I think that what is missing from Kaplan's article--and, with respect, from LTC Kingling's as well--is a historical perspective. In my view, Kaplan’s article does not display an understanding between the close relationship between the army and congress as the United States armed itself to fight the Second World War. As Mark Skinner Watson observed:
Quote:
|
The period of 1939-1941 is not fully understandable unless one is aware of the part which a military witness played at the time in the decisions of a friendly and trusting Congress.
|
Because of that witness and his patient work with Congress during those two years, lawmakers afforded the Army considerable leeway in the opening months of America's official involvement in the war when events seemed to be unfolding so badly.
Additionally, during the Second World War there was broad agreement on two points: (a) Germany first, and (b) overcoming the logistical hurdles to defeat Germany first "rather than on adapting the plans to current logistical conditions."*
Moreover, by my reading of LTC Kingling's article, it seems he accepts the premise of a revolution in military affairs (RMA). However, the concept of RMA remains a topic of ongoing debate among military historians and practitioners of the art of war. As participant in this discussion noted:
Quote:
|
For all the “Fourth Generation of War” intellectuals running around saying that the nature of war has fundamentally changed, the tactics are totally new, etc., I must respectfully say: “Not really.” Alex the Great would not be the least bit perplexed by the enemy that we face right now in Iraq, and our leaders going into this fight do their troops a disservice by not studying (studying, vice just reading) the men who have gone before us. We have been fighting on this planet for 5000 years and we should take advantage of their experience.**
|
Given that there is still no consensus among civilians and the armed services as to the nature of the current war (just as there was no consensus over the nature of the war in Vietnam) I do not know to what extent the army’s general officers should be excoriated for not giving better advice to civilians regarding the future of warfare.
As Michael R. Gordon and Bernard E. Trainor argued in
COBRA II , Secretary of Defense Weinberger was contemptuously dismissive of the army’s initial operational plans and he hectored planners until they gave him what he wanted rather than what they felt was needed. Who is to say that, had those recommendations received the discussion they merited, that OIF would have unfolded differently and that the insurgency would have been vastly different in size, scope, and duration? That is to say, is the ‘lesson’ of the war that the generals did not speak up or that the civilians did not listen?
_______________________________________________
* Mark Skinner Watson,
Chief of Staff: Prewar Plans and Preparations [The United States Army in World War II: The War Department] (1950; reprint, Washington, D.C.: United States Army Center of Military History, 1985), 8-9.
** James Mattis, unpublished and undated email to undisclosed recipient at the National War College, as quoted in Williamson Murray and Richard Hart Sinnreich, “Introduction,”
The Past as Prologue: The Importance of History to the Military Profession ed. Murry and Sinnreich (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 7.