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Abstract
This article explores a perennial theme in the literature of strategic studies: the relationship between military theory and the military profession. It begins with a conceptual analysis of this relationship. It then investigates what military theorists themselves have had to say about the utility of their craft. It concludes by assessing the actual influence of military theory on selected individuals and institutions. The individuals are George S. Patton, Jr., and Ulysses S. Grant. The institutions are the United States Army and the United States Air Force in the late twentieth century. The fundamental finding is suggested in the title: military theory can indeed be quite useful in the maturation of military commanders and in the development of martial institutions, but it is not always necessary and by no means perfect. It should thus be studied assiduously but used with caution.
Acknowledgements
This article is derived from a paper of same title given at the May 2004 meeting of the Society for Military History. A much-abbreviated version appeared as ‘On the nature on military theory’ in Charles D.Lutes, Peter Hays et al. (eds), Toward a Theory of Spacepower: Selected Essays (Washington, DC: National Defense UP 2011) 19–35. I am indebted to Colin Gray for his encouragement to seek publication, to James Schneider for suggesting several of the functions of theory herein addressed, and to the helpful comments of an anonymous reader.
Notes
This work was authored as part of the Contributor's official duties as an Employee of the United States Government and is therefore a work of the United States Government. In accordance with 17 U.S.C. 105, no copyright protection is available for such works under US Law.1George Washington, Eighth Annual Address to Congress, 7 Dec. 1796, cited from John C. Fitzpatrick, (ed.), The Writings of George Washington from the Original Manuscript Sources (Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office 1940), 317.
2 Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language (New York: Gramercy Books 1996), 1967.
3Carl von Clausewitz, On War, ed. and trans. Michael Howard and Peter Paret (Princeton UP 1989), 75.
4Clausewitz, On War, 87.
5Perhaps the most spirited assault on Clausewitz's notion that war is an extension of politics is found in John Keegan, A History of Warfare (New York: Knopf 1993), 3–60. For an equally spirited rejoinder, see Christopher Bassford, ‘John Keegan and the Grand Tradition of Trashing Clausewitz: A Polemic’, War in History 1 (Nov. 1994), 319–36.
6Clausewitz, On War, 128.
7Clausewitz, On War, 611–37.
8For a fascinating description of how Copernicus developed his new view of the universe, see Thomas S. Kuhn, The Copernican Revolution: Planetary Astronomy in the Development of Western Thought (1957; reprint, Cambridge: Harvard UP 1999), 134–84.
9The roots and early study of operational art are succinctly described in David M. Glantz, Soviet Military Operational Art: In Pursuit of Deep Battle (London: Frank Cass 1991), 17–38.
10Albert Einstein's lead essay in the collection Science et Synthèse (Paris: Gallimard 1967), 28 cited in Gerald Holton, Thematic Origins of Scientific Thought: Kepler to Einstein (Cambridge: Harvard UP 1980), 357.
11J.J. O'Connor and E.F. Robertson, ‘Mathematical Discovery of Planets’, <www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/HistTopics/Neptune_and_Pluto.html>.
12Mikhail Tukhachevskii, ‘The Red Army's New (1936) Field Service Regulations’, in Richard Simpkin, Deep Battle: The Brainchild of Marshal Tukhachevskii (London: Brassey's Defence Publishers 1987), 170.
13Michael Howard, ‘Military Science in an Age of Peace’, Journal of the Royal United Services Institute for Defence Studies 119 (March 1974), 7.
14Holton attempts to capture the essential qualities of scientific genius in Thematic Origins of Scientific Thought, 353–80. His major focus in this investigation is the genius's ability to work in the mental realm of apparent opposites. Although I am not equating the ability to formulate theory with genius, I am arguing that such formulation requires many of the same qualities that Holton describes.
15‘War is a matter of vital importance to the State; the province of life or death; the road to survival or ruin. It is mandatory that it be thoroughly studied.’ Sun Tzu, The Art of War, trans. Samuel B. Griffith (New York: OUP 1963), 63. ‘War is not pastime; it is no mere joy in daring and winning, no place for irresponsible enthusiasts. It is a serious means to a serious end….’ Clausewitz, On War, 86.
16Clausewitz, On War, 140. In the Paret-Howard translation, the phrase reads, ‘A positive doctrine is unattainable’. The text comes from a sub-chapter heading, ‘Eine positive Lehre ist unmöglich’. Carl von Clausewitz, Vom Kriege, 19th ed. (ed.), Werner Hahlweg (Bonn: Ferd. Dümmlers Verlag 1991), 289. The rendering of the German Lehre as doctrine is entirely appropriate. However, in light of the very specific military connotation that the term doctrine has developed since the early 1970s as being officially sanctioned principles that guide the actions of armed forces, I have chosen to render Lehre as the somewhat more general term, teaching.
17Clausewitz, On War, 140.
18Clausewitz, On War, 141.
19Ibid., 146–7.
20Carl Becker, ‘Everyman His Own Historian’, American Historical Review 37 (Jan. 1932), 221–36; reprinted in Carl L. Becker, Everyman His Own Historian: Essays on History and Politics (New York: F.S. Crofts 1935), 233–55.
21Baron de Jomini, The Art of War [1838], tr. G.H. Mendell and W.P. Craighill (1862; reprint, Westport, CT: Greenwood Press 1971), 321.
22Jomini, Art of War, 323.
23Clausewitz, On War, 89. Clausewitz's description of the three elements provides a strong indication of his lack of dogmatism. ‘These three tendencies are like three different codes of law, deep-rooted in their subject and yet variable in their relationship to one another. A theory that ignores any one of them or seeks to fix an arbitrary relationship between them would conflict with reality to such an extent that for this reason alone it would be totally useless’.
24Jomini, Art of War, 322. The maxims themselves are found on p.70.
25Jomini, Art of War, 16–39. The chapter is titled, ‘The Relation of Diplomacy to War.’
26Clausewitz, On War, 97. In fairness, Clausewitz immediately softened this seemingly absolute statement with the qualification, ‘we can only say the destruction of the enemy is more effective if we can assume that all other conditions are equal’.
27Henry M. Wriston, ‘Foreword' in Henry E. Eccles, Logistics in the National Defense (1959; reprint, Washington DC: HQU S Marine Corps 1989), vii.
28J.C. Wylie, Military Strategy: A General Theory of Power Control (1967; reprint, Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press nd), 31.
29Theory is also an important element of military pedagogy, but discussion of this relationship has been omitted for brevity's sake.
30Excerpts of the lecture are found in Roger H. Nye, The Patton Mind: The Professional Development of an Extraordinary Leader (Garden City, NY: Avery Publishing Group 1993), 77–8. All quotations are from the published version, George S. Patton, Jr., ‘Success in War’, Infantry Journal 38 (Jan. 1931), 20–24.
31Patton, ‘Success in War’, 22.
32Ibid.
33Ibid., 23.
34Ibid., 24.
35Napoleon's Maxim No. LXXVIII, cited in The Military Maxims of Napoleon, tr. George C. D'Aguilar, introduction and commentary by David Chandler (New York: Macmillan 1988), 240.
36Nye, Patton Mind, 14–15. Patton, a dyslexic and a notorious misspeller, rendered Hamley as ‘Hemley’.
37Nye, Patton Mind, 67–8.
38For Patton's initial encounter with Clausewitz, see Nye, Patton Mind, 27–8.
39Nye, Patton Mind, 72.
40Ardant du Picq, ‘Battle Studies’, in Roots of Strategy, Book 2 (Harrisburg, PA: Stackpole Books 1987), 121–2.
41For a detailed exposition of this aspect of Patton's genius, see Bradford J. ‘BJ’ Shwedo, XIX Tactical Air Command and ULTRA: Patton's Force Enhancers in the 1944 Campaign in France (Maxwell AFB, AL: Air UP 2001).
42Cover letter to Third Army After Action Report for Operations in Europe in World War II, 15 May 1945.
43Harold R. Winton, Corps Commanders of the Bulge: Six American Generals and Victory in the Ardennes (Lawrence: UP of Kansas 2007), 230.
44What follows is based on Winton, Corps Commanders of the Bulge, 217–26.
45‘Strength of character can degenerate into obstinacy. The line between them is often hard to draw in a specific case, but surely it is easy to distinguish them in theory.’ Clausewitz, On War, 108.
46On Patton's attitude toward the USSR at the end of World War II, see Nye, Patton Mind, 149 and Carlo D'Este, Patton: A Genius for War (New York: HarperCollins 1995), 735–6.
47See, for example, Martin Blumenson (ed.), The Patton Papers 1940–1945 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin 1974), 559–60, 609–10, and 620.
48Clausewitz, On War, 147.
49In the four years Grant was a cadet, roughly 70 per cent of the curriculum was devoted to mathematics, science, and engineering, while roughly 30 per cent went to all other subjects. James L. Morrison, Jr., ‘The Best School in the World’: West Point in the Pre-Civil War Years, 1833–1866 (Kent, OH: The Kent State UP 1986), 91.
50George Peterson Winton, Jr., ‘Ante-Bellum Military Instruction of West Point Officers and Its Influence upon Confederate Military Organization and Operations’, PhD dissertation, University of South Carolina, May 1972, 24, 234
51William S. McFeely, Grant: A Biography (New York: W.W. Norton 1981), 15.
52Ulysses S. Grant, Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant (2 vols: 1885; reprint, New York: Bonanza Books nd), 1: 39
53 Register of Graduates and Former Cadets (West Point, NY: United States Military Academy 2000), 1198.
54Arthur L. Conger, The Rise of U.S. Grant (1931; reprint, New York: Da Capo Press 1996). For information on Conger's productive career as a soldier and military educator, see Carol Reardon, Soldiers and Scholars: The U.S. Army and the Uses of Military History, 1865– 1920 (Lawrence: UP of Kansas 1990), 69–75, 78, and 177–9.
55Grant, Memoirs, 1:249–50.
56T. Harry Williams, McClellan, Sherman, and Grant (1962; reprint, Westport, CT: Greenwood Press 1976), 59.
57What follows on the Henry–Donelson Campaign is based on Conger, Rise of U.S. Grant, 155–77.
58Unless otherwise noted, this account of Grant at Shiloh is based on Conger, Rise of U.S. Grant, 238–56.
59Bruce Catton, Grant Moves South (Boston: Little, Brown 1960), 237–8.
60What follows is based on Conger, Rise of U.S. Grant, 306–27.
61What follows is based on Bruce Catton, The Army of the Potomac: A Stillness at Appomattox (Garden City, NY: Doubleday 1953), 91–2.
62On the general tendency of European soldiers to disregard the experience of the American Civil War, see Jay Luvaas, The Military Legacy of the Civil War: The European Inheritance (1959; reprint, Lawrence: UP of Kansas 1988). The great exception, as Luvaas notes, was the dynamic and prolific soldier-scholar, Col. G.F.R. Henderson, whose two-volume study of Stonewall Jackson captured the imagination of a generation of British officers.
63J.F.C. Fuller, The Generalship of Ulysses S. Grant (1929; reprint, New York: Da Capo Press nd), 396–7.
64Conger, Rise of U.S. Grant, 273.
65James Russell Young, Around the World with General Grant (2 vols: New York: 1879), 2: 352–53, 615, as cited in Brooks D. Simpson's introduction to Conger, Rise of U.S. Grant, x.
66Clausewitz, On War, 136.
67Unless otherwise indicated, this account of Cold Harbor is based on Bruce Catton, Grant Takes Command (Boston: Little, Brown 1968), 258–74.
68Casualty figures from Vincent J. Esposito (ed.), The West Point Atlas of American Wars (2 vols: New York: Praeger 1967), 1:136.
69Grant, Memoirs, 2:276.
70For DePuy's pivotal role in the formulation of the 1976 edition of FM 100-5 and the reaction thereto, see Romie L. Brownlee and William J. Mullen III, Changing an Army: An Oral History of General William E. DePuy, USA Retired (Carlisle Barracks, PA: United States Military History Institute nd), 187–9 and John L. Romjue, From Active Defense to AirLand Battle: The Development of Army Doctrine 1973–1982 (Fort Monroe, VA: US Army Training and Doctrine Command 1984), 3–21.
71Department of the Army, Field Manual 100-5, Operations (Washington DC 1982), 1-1, 1-4, 2-1, and 11-1.
72FM 100-5, Operations (1982), 2-1, 2-8, 2-8.
73Ibid., 7-13 through 7-17.
74Ibid., 2–3.
75Department of the Army, Field Manual 100-5, Operations (Washington DC 1986), 10.
76Clausewitz, On War, 76. This definition, as the drafters of the manual were well aware, was much more conceptual than Jomini's description of strategy as ‘the art of making war upon the map’. Jomini, Art of War, 69.
77Interview with Professor Dennis M. Drew, School of Advanced Air and Space Studies, 11 March 2004. In addition to an extremely detailed history of USAF operations in the Korean War, Futrell produced a two-volume compilation titled, Ideas, Concepts Doctrine: Basic Thinking in the United States Air Force (Maxwell AFB, AL: Air UP 1989).
78Department of the Air Force, Air Force Manual 1-1, Basic Aerospace Doctrine of the United States Air Force (2 vols: Washington DC 1992), 1: v.
79For a detailed assessment of this ground-breaking work, see Harold R. Winton, ‘Reflections on the Air Force's New Manual’, Military Review 72 (Nov. 1992), 20–31.
80AFM 1-1, Basic Aerospace Doctrine (1992), 2: i.
81Ibid., 1: 1-2.
82Ibid., 1: 9.
83Ibid. 1: 12.
84The subsequent statement of Air Force basic doctrine, published in 1997, reverted to the traditional format. See Department of the Air Force, Air Force Doctrine Document 1, Air Force Basic Doctrine (Maxwell AFB, AL: HQ, Air Force Doctrine Center 1997).