Lost Lessons & Fresh Thinking: a challenge for SWC

[jmm99]

Of course, that's my personal negative view of coalitions and alliances, new world orders, nation-building and global force projections. However, within those constraints, everything is on the table - from FID and SFA to nuclear weapons. So, I can't avoid addressing your proposal, which in WWI terms was "amalgamation".

I'd tender the argument that support or opposition to amalgamation depends on one's biases for or against alliances and coalitions, trust or distrust for allies and partners, and the variant endgoals of the parties. In my world, biases are not a sin, but are essential to playing the game - and taking them into account is essential to winning. Biases determine the "facts" and the "rules".

Continuing with WWI and the AEF, we had three major sets of players: Lloyd George - Haig (amalgamation), Clemenceau - Foch (amalgamation) and Wilson - Pershing (non-amalgamation). Each set was outstandingly ruthless (despite soaring rhetoric) in securing its nation's political endgoals.

Now contrary to my conclusion (pro-Pershing in applying military ways and means to reach the ultimate political end - BTW I reject it, the Wilsonian New World Order; but it wasn't Pershing's province to question that - life was easier for him because he largely believed in it) is David Trask's 1993, The AEF and Coalition Warmaking, 1917-1918 (Modern War Studies).

Underscoring an emerging revisionist view of the American Expeditionary Forces, David Trask argues that the performances of the AEF and General John J. Pershing were much more flawed than conventional accounts have suggested. This can best be seen, he shows, by analyzing coalition warfare at the level of grand tactics--i.e., campaign military operations.

The AEF didn't perform well in France, Trask contends, because it was committed as an independent force before it had time to train and gain experience. President Wilson and General Pershing's initial insistence on an independent American force rather than an integration with existing French and British armies resulted in costly delays and bitter victories in the decisive Allied counteroffensives against Ludendorff and the Central Powers.

Using a tactic uncommon in previous studies of the AEF, David Trask views the campaign of 1918 through the eyes of the highest-ranking of field commanders, including Pershing, Marshal Ferdinand Foch of the Allied and Associated Powers, and General Erich Ludendorff of the Central Powers.

Trask's portrayal of Pershing reveals a self-righteous leader who was unwilling to correct initial misconceptions that marred the doctrine and training of the AEF. Consequently, Trask demonstrates, Pershing's stormy relations with Allied military and civilian leader seriously undermined the AEF and its efforts to conduct coalition warfare.

No surprise (given Trask being the author) that this book is simply outstanding in its research and depth. It also was written just after Gulf I, when alliances and coalitions, new world orders, and military arts revolutions were all the rage. Thus, I detect a positive bias for alliances and coalitions - and for a more "cosmopolitan" than "national" approach.

Why bring up this case study of a century-old "Large War" (with 1000+pp. in reading both sides - which is a requirement to learn from it) in a modern "Small Wars" thread on Lessons Learned ? Because its lessons apply to every war involving partners - and the material is excellent.

Regards

Mike