LTC Amos C.
INTRODUCTION
Writing about the principles of war in 1949, American military strategist Bernard Brodie posited, “The rules fathered by Jomini and Clausewitz may still be fundamental, but they will not tell one how to prepare for or fight a war.”1 Brodie’s comments in the wake of World War II meant to account for the vast amount of change experienced by all sides during that conflict. At the time, Brodie attributed the longevity of the principles of war, which had changed little since J.F.C. Fuller formalized them in the 1920s and 1930s, to three factors. First, the principles provided military practitioners “exceptional convenience,” and second, in their current form, they lent themselves well to “indoctrination.”2 Third, because of their convenience and ease for indoctrination, the existing principles of war remain ideally suited for professional military education, which is short and thus rewards lightweight material that can be learned quickly with simple mnemonics, acronyms and other heuristics.3 Brodie basically argues that the principles of war have not changed because it is simply easier to keep them as they are than it is to develop new principles more reflective of modern technology and methodologies of warfighting. Put another way, intellectual laziness often results in institutions shoehorning new technologies and seemingly novel techniques into extant language, taxonomies and doctrines.
In recent years, a few forward-thinking thought leaders have bravely pushed for reform in military thinking despite institutional recalcitrance quite similar to that which Brodie highlighted some 70 years ago. This advocacy is not limited to principles of war or warfare but also encourages new theories, methodologies and terminology that attempt to keep pace with or even set the pace for advances or general evolutions in military and dual-use technology. The emergence of formations like the Multi-Domain Task Force (MDTF) and the theater fires command and new weapon systems therein, for instance, require a rebalance of how and why the Army organizes the battlefield the way it does. This is nothing new. In 1925 J.F.C. Fuller wrote, “Changes of weapons must be accompanied by a change in tactical ideas.”4
No comments:
Post a Comment