Culture battle: Selective use of history should not be used to justify the status quo

[marct]

Hi Steve,

I took his reference to the American frontier from a more operational standpoint (in terms of small outposts of troops scattered here and there in attempts to intercept the enemy or raid out into their territory) than I did in geopolitical terms.

I am about 99% sure he meant it that way as well . I do think, however, that the geo-politics becomes crucial when we have such different situations. At the level of immediate operations the analogy is good, but the long term resolution is, however, wildly different.

I tend to (perhaps wrongly) tune out some of the "national interest" white noise in articles like this, because I tend to take their meaning to be (in short) "don't commit troops without public backing and clear goals." In other words, I don't think anyone really knows at the operational level what "national interest" is; it's become something of a political handball or cop-out over the years. A hazy mirage people can conjure up to justify something, or to complain that proper homage wasn't paid to the mirage when things go wrong.

That's a good point, and I suspect that many Americans do the same sort of tuning out - actually, I suspect there is an unconscious substitution of individual ideals of the "national interest" in place of a stated national interest. When there is a clear statement, and OIF is a good example of one - the "democracy rhetoric", it catches with people as a worthy goal.

Just my pre-coffee $.02. It was an interesting article, though. Personally, I'd like to see a return to a regimental system....

I think that would be great - then again, we have one .

Marc

[John T. Fishel]

Hi Marc--

It was Lord Palmerston as PM or Foreign Secretary (I forget which - believe he served in both offices) to whom is attributed, "England has no permanent enemies or friends (or is it the reverse?), she only has permanent interests."

A perusal of the US National Security Strategies since 1987 (when they were mandated by Congress to be published) and even earlier in NSC 68 identifies a series of vital national interests of the US. As Palmerston said of the UK, these seem to be quite permanent and, however difficult it is to sort them out of the mush of spin and propaganda, important.

Cheers

JohnT

[wm]

Foresman's articles has much to recommend it. However, I suspect that its pleas will fall on many deaf ears for a number of reasons. The following quotation, for example, only gets to part of the story.

The Air-Land Battle in its day served another important purpose. It was a cathartic document that allowed the Army to rid itself of the demons of Vietnam, to rid the Army of all mention of counterinsurgency operations, to focus on major combat operations and to ignore the rest.

While I acknowledge the cathartic value of Air-Land Battle doctrine, we should not forget that it also allowed the Army to justify a lot of very big spending initiatives--things like the Abrams and the Bradley and a huge investment in attack aircraft for dep strikes against the enemy's follow-on echelons. Performing effective transformation includes the need to heed Eisenhower's admonition about the military-industrial complex.

If we truly want to succeed in Iraq and in Afghanistan, we must embrace a future that is a radical break with our past. Merely changing our organizational structure is not sufficient. We must be willing to break with our past as we execute in the present and prepare for the future.

This break will require that the military move away from the "metrics" based world that was forced upon it by folks like Robert MacNamara. Success in a low level conflict is defined much more qualitatively than quantitively. Our future success will also require that the country review its grand strategy for defense. I know that many members of this group have little use for Edward Luttwak. However, I think that a perusal of his Grand Stategy of the Roman Empire might be in order. Our current defense strategy to keep the barbarians at bay by fighting them well forward of the homeland smacks of the Roman limes defensive concept. This strategy didn't work over the long haul then. By the end of the 5th Century AD, Roman had been sacked several times. I do not believe it will work any better today. And my reasons for saying so are identified in the following quotation from Foresman.

Paradigm is an overused word in the military. It is one of those terms that are trotted out whenever one wishes to convince a skeptical audience that an idea is not just the repackaging of an old one. The Army truly needs a change in thinking. Wars of the future are going to be more like the campaigns on the 19th-century American frontier and less like World War II. The Army is going to have to adapt to a new world order in which our enemies will choose not to fight us conventionally but in a manner of their choosing. In the past, our doctrine stressed getting inside the decision cycle of the enemy. Now, the enemy knows it can get inside our decision cycle. It can strike when and where it pleases and knows that our response will be predictable. Although our actions may be justifiable, words will not compensate for the images speeding through the virtually connected world.

The 3rd Century barbarians showed enough agility and acumen to figure out the Roman strategy defensive and get around it. As Foresman notes, our current foes have the same, or better, abilities in this regard. (MarcT, I think the tribal wars Foresman refers to in a later restatement of the idea quoted below, are those of the early Middle Ages --e.g., Ostrogoth vs. Visigoth, Vandals vs. Gepids, etc, etc, etc.)

While this next quotation is true, I think there is another danger.

As I have mentioned, transformation is more than organizational change — it is a change to how we think of war. The greatest threats to transformation are those who would turn back the hands of time to an earlier day when the Army would concentrate on fighting major combat operations or grand wars and ignore the rest.

This other danger is that we do not look too far back in time. I suspect that the real lessons we need to learn are those of the world when there was, by and large, only one major power dominating the world stage. That would be the Roman Empire in the first few centuries AD and perhaps the British Empire in the latter half of the 19th Century.

[Nat Wilcox]

While I acknowledge the cathartic value of Air-Land Battle doctrine, we should not forget that it also allowed the Army to justify a lot of very big spending initiatives--things like the Abrams and the Bradley and a huge investment in attack aircraft for dep strikes against the enemy's follow-on echelons. Performing effective transformation includes the need to heed Eisenhower's admonition about the military-industrial complex.

wm, would you mind elaborating a bit on what you have in mind here? Political economy is one of my areas of expertise so I might have something helpful to add here--once I understand clearly your intended point!

[Tom Odom]

While I acknowledge the cathartic value of Air-Land Battle doctrine, we should not forget that it also allowed the Army to justify a lot of very big spending initiatives--things like the Abrams and the Bradley and a huge investment in attack aircraft for dep strikes against the enemy's follow-on echelons. Performing effective transformation includes the need to heed Eisenhower's admonition about the military-industrial complex.

I agree with most of what you say with a caveat in the above. The author saw Airland Battle as a cathartic to rid the Army of the stigma of Vietnam. You seem to say that Airland battle was all about justifying the Big 5 as they were called: Abrams tank, Bradley, Apache, MLRS, and Sgt York DIVAADS (which failed miserably).

My caution in both your's and the author's use of history in this case is that neither of you considered the threat at the time. The USSR and Warsaw Pact were still very formidable. Secondly Airland Battle was more a rejection of Active Defense than it was either a rejection of VN (which is really what Depuy intended when Active Defense turned 100-5's focus on the European theater) or a promotion for the Big 5 (4 of which have done very well).

BG(ret) Huba Wass de Czege was lead author on the 1986 version of 100-5; his blog on here relates somewhat to the discussion. See also his essay on doctrine.Lessons From the Past: Making the Army's Doctrine "Right Enough" Today I like that essay because he quotes Certain Victory in its discussion of doctrine with:

History all too often reinforces the familiar maxim that armies tend to fight the next war as they did the last. However, the Gulf War proved to be a dramatic exception. AirLand Battle, the warfighting doctrine applied by the American Army in Desert Storm, not only survived the initial clash of arms but, in fact, continues as a viable foundation for the development of future warfighting doctrine. The durability of the AirLand Battle concept is owed to three factors. First, unlike past instructions for the conduct of war, the 1986 version of AirLand Battle was a vision of what was possible rather than an owner’s manual for the equipment and force structures available at the time. In fact, if the 1986 edition of FM 100-5 possessed a fault, it was that some concepts were so far ahead of capabilities that many balked at their full implementation with the tools then at hand. Second, the conditions of combat and the dynamics of Desert Storm battlefields proved to be modeled with remarkable fidelity to FM 100-5. Third, and perhaps most notable, is that AirLand Battle represented a way of thinking about war and a mental conditioning rather than a rigid set of rules and lists to be done in lock-step fashion. Its four tenets, initiative, agility, depth and synchronization, are timeless, immutable precepts for present and future wars.

I believe that COL Foresman was absolutley correct in what he wrote concerning the drift of AirLand battle thought toward science (process as in MDMP) at the cost of art (thinking).

One of the pat phrases of Air-Land Battle was the imperative of agility, initiative, depth and synchronization. They were given equal weight, but over time, the ability to change (agility) and the ability to think outside the box (initiative) were increasingly de-emphasized, and the art of war took a back seat to the science of war. An outcome of the Air-Land Battle was the development of the military decision-making process (MDMP). Originally developed to provide a means for a commander and staff officers to organize their thoughts in conducting their analysis, it has become the be all and end all for thinking in the military. Rather than serving as an aid to analysis, analysis has become paralyzed by adherence to the MDMP.

Finally there is an excellent analysis of the 1976 edition of 100-5 is at Leavenworth Paper #16

Best

Tom

[Mark O'Neill]

Hi WM,

I do not share you enthusiasm for endorsement of the good Colonel's surety of future vision regarding future conflicts.

If he (or any anyone else here) is that good at being certain about predicting future events, I wish that he would tell us who will win the next Kentucky Derby - that way we can all put a bet on, and help Dave out with the site sponsorship!

I believe that Colin S. Gray is correct in his new book Fighting Maxims with maxim # 38 : " The future is not foreseeable: Nothing dates so rapidly as today's tomorrow".

An aside - during my service in Africa I met a few Sangomas ('Witch Doctors') - none of these 'magic men' felt as certain about predicting the future as many of the earnest military sages that occasionally predict on these pages and in the spread of literature that most of us here read.
I guess that the locals did not regard these guys as 'wise men' for no reason...


Regarding another aspect discussed by Tom,

I have always thought that the MDMP was the military equivalent of the old adage that " enough monkeys with typewriters, given enough time, will eventually write Shakespeare".

I think the MDMP is almost the ultimate expression of the military training ideal - that even the lowest common denominator can be trained to do just about anything.

My time as a 'tactics instructor' (not sure that is a good label) proved to me that you cannot teach tactical smarts. People either get it or are ultimately just adequate (but in any new or unfamiliar scenario that requires original thought, as opposed to rote responses, they are catastrophes waiting to happen).

I have seen plenty of clowns who can recite verbatim every step and process of the MDMP - and use it in 'school', but could not find their a#$e in the dark, let alone resolve the dynamics of movement, friction, fires and terrain out on the ground - let alone what the enemy might be doing.

The MDMP satisfies the military's love of process , and in the absence of a real enemy 'vote' to sort out who is a fool or a failure in peacetime, provides yet another perfectly pointless measure with which we can we can sort out degrees of excellence for OER and other reporting and assessment.

[Tom Odom]

My time as a 'tactics instructor' (not sure that is a good label) proved to me that you cannot teach tactical smarts. People either get it or are ultimately just adequate (but in any new or unfamiliar scenario that requires original thought, as opposed to rote responses, they are catastrophes waiting to happen).

My corollary is that you cannot train experience, you can only train from experience, which is why if we evenr get our force structure lined out again, I hope we will change the model that holds small units are junior leader missions .

As for the MDMP, as a guide OK. As the "yellow brick road" to success it has always struck me funny that in coming up with the MDMP in the quest to defeat the Soviets we adapted their rigid planning model.

Best

Tom

[Dominique R. Poirier]

Marc,
I would like to express my opinion about what you said on the United States and on the notion of national interest since I have had the sentiment that things don’t seem to be as clear as you expect about this question. I let you know my point is sustained by numerous readings, and long reflections and observations since I have been as curious and thoughtful as you are about it.

This belief in manifest destiny you thus named exists as long as the United States does as it is and as it has always been. Since the United States is a country physically represented on a map as a land, and is perceived as such by other countries, then geopolitical considerations inescapably take place.
From then on the United Sates has a need for a national interest, as any other country does, but whose scope in that exceptional case encompasses both territory inside the limits of her borders and political stability and geopolitical balance exterior to it. The Monroe Doctrine and, eventually, the Wilson and Truman Doctrine (or this of Keenan) describes what the U.S. national interest outside these borders is.

Unfortunately, events involving directly or not the United States in one way or another may sometimes confuse all those who either do not fully grasp the implications of the aforesaid, or refuse to do so in the endeavor to challenge this belief in manifest destiny; for the sake of vested interests or owing to different beliefs in most instances, not to say all.

Those who are honest and objective cannot but acknowledge that the physical expression of the U.S. national interest overseas did and does serve the common good of the humanity, overall and decades before WWI, since despotism, ignorance, poverty, and denial of liberty and individual freedom never fail to install or/and persist everywhere the United States has been unable to forestall or to counter it.

The United States cannot do better than what she did until then because, otherwise, she would have to directly and physically rule overseas by force in order to succeed in this endeavor. In other words, she would have to choose to be an imperialist country, as she is often mistakenly accused to be; but she prefers not to because, as a nation, she sincerely and deeply believe in the right to self-determination, liberty, and justice.

As Henry Kissinger once wrote, geopolitical realities overwhelm fashionable reveries about universalities. To which I will add that human nature is the main responsible of this and that nothing can be done to change it.

I acknowledge that I made it short this time but should the need arose I shall willingly elaborate, of course.

[Nat Wilcox]

Marc,

the hypothetical or real war with China you are describing is, to me, not much of a military matter. It is a matter of smart economic and social policy here that recognizes the inevitable consequences and opportunities of globalization. I don't think we should worry much about an enormous trade deficit with China or any other one country. Trade, being mutually beneficial theft, is a two-edged sword. They get a lot out of it too.

I have a huge trade deficit with the local grocery stores: They don't buy and read nearly enough of my papers. But I don't lose much sleep about that. We should worry about having a negative national savings rate across long periods of time...just as I should worry about a negative personal savings rate over long periods of time. But I do not care about running a truly massive and frightening trade deficit with Kroger, provided I am running surpluses elsewhere to cover it.

True, China could cause short-run pain here by cutting us off, but they would hurt too and there are a lot of other countries who would be only too happy to pick up the production slack. And then where would China be: "OH we promise never to do it again, please come back and buy our products...puh-leeeeeze?" Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Trade wars, as countries have discovered, are very expensive, and cause people to diversify away from the aggressor, to the ultimate long-run detriment of the aggressor.

We should worry about income distribution and inequality of opportunity, things that are worsened by the loss of the jobs of yesteryear's economy, whatever they may be. But the gains we get from trade generally are enough to compensate for those losses. We need to be more serious about that compensation, and also get on with the business of distributing education (and re-education) widely.

True riches simply cannot be piled up by producing the goods of yesteryear, which have become so commodified that almost anyone can produce them, so that they essentially trade in competitive markets: There's no interesting rent to be earned there. Let the Chinese earn those relatively uninteresting and trivial rents and sell us the goods back at bargain basement prices. Relative to their incomes, those trivial rents look big and give them these big growth rates. Yes, $10 is 100% of $10. But it is only 1% of $1000. We cannot get their growth rate from producing those goods and earning those rents.

Real rents, massive surplus value, comes from innovation and creative destruction: We want to be the masters of that economic universe, and then distribute the gains sensibly. We do that by making our people highly educated, easily re-educated, easily mobile with highly portable health insurance and retirement and hence very dynamic employment markets, and so forth. Charity really begins at home here. These things are way cheaper, better and smarter long-run solutions to a "threat" like China than anything else I can think of that we might do.

[marct]

Hi WM,

This break will require that the military move away from the "metrics" based world that was forced upon it by folks like Robert MacNamara. Success in a low level conflict is defined much more qualitatively than quantitively. Our future success will also require that the country review its grand strategy for defense. I know that many members of this group have little use for Edward Luttwak. However, I think that a perusal of his Grand Stategy of the Roman Empire might be in order. Our current defense strategy to keep the barbarians at bay by fighting them well forward of the homeland smacks of the Roman limes defensive concept. This strategy didn't work over the long haul then. By the end of the 5th Century AD, Roman had been sacked several times. I do not believe it will work any better today. And my reasons for saying so are identified in the following quotation from Foresman.

I must admit that I always liked that book. I'm not sure if you can say that the strategy didn't work therefore Rome got sacked, though. There were too many other factors, such as the fact that Rome never really had a succession law that actually worked, that led to the fall of the Western Empire. The use of limitanes was, really, a way to try and deal with the succession problem by eliminating many of the Legions. When this was tied into the foederatii idea (something to keep in mind given current immigration policies), it proved disastrous.

The 3rd Century barbarians showed enough agility and acumen to figure out the Roman strategy defensive and get around it. As Foresman notes, our current foes have the same, or better, abilities in this regard. (MarcT, I think the tribal wars Foresman refers to in a later restatement of the idea quoted below, are those of the early Middle Ages --e.g., Ostrogoth vs. Visigoth, Vandals vs. Gepids, etc, etc, etc.)

The 5th and 6th century wars? Hmm, possible - I just wish that he had identified which ones he was actually talking about, since it does make a difference. If those were the ones he was referring to, then the analogy doesn't really seem to work as well.

This other danger is that we do not look too far back in time. I suspect that the real lessons we need to learn are those of the world when there was, by and large, only one major power dominating the world stage. That would be the Roman Empire in the first few centuries AD and perhaps the British Empire in the latter half of the 19th Century.

I would certainly agree with Britain and the 19th century, but Rome was not the sole superpower at any time (Persia anyone?) and the West is not surrounded by barbarian kingdoms. I'm also not sure that looking for a single dominating superpower is the best model (see my earlier comments about alliances). I think a better model would be much older, circa 1850bce in the five great kingdoms period or the Warring States period in China.

Let me toss out, for discussion and possible shredding , a few observations. First, the US and its allies can, in general, schmuck any other coalition in a direct, heads on, "traditional" combat scenario. By analogy, this is similar to a fighter who can beat anyone using the Marquis of Queensbury's rules. So, having strolled down to the docks, this fighter "knows" that they can beat anyone as long as they play by the rules. So, why would anyone do that?

Taking this up to the current situation. China cannot win an all out "total war" against he US and its allies, therefore it won't fight one. The first thing it will do is attack, indirectly, the US's major strength, which happens to be economics not combat (look at WW II - the US had pretty mediocre equipment, but it had a lot of it). So, in this "hypothetical" scenario, China will encourage the shift of manufacturing away from the US and, increasingly, make the US consumers dependent upon China for their standard of living. The next step will be to create a fifth column within the US that takes advantage of the factionalization of American politics, and create major/support major lobby organizations to encourage elected officials to disregard this economic penetration. Finally, China thinks in decades and centuries, not 2 - 4 year terms, so they can afford a policy of gradually wearing away US resolve to hold certain positions. If the US threatens to "fight fair", China could, without firing a shot, induce another major depression in the entire Western world simply by dumping its US currency reserves (currently several trillion dollars) and jacking up the export duties on its manufactured goods.

This, for China, is "conventional" direct warfare (read Sun Tsu). In effect, China "gets" DIME because it has been their model of conflict for over 2500 years.

The point behind that little excursion is simple. It's not enough to maintain a strong "conventional" force or to develop a really good COIN force - these have to be integrated in such a manner that it covers and contests the DIME model of China and other models implicit in other power blocks.

Marc

[tequila]

Let me toss out, for discussion and possible shredding , a few observations. First, the US and its allies can, in general, schmuck any other coalition in a direct, heads on, "traditional" combat scenario. By analogy, this is similar to a fighter who can beat anyone using the Marquis of Queensbury's rules. So, having strolled down to the docks, this fighter "knows" that they can beat anyone as long as they play by the rules. So, why would anyone do that?

Taking this up to the current situation. China cannot win an all out "total war" against he US and its allies, therefore it won't fight one. The first thing it will do is attack, indirectly, the US's major strength, which happens to be economics not combat (look at WW II - the US had pretty mediocre equipment, but it had a lot of it). So, in this "hypothetical" scenario, China will encourage the shift of manufacturing away from the US and, increasingly, make the US consumers dependent upon China for their standard of living. The next step will be to create a fifth column within the US that takes advantage of the factionalization of American politics, and create major/support major lobby organizations to encourage elected officials to disregard this economic penetration. Finally, China thinks in decades and centuries, not 2 - 4 year terms, so they can afford a policy of gradually wearing away US resolve to hold certain positions. If the US threatens to "fight fair", China could, without firing a shot, induce another major depression in the entire Western world simply by dumping its US currency reserves (currently several trillion dollars) and jacking up the export duties on its manufactured goods.

This, for China, is "conventional" direct warfare (read Sun Tsu). In effect, China "gets" DIME because it has been their model of conflict for over 2500 years.

The point behind that little excursion is simple. It's not enough to maintain a strong "conventional" force or to develop a really good COIN force - these have to be integrated in such a manner that it covers and contests the DIME model of China and other models implicit in other power blocks.

Allow me to begin the shredding.

Your post appears to presume that the Chinese leadership (1) possesses nearly-omniscient foresight in economic matters (2) a long-range plan to destroy American power by displacing manufacturing out of the United States and simultaneously collecting vast sums of American dollars (3) the power and ability to do so these things over an extended period of time.

I've encountered this sort of thinking in many a forum, usually featuring paranoid nativism as the primary means of discourse, but found that it has strongest traction among people who are utterly ignorant of Chinese history, especially of the 20th century variety, don't speak, read, or know any Chinese and have had little contact with any PRC government personnel, not to mention conventional macroeconomics. For those who do know any of the latter, the idea that Beijing could possibly do any of the above three generally calls up hysterics.

They ain't that smart, and even if they were they ain't nowhere near that organized.

Frankly, Marc, you can do better than that.

[marct]

Hi Tequila,

Allow me to begin the shredding.

LOLOL.

Your post appears to presume that the Chinese leadership (1) possesses nearly-omniscient foresight in economic matters (2) a long-range plan to destroy American power by displacing manufacturing out of the United States and simultaneously collecting vast sums of American dollars (3) the power and ability to do so these things over an extended period of time.

Actually, none of these are necessary conditions for that scenario to work. Let me go through your points and show why.

1. possesses nearly-omniscient foresight in economic matters. This is unnecessary since the readily observable trend of US manufacturing and consuming interests has been quite available, and talked about in both the academic and popular press, for the past 25 years or so. The effects, in both economic and social terms, of shifting production outside of CONUS were apparent to anyone looking at the automotive industry by 1972 - think Flint Michigan.

As far as China's "awareness" or "foresight" is concerned, China still uses a rather outdated, almost paleo-Marxist, model of social development theory based on LH Morgan, JJ Bachoven and Marx in Sociology, Anthropology and Political Economy (I ave a number of friends who were trained in China). The one thing that that model does, however, stress is a production based model.

2. a long-range plan to destroy American power by displacing manufacturing out of the United States and simultaneously collecting vast sums of American dollars. They don't need a model or plan to do this, it was already being done by the Western feeding frenzy to get access to the Chinese markets. As far as the displacement of American manufacturing is concerned, this has been going on for decades. All the Chinese have to do is to recognize the trend and take advantage of the opportunity. Given that the US's trade deficit with China last year was 232.5 Billion U$ (http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2007/...ap4007555.html), I would point out the China doesn't "need"a long-range plan to collect vast sums of money.

Once again, there is no requirement for the Chinese government to actual plot or plan, only to recognize advantages and opportunities when they arise.

3. the power and ability to do so these things over an extended period of time. All China has to do is to a) recognize trends and b) take advantage of them, which is something that is, IMO, quite likely. Furthermore, it doesn't have to be the Chinese government that "orchestrates" any of this. The concept of "mutual arising" may well be at play here with the government playing of the economic success of the southern areas, especially Shanghai.

They ain't that smart, and even if they were they ain't nowhere near that organized.

They don't have to be . Frankly, when you look at what is going on in China itself, including the cultural stress and strain between the north and the south, economic dislocations, etc., China is actually quite fragile (somewhat analogous to the US in the 1850's). This certainly hasn't stopped the government from playing off on the opportunities they have handed to them on a silver platter.

Let me ask you a question: what do you think the effects would be in the US of a trade war with China?

Marc

[wm]

I think the economics discussion has hijeacked this thread ong enough and has adequately reponded to MarcT's allusion to the Chinese economic nuclear option.

I wan t to respond to other points raised and remind all that this thread started with discussing an article that claims we are misusing history to make doctrine and policy decisions.

Two respondents wanted more clarification on my point about AirLand Battle (ALB) being used to justify the Big 5 weapons systems. I was pointing out that had two effects, one cathartic and one expensive. I submit the need for catharsis has passed. However, I am concerned that we now have some much invested (both in the services and in the defense contracting world) in big weapons systems that it becomes hard to jump off the "big war" horse that was allowed to grow during the Reagan years. The Army "needs" to have a big war mindset in order to be a winner in the budget turf battles. Troops on the ground are a very cheap investment compared to a littoral combat ship, an F-22 or F-35, and even an MRAP vehicle. In a world where the size of your budget dictates where you stand in the power pecking order (which I submit is the world of the US Federal Government), bigger is always better. Small wars tend to come with small price tages (at least in terms of investment portfolios/procurement and RDTE and dollars). The Navy figured out a while ago that you need a big fleet in order to be able to justify a big O&M budget. Similarly, the Army "needs" big wars in order to justify big budgets. I accept Tom's point about the need for the Big 5 in the world of the Soviet Threat. (Well, maybe the Big 4--DIVAD was little more than a bailout of Ford Aerospace, which speaks to my point about being wary of the military industrial complex.) We probably still need some big ticket systems, if for no other reason than as a conventional war deterrrent. This last brings me to MarcT's "refutation" regarding Rome's status.
At least until the time of the Emperor Julian, the Persians were only a regional power. They were deterred from doing more than fooling around on the Roman Empire's eastern border because of the capabilities and reputation of the Roman Legion. Usually Rome lost battles to Persia when it tried to expand further east, using poor generals (like Crassus). Once the Seljuk Turks arrived, things started to change. But by then, Rome was fragmented, just as deserving of the title "the sick man of Europe" as the Ottoman Empire a millenium later and its former military might held no deterent power.
Regarding MDMP: MDMP provides, to folks who need it, an organizational construct to conduct effective and focussed critical thinking. When done right, MDMA helps folks to stay on task and not get too distracted or mired in minutiae. Unfortunately the process sometimes becomes more important than the desired end state. In this regard using it is like applying tactics (or almost anything else that requires some creativity); some folks just don't really get the hang of it and confuse following a process correctly with success.

[wm]

I think the economics discussion has hijacked this thread long enough and has adequately reponded to MarcT's allusion to the Chinese economic nuclear option.

I want to respond to other points raised and remind all that this thread started with discussing an article that claims we are misusing history to make doctrine and policy decisions.
Two respondents (Tom and Nat) wanted more clarification on my point about AirLand Battle (ALB) being used to justify the Big 5 weapons systems. I was pointing out that ALB had two effects, one cathartic and one expensive. I submit the need for catharsis has passed. However, I am concerned that we now have so much invested (both in the services and in the defense contracting world) in big weapons systems that it becomes hard to jump off the "big war" horse that we remounted during the Reagan years. The Army now "needs" to have a big war mindset in order to be a winner in the budget turf battles. Troops on the ground are a very cheap investment compared to a littoral combat ship, an F-22 or F-35, and even an MRAP vehicle. In a world where the size of your budget dictates where you stand in the power pecking order (which I submit is the world of the US Federal Government), bigger is always better. Small wars tend to come with small price tages (at least in terms of investment portfolios/procurement and RDTE dollars). The Navy figured out quite a while ago that you need a big fleet in order to be able to justify a big O&M budget. Similarly, the Army "needs" big wars in order to justify big budgets.
I accept Tom's point about the need for the Big 5 in the world of the Soviet Threat. (Well, maybe the Big 4 --DIVAD was little more than a bailout of Ford Aerospace, which speaks to my point about being wary of the military industrial complex.) We probably still need some big ticket systems, if for no other reason than as a conventional war deterrrent. This last brings me to MarcT's "refutation" regarding Rome's status.
At least until the time of the Emperor Julian, the Persians were only a regional power. They were deterred from doing more than fooling around on the Roman Empire's eastern border because of the capabilities and reputation of the Roman Legions. Usually Rome lost battles to Persia when it tried to expand further east, using poor generals (like Crassus). Once the Seljuk Turks arrived, things started to change. But by then, Rome was fragmented, just as deserving of the title "the sick man of Europe" as the Ottoman Empire a millenium later, and its former military might held no deterent power.
Regarding MDMP: MDMP provides, to folks who need it, an organizational construct to conduct effective and focussed critical thinking. When done right, MDMA helps folks to stay on task and not get too distracted or mired in minutiae. Unfortunately the process sometimes becomes more important than the desired end state. In this regard, using it is like applying tactics (or almost anything else that requires some creativity); some folks just don't really get the hang of it and confuse following a process correctly with success. So I agree with Mark O. And Mark, I do not see Col Foresman as prescient. Instead, I agree with his view that we are misusing history. More specifically, we are using too shallow a view of history.
On this last point, I submit that much of the 1976 FM 100-5 fell afoul of the same flaw--it was a kneejerk response to the 1973 Arab-Israeli War. The 1986 version of 100-5 cleaned up a lot of the short-sighted inclusions. I view the two documents as a set wiith the 1986 version serving as an important revision that corrected misperceptions by too many in the field regarding what was really important in the 1976 version.
I've rambled on too long with this riposte.

[Ken White]

...
I want to respond to other points raised and remind all that this thread started with discussing an article that claims we are misusing history to make doctrine and policy decisions.
Two respondents (Tom and Nat) wanted more clarification on my point about AirLand Battle (ALB) being used to justify the Big 5 weapons systems. I was pointing out that ALB had two effects, one cathartic and one expensive. I submit the need for catharsis has passed. However, I am concerned that we now have so much invested (both in the services and in the defense contracting world) in big weapons systems that it becomes hard to jump off the "big war" horse that we remounted during the Reagan years...

All true but you omit the overarching role of Congress in this sad state of affairs. They don't like to pay for training or too much OM, no impact on the State or District. Big ticket hardware items OTOH bring money nation wide when all the subcontractors get rolled in. The Army is guilty but so are the other service and DoD but the most guilty of all are the Congroids who love that system...

If you meant the purging of 'Viet Nam' thinking from the Army was the catharsis, I'd suggest it was really not needed and in fact did not stand us in good stead.

...This last brings me to MarcT's "refutation" regarding Rome's status.
At least until the time of the Emperor Julian, the Persians were only a regional power.

Uh, I'm not sure Cyrus, Darius and ol' Xerxes would agree with you and the Egyptians, Babylonians and most of Greeks in what is now Turkey probably wouldn't. The Punjabis and Afghans might not agree either...

On this last point, I submit that much of the 1976 FM 100-5 fell afoul of the same flaw--it was a kneejerk response to the 1973 Arab-Israeli War. The 1986 version of 100-5 cleaned up a lot of the short-sighted inclusions. I view the two documents as a set wiith the 1986 version serving as an important revision that corrected misperceptions by too many in the field regarding what was really important in the 1976 version.
. . .

We can agree on that...

[wm]

All true but you omit the overarching role of Congress in this sad state of affairs. They don't like to pay for training or too much OM, no impact on the State or District. Big ticket hardware items OTOH bring money nation wide when all the subcontractors get rolled in. The Army is guilty but so are the other service and DoD but the most guilty of all are the Congroids who love that system...

I thought it was axiomatic, "intuitively obvious to the casual observer," that getting Federal funds flowing to the constituents of our elected representatives, especially to those who make big campaign contributions, was the underlying source of enpowerment to the various parts of the Executive Branch (like the various Military Services). BTW, one-year O&M money doesn't keep one in the eyes of constituents as long as necessary if one happens to be serving a 2 or 6 year term. Ever wonder why ship procurement funding is 5-year money while other procurement appropriations are only for 3 years? (Answering this question might have a lot of explanatory power for the question raised on another thread on the proliferation of Navy Department personnel as COCOM and higher leaders.)

If you meant the purging of 'Viet Nam' thinking from the Army was the catharsis, I'd suggest it was really not needed and in fact did not stand us in good stead.

If by Viet Nam thinking you mean TTP for fighting low intensity and counterinsurgency conflicts, I agree with you. The thinking I meant had to do with how the Army viewed itself and how it thought the rest of America viewed it--as second class citizens, not really good for much. ALB was one of several things that ernabled the Army to give itself a new sense of purpose and raise its opinion of itself after it had become hollow during the years of the Ford and Carter presidencies. This in turn was a means that enabled General Sullivan to push his "no more Task Force Smith" campaign to keep the Army from getting hollowed out again during the "peace dividend" downsizing years.

Uh, I'm not sure Cyrus, Darius and ol' Xerxes would agree with you and the Egyptians, Babylonians and most of Greeks in what is now Turkey probably wouldn't. The Punjabis and Afghans might not agree either...

I had in mind the Parthians and, to some extent, the Sassanid Persians. The Achaemenid Persians, like Cyrus II, Cambyses, Darius, Xerxes, and Artaxerxes as well as the Seleucid Empire successors to Alexander functioned well before Rome was at the zenith of its power. Same is true for the Egyptians--the last Pharoah was supplanted about the time of Julius Caesar, whose realm was analogous to the America of Teddy Roosevelt, I think.