‘Dreams of Battle’: A Small Window into the Evolution of us Army Tactical Ethics, 1921–2009

Abstract

E. D. Swinton's The Defence of Duffer's Drift: A Lesson in the Fundamentals of Small Unit Tactics, originally published in 1904, uses the device of a series of recurring but progressive nightmares to teach a set of tactical lessons that Swinton derived from his service in the Second Anglo-Boer War. Now a minor classic, The Defence of Duffer's Drift has had an enduring and international impact. The book's popularity has also led to the publication of several narratives inspired by the original, many of them authored by serving members of the US Army. Although this subset of the ‘progeny’ of Swinton's work are focused on teaching tactical lessons, read together they provide a small but fascinating window into the evolution of the US Army's understanding of the ethics of armed conflict at the tactical level. The texts that are the focus of this paper span a period of 88 years, covering the post-First World War emphasis on positional warfare, through the shift to a focus on large-scale mechanized warfare that reached its apogee in the Cold War, to the early approach to fighting insurgents in Iraq and, ultimately, to the population-centric approach of counterinsurgency propounded by General Petraeus and his advisers.

Key WOrds:

• Tactics
• tactical ethics
• narratives
• positional warfare
• mechanized warfare
• counterinsurgency warfare

Notes

1. Swinton ended his military career as a major general, and is best known for his role in the development and adoption of the tank.

2. The website http://regimentalrogue.com/boobysbluffs/booby0.htm identifies the author as Brigadier General William A. Mitchell. Because I have been unable to corroborate this claim, I have cited the book using the name under which it was published, Major Single List, but there is sufficient likelihood that the author of the book was a serving member of the US Army to include it here.

3. Worthy of mention is John F. Antal's (1991) Armor Attacks. Written by the then executive officer of the 1st Battalion, 63d Armor (OPFOR) at the National Training Center. Armor Attacks is in many ways very similar to The Defense of Hill 781. Due to these strong similarities and space limitations, I have not included Antal's book in my analysis.

4. It was with some difficulty that I chose this narrative over another of The Defence of Duffers Drift's progeny, Christopher D. Kolenda's (2012) well-executed The Counterinsurgency Challenge. The Defense of Jisr al-Doreaa is more explicitly focused at the tactical level, which made its inclusion seem slightly more apt.

5. These include: reacting with revulsion to the mayor kissing him on the cheek; speaking directly to local women; displaying the soles of his feet in a meeting with the local Imam; rejecting offered chai; rejecting offered food (sheep's head); and eating with his ‘offensive hand’ (Burgoyne & Marckwardt 2009: 37–41).

6. The principle of discrimination applies also to surrendered combatants, and The Battle of Booby's Bluffs does refer briefly to the taking of enemy prisoners (List 1922: 112, 133), but these references are too fleeting to seriously reinforce the principle of discrimination.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Deane-Peter Baker

Deane-Peter Baker (PhD, Macquarie) is a Senior Lecturer in the International and Political Studies programme in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of New South Wales, Canberra. He teaches military ethics to Australian Defence Force Cadets and Midshipmen on the campus of the Australian Defence Force Academy, for which the University of New South Wales is the academic service provider. Dr Baker is also a Research Fellow in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Johannesburg.