Thanks for the tip on the Moro book!

I agree with a lot of what you wrote, but did the Army actually put any of the Philippines lessons in doctrine? I haven't been able to confirm that, if true.

Quote Originally Posted by John T. Fishel View Post
What you are pointing out is the fact the the Army does a good job of recording lessons and a poor job of learning them. We even record them in doctrine. If you look at the various iterations of Operations (100-5 and 3-0) and those focused on small wars and COIN, you will find all the lessons of wars that date from the Indian campaigns to the present recorded and published. But, you will also find those key lessons disappear as bigger, more conventional wars intervene. So, we tend to have to re-learn old lessons each time we encounter analogous situations.

Our Marine brothers seem to have done better. Perhaps, it is due tho their expeditionary culture. In any case, they seem to have remembered more from the Small Wars Manual than the Army did of its earlier small wars experiences.

Bill M. I have to take exception to the argument you made with respect to 3-24. Most of the lessons in 3-24 are, in fact, old lessons found in earleier editions of 100-5 and 100-20 and were applied successfully in many COIN campaigns. They were alos recorded in non-doctrinal books dating back to C. E. Callwell's Small Wars, Sir Robert Thompson's Defeating Communist Insurgency, Sir Frank Kitson's Low Intensity Operations, my (with Max Manwaring) Uncomfortable Wars Revisted, and David Kilcullen's the Accidental Guerrilla.

Of relevance to Tulanealum's project is James R. Arnold's recent The Moro War.

Cheers

JohnT