Selective Use of History in the Development of American COIN Doctrine

[jmm99]

one might want to explore these two rebellions after it and before 1800, Shays' Rebellion and the Whiskey Rebellion - and the Alien & Sedition Acts of the same period are also interesting.

Shays' Rebellion brought out the statement by Joneserson (oops - meant Jefferson):

.... a little rebellion now and then is a good thing. The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.

and another from Wilfington (oops - meant Washington):

You talk, my good sir, of employing influence to appease the present tumults in Massachusetts. I know not where that influence is to be found, or, if attainable, that it would be a proper remedy for the disorders. Influence is not government. Let us have a government by which our lives, liberties, and properties will be secured, or let us know the worst at once.

And so it went - back then

Regards

Mike

[Ken White]

America often gets into trouble following other peoples models, we should look at our own first.

Abb-so-lootlee!!!

I'd even say that following the Von Steuben model instead of the Cherokee, Hodenosaunee or Anishinabe models, militarily, was the first big, bad step in following the models of others...

[Rifleman]

I love to read frontier history but I think we should remember that many of the small wars against the Native Americans were described in their day as "Punitive Expeditions." Some amounted to scorched earth campaigns.

In the southeast corn crops were destroyed, orchards were cut down, and villages were torched. For western tribes the buffalo provided a mobile commissary and even a theology (center of gravity, so to speak?) so it was hunted to the brink of extinction with the Army's encouragement. Then tribes were resettled by force. Are we going to do something like that to the Pashtun? Doubt it.

I'm sure there are valuable things to be learned from studying the Indian Wars but I guess my point is that there are also limits. Some things that "worked" then simply won't be allowed today for humanitarian and environmental reasons.

[Chris jM]

I'm sure there are valuable things to be learned from studying the Indian Wars but I guess my point is that there are also limits. Some things that "worked" then simply won't be allowed today for humanitarian and environmental reasons.

Leading of from Rifleman's mention of 'frontier history' and it's lack of relevance:

A very left-or-arc question, but does the American audience even know what I am talking about if I mention the Maori wars? They were concurrent with the American civil war, and are a great example of a series of 'small war' campaigns against a militarily capable indigenous population. It would be easy to describe it as 'counter-insurgency' if you are so inclined.

As an aside it always perplexed me in that, in New Zealand schooling, we would undertake a compulsory module on Native American Indians when we were 14 years old (approx). I never studied the era too much at the time, and since my main exposure to the colonisation of the States has been through the memoirs of Sir Harry Flashman.

Even in my limited exposure to the two wars I think a lot more of relevance can be gained from the Maori wars, if anyone is interested. To provide a simple narrative summary, the Maori's dominated the tactical engagements but were strategically impotent against the combined economic/political/military advance of the British empire. The political treaty that resulted in many ways reflected the cost involved in inflicting any decisive defeat upon the opposing tribes and made many concessions to the Maori - equal citizenship under the empire being one example.

Lots of bad history has arisen from the Maori Wars literature, including some ludicrous claims that the Maori "invented" trench warfare and the British empire could have avoided the Somme had they paid attention to the Maori and that the Maori wars saw statistically greater concentrations of artillery fire than WW1 did (both claims are absolute rubbish) however the study of the British Empire vs the Maori tribes may be of relevance and interest to today's environment, perhaps more so than the Indian Wars.

[Kiwigrunt]

Even in my limited exposure to the two wars I think a lot more of relevance can be gained from the Maori wars, if anyone is interested. To provide a simple narrative summary, the Maori's dominated the tactical engagements but were strategically impotent against the combined economic/political/military advance of the British empire. The political treaty that resulted in many ways reflected the cost involved in inflicting any decisive defeat upon the opposing tribes and made many concessions to the Maori - equal citizenship under the empire being one example.

Interesting here is that (I only learnt recently) the British and New Zealanders (read Maori) signed the “Declaration of the Independence of New Zealand” in 1835. The British had little intention of ruling New Zealand and were mainly interested in trade. This in contrast to their more common lust for colonising.

By 1840 the Brits had changed their minds and the treaty of Waitangi sort of pushed the declaration of independence out of existence.