Army Officer Accuses Generals of 'Intellectual and Moral Failures'

[DavidPB4]

Marc,

"1. Publications, in academia, are not in and of themselves as sign of intellectual discipline. Rather, they are a sign of communications skills whereby the author is able to "match" their article to the sub-cultural expectations and requirements (the genre[s]) of the publication venue."

I agree. But I think the discipline of writing clearly and well can still be a benefit if it is more than just parroting jargon.

"2. The publication process relies on "peer review", but peer review, in all too many cases, comes to be a measure of how close the author's position is to that of the people doing the reviews. This is something that Thos. Kuhn pointed out in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions when he was talking about the operation of "normal science". One of the observations he made is of especial importance to an analysis of the military, and that is that only a single discipline" has ever managed to hold two mutually contradictory paradigms - physics (particle theory and quantum mechanics). Since we are seeing a conflict between two paradigms, State vs. State and COIN, we can all learn a lot from how physics, as an institution, has managed to hold these two."

The issue I think is not the existence of different paradigms but whether particular paradigms are correctly applied. In the military sphere, state vs. state conflict and counterinsurgency are really two different answers to two different problems, not different answers to the same problem. Conventional war is appropriate where the problem is to isolate an insurgent battlespace. Counterinsurgency is appropriate where the need is to separate a civilian population from insurgents. There is only a conflict when we try to use conventional war to defeat insurgents, or internal counterinsurgency to deal with a threat that persists because of external reinforcements and sanctuaries.

"I also think that it is important for the military to learn more about the so-called "civilian" areas. I use the term "so-called" advisedly: the military already overlaps the civilian population in a number of professions (e.g. engineering, medicine, etc.) and, to my mind, can only benefit from a further overlap if for no other reason, and here are other reasons, that the military is being required to take on more varied tasks."

I'm glad the military has the skills to do so many things. But I don't think the military should assume more civilian roles by default. We need to strengthen the civilian side of the relationship.

"Now, within a State vs. State conflict...the adjustments tend to be minimal. In a COIN setting, however, the adjustments can be huge. This is one of the reasons why an article like COL Pat Lang's "How to Work with Tribesman" is so good - it outlines the how (a set of generic rules) as well as the what (for a specific time-space locus)."

If the larger aspects of a counterinsurgency are aligned properly, then insights such as those in the Lang paper are excellent guides for the level of relations directly with tribesmen. But the value of COIN skills depends on first getting the larger picture right, eg. isolating the battlefield, and having sufficient troops so that improvement in any one sector of an insurgent country can be sustained. It is when we sub-optimize by trying to get the mid-level things right while the high-level things are wrong that we run aground.

"I will just make one observation: liberal democracies elect their leaders and none of them have ability tests for anything except getting elected."

Yes, but I think voters do look for knowledge and experience on some level, and civilians who advise elected officials especially could benefit from better education in strategic and military matters. The problem is that those who provide this education need to do a better job of formulating what to teach.