The Military History Debate

[Bill Moore]

Collectively we have turned military history into a pile of half-truthes that is selectively sourced to support a particular theory. While most embrace complexity theory, and that every situation is different, we prefer to contribute cause and effect to a particular doctrine. Military history, and some is, must be a multi-discipline study of history (political, social, economics, military, paramilitary, overall geopolitical globally, etc.) to more effectively determine what worked, what didn't, and why. I dread that future generations will embrace simplistic theories put forth on good governance, networks to fight networks, Nagl's COIN theory, principles of war that aren't, etc. as proven templates. While each simplistic theory has a place in the greater whole, they are all roads to failure if not integrated in the greater whole, and informed by understanding of the situation at hand. While much of military history is half-truths, at the end of the day history is still critically important, students just need to be leery of interpretation by over confident theorists and authors. In other words they need to be critical thinkers, which is what the purpose of higher learning is supposedly aimed at.