Sean DeCoursey
06-04-2009, 06:28 AM
Hi. I'm new. This may or may not be the right forum for this, so if it's wrong, I apologize in advance. I'm mostly going off of the fact that I, myself, am a "trigger puller" (a term I detest by the way, our job is to win, not shoot people, oftentimes winning involves shooting people, but its not the only, or always the best way to accomplish that goal.)
I've been seeing a lot of articles that discuss the current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan in terms of historical COIN operations that the U.S. and other countries have conducted in the past. Operations and wars like Algeria, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, and the Philippines.
While I agree that all of these comparisons are valid and can offer significant insight, I think we're also really overlooking a serious source of ideas in the reactions and experiences of the military forces of the world during World War I.
During WWI the entire concept and methodology of war were radically transformed. The industrialization of war occurred. Machine Guns were introduced as effective non-novelty weapons for the first time. Over the horizon Artillery made its debut. Air power and motorized vehicles first appeared. Chemical weapons were developed and widely used.
In short, every single thing that anyone had known about war was completely turned on its head during WWI. The entire structure of military forces and the way they fight was changed. The horse was displaced as a viable military weapon (and may be making a comeback now). Pre-WWI cavalry was considered so important that gas masks were developed for the horses in cav units.
The machine gun, rifled barrels, shrapnel, and more accurate artillery ended the practice of using formations in battle. Camoflage went from "dirty dishonorable trick" to battlefield necessity.
Perhaps most importantly, the tactical advantage definitely switched from offensive operations to defensive operations.
Compare that with today: fighting forces are abandoning "honorable" uniformed combat for camoflage with civilians, tanks and heavy artillery have been largely neutralized by doctrinal changes. Advanced fighter jets have gone from dynamic, idealized necessity to useless waste of money and parts. Everything we know and knew about fighting wars has been largely obsoleted by an enemy who refuses to fight that way.
The scenarios are in many ways similar:
In 1913, many European countries had armies that could march and fight in foot formations with flanking cavalry units and supporting close artillery. The generals, politicians, and other senior leaders all knew how to fight battles like what America and Spain saw during the Spanish American War, various colonial uprisings, the previous French/German squabble, or perhaps the American Civil war in the case of the older fellows.
What they got was a bogged down bunch of trenchlines dominated by virtually impregnable machine-gun nests that could be pushed back to reserve trenches only temporarily. It wasn't until new ideas and new thinking - ideas like the Tank, or the tactic of "walking artillery fire" were developed that any significant movement on the front lines was achieved.
In 2001, America was ready to fight any big conventional neer-peer army the world had to offer. We had advanced tanks and fighter jets, submarines and aircraft carriers. American generals knew how to fight the soviets in Europe and Arab armies in the middle east.
What we got was an enemy who didn't wear uniforms, who used our freedom and openness as an avenue of attack, and who refused to engage us in equal fights whenever humanely possible.
I don't think that any particular tactics or strategies from WWI are particularly relevant now, but I think we could learn a lot from studying the way that the WWI-era militaries and politicians had to completely re-adjust their thinking and perspectives in order to effectively deal with the results of radical new technologies (internal combustion engine, flight, factories, machined parts, rifling, automatic weaponry).
We need the same types of new ideas and approaches to current systems use and development that were employed to finally turn the tide back then. I'm not an expert on WWI, but it does seem like there's an awful lot of useful information being ignored there. (Pershing himself also seems like a great study for COIN given his highly unusual career path - commanding both black and indian units, jumping straight from captain to general, his understanding of the culture of his non-white commands, etc.)
I've been seeing a lot of articles that discuss the current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan in terms of historical COIN operations that the U.S. and other countries have conducted in the past. Operations and wars like Algeria, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, and the Philippines.
While I agree that all of these comparisons are valid and can offer significant insight, I think we're also really overlooking a serious source of ideas in the reactions and experiences of the military forces of the world during World War I.
During WWI the entire concept and methodology of war were radically transformed. The industrialization of war occurred. Machine Guns were introduced as effective non-novelty weapons for the first time. Over the horizon Artillery made its debut. Air power and motorized vehicles first appeared. Chemical weapons were developed and widely used.
In short, every single thing that anyone had known about war was completely turned on its head during WWI. The entire structure of military forces and the way they fight was changed. The horse was displaced as a viable military weapon (and may be making a comeback now). Pre-WWI cavalry was considered so important that gas masks were developed for the horses in cav units.
The machine gun, rifled barrels, shrapnel, and more accurate artillery ended the practice of using formations in battle. Camoflage went from "dirty dishonorable trick" to battlefield necessity.
Perhaps most importantly, the tactical advantage definitely switched from offensive operations to defensive operations.
Compare that with today: fighting forces are abandoning "honorable" uniformed combat for camoflage with civilians, tanks and heavy artillery have been largely neutralized by doctrinal changes. Advanced fighter jets have gone from dynamic, idealized necessity to useless waste of money and parts. Everything we know and knew about fighting wars has been largely obsoleted by an enemy who refuses to fight that way.
The scenarios are in many ways similar:
In 1913, many European countries had armies that could march and fight in foot formations with flanking cavalry units and supporting close artillery. The generals, politicians, and other senior leaders all knew how to fight battles like what America and Spain saw during the Spanish American War, various colonial uprisings, the previous French/German squabble, or perhaps the American Civil war in the case of the older fellows.
What they got was a bogged down bunch of trenchlines dominated by virtually impregnable machine-gun nests that could be pushed back to reserve trenches only temporarily. It wasn't until new ideas and new thinking - ideas like the Tank, or the tactic of "walking artillery fire" were developed that any significant movement on the front lines was achieved.
In 2001, America was ready to fight any big conventional neer-peer army the world had to offer. We had advanced tanks and fighter jets, submarines and aircraft carriers. American generals knew how to fight the soviets in Europe and Arab armies in the middle east.
What we got was an enemy who didn't wear uniforms, who used our freedom and openness as an avenue of attack, and who refused to engage us in equal fights whenever humanely possible.
I don't think that any particular tactics or strategies from WWI are particularly relevant now, but I think we could learn a lot from studying the way that the WWI-era militaries and politicians had to completely re-adjust their thinking and perspectives in order to effectively deal with the results of radical new technologies (internal combustion engine, flight, factories, machined parts, rifling, automatic weaponry).
We need the same types of new ideas and approaches to current systems use and development that were employed to finally turn the tide back then. I'm not an expert on WWI, but it does seem like there's an awful lot of useful information being ignored there. (Pershing himself also seems like a great study for COIN given his highly unusual career path - commanding both black and indian units, jumping straight from captain to general, his understanding of the culture of his non-white commands, etc.)