice.

COL Thomas B. Vaughn, USA, Retired, McMinnviJ/e, TelUlesBee

Mili.taryReviewIncrease Rising production costs and constrained tesources require an increase in the

subscription and single issue rates for Military Review. Effective 1July 1990, stateside and APOIFPO address rates will be $22 for one year or $42 for two years; foreign address rates will be $29 farone year or $56 for two years; and US Military Academy/ ROTC cadet tates will be $18 for one year or $34 for two years. Single i~sue rate will 00$4.

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NewHallofPameHONOREE This year marks the 20th anniversary of the Fort Leavenworth Hall of Fame that was established to recognize outstanding officers who served at Leavenworth and went on to make significant contributions to the US Army and the natIOn. The Hall of Fame is sponsored by the Memorial Hall Association with the generous support of the Henry Leavenworth Chapter of the Association of the US Army, and the local. community.

Mark W. Clark graduated from West Point in 1917, and was commissIOned a second lieutenant of infantry. He served In France with the 11th Infantry Regiment in 1918 and was wounded. After recovering, he served on the general staff of First Army during the Saint·Mihlel and Meuse·Argonne offensives.

After several stateside assignments, he was assigned as a student at the Command and General Staff College (CGSC) from 1933 to 1935. He graduated from the Army War College in 1937 and became a general staff officer In 1940 as a lieutenant colonel. He planned detailed large·scale maneuvers and was promoted in 1942 to major general.

In August 1942, he went to England to command all US forces in the European Theater. Before the invasion of North Africa, he went to Algiers on a secret misSion to determine French intentions. General Dwight D. Eisenhower gave Clark and this clandestine mission sigmficant credit for the invasion's success.

In November 1942, Clark became the youngest three·star general In the Army, In 1943, he took command of the Fifth Army, the first US army to be activated in the European Theater, In September, his forces invaded Salerno, and the long Italian Campaign began, In December 1944, he assumed command of 15th Army Group, which comprised all Allied forces in Italy, He accepted the surrender of 230,000 Germans on 29 April 1945, the first German field command to surrender in Europe, President Franklin 0, Roosevelt personally presented the Distinguished Service Cross to Clark.

After the war, Clark became the commander of occupation forces in Austria, and later served as deputy to Secretary of State James F, Byrnes, In 1952, he became commander of Army forces in the Far East, assuming responsibility for operations in Korea, In October 1952, he suspended the stalemated armistice talks, telling North Koreans that "we would not return" unlil the stalemate ended, The talks resumed in April of the following year, and North Korea signed the armistice on 27 July 1951

General Clark retired shortly thereafter and became president of The Citadel in Charleston, South Carolina, He died on 17 April 1984.

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