McMaster on war (merged thread)

[Westhawk]

BG McMaster delivered a broad attack on the DoD’s transformation plans from the 1990s. He asserted that the technological focus of that time neglected the human, social, cultural, and political factors necessary to prevail on the modern battlefield. According to McMaster, events of this decade have shown how adversaries have adapted to previous U.S. methods thus negating them.

McMaster’s capstone concept seeks to reverse many of the precepts and assumptions of the 1990s defense transformation program. Under McMaster’s vision, in order to prevail in ground combat U.S. forces will need to “go local,” by getting very close to the enemy and sustaining long-term operations deep into a variety of indigenous population.

During yesterday’s staff ride of the Gettysburg battlefield, we discussed how any army is the product and reflection of the society from which it comes. The nature of U.S. Southern culture favored the Confederacy early on, but the more industrial and commercial nature of the North later asserted its dominance.

The question for today is whether U.S. society can produce the kind of soldiers and the Army necessary to implement the capstone concept McMaster described. And whether U.S. society can support the operational concept McMaster believes is required to prevail.

-Robert Haddick

[marct]

There is an interesting dynamic at work in this presentation - it is a paradigm shift in the classic, Kuhnian sense. My immediate perception of most of the concern and debate is that it not involve a total paradigm shift, aka a Revolution but, rather, a modification and adaptation of the basic epistemology to bring it more in line with lived reality.

[SWJED]

There is an interesting dynamic at work in this presentation - it is a paradigm shift in the classic, Kuhnian sense. My immediate perception of most of the concern and debate is that it not involve a total paradigm shift, aka a Revolution but, rather, a modification and adaptation of the basic epistemology to bring it more in line with lived reality.

I will also point to the conference comment above concerning overcorrecting - that is probably the tough part here concernng adapting for the future - what's too little and what's too much. Hopefully there will be some drilling down on this...

Next brief and discussion is just starting - it's on the Army Campaign Plan...

[Anlaochfhile]

BG McMaster delivered a broad attack on the DoD’s transformation plans from the 1990s. He asserted that the technological focus of that time neglected the human, social, cultural, and political factors necessary to prevail on the modern battlefield. According to McMaster, events of this decade have shown how adversaries have adapted to previous U.S. methods thus negating them.

McMaster’s capstone concept seeks to reverse many of the precepts and assumptions of the 1990s defense transformation program. Under McMaster’s vision, in order to prevail in ground combat U.S. forces will need to “go local,” by getting very close to the enemy and sustaining long-term operations deep into a variety of indigenous population.

During yesterday’s staff ride of the Gettysburg battlefield, we discussed how any army is the product and reflection of the society from which it comes. The nature of U.S. Southern culture favored the Confederacy early on, but the more industrial and commercial nature of the North later asserted its dominance.

The question for today is whether U.S. society can produce the kind of soldiers and the Army necessary to implement the capstone concept McMaster described. And whether U.S. society can support the operational concept McMaster believes is required to prevail.

-Robert Haddick

Excellent point. We live in a society that is overall much more enamored with technology and hard sciences than with the humanities. How can a nation that routinely lags behind much of the world in social studies, geography, language arts, and other liberal arts studies hope to field armies that are culturally adept enough for the small wars that are likely to be a significant part of our future? The services are certainly making an effort, but without a solid grounding in our own culture, these efforts seem unlikely to ‘stick’.

I highly recommend Dr. Adrian Lewis’ book The American Culture of War: the History of U.S. Military Force from World War II to Operation Iraqi Freedom, which focuses on the role that American culture plays in how our forces organize, equip, and fight. It has some keen insights in this regard.