Armed Forces Journal just published Lt. Col Paul Yingling’s A Failure in Generalship. The article is critical of Army Leadership and indirectly critical of the President. While it is coolly analytical in tone, the article is evidently passionate.
I will post comments over the next few days. In the meantime please read the entire article. Here are a few extracts – with some emphasis of my own.
For the second time in a generation, the United States faces the prospect of defeat at the hands of an insurgency. In April 1975, the U.S. fled the Republic of Vietnam, abandoning our allies to their fate at the hands of North Vietnamese communists. In 2007, Iraq's grave and deteriorating condition offers diminishing hope for an American victory and portends risk of an even wider and more destructive regional war.
These debacles are not attributable to individual failures, but rather to a crisis in an entire institution: America's general officer corps. America's generals have failed to prepare our armed forces for war and advise civilian authorities on the application of force to achieve the aims of policy. The argument that follows consists of three elements. First, generals have a responsibility to society to provide policymakers with a correct estimate of strategic probabilities. Second, America's generals in Vietnam and Iraq failed to perform this responsibility. Third, remedying the crisis in American generalship requires the intervention of Congress.
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Armies do not fight wars; nations fight wars. War is not a military activity conducted by soldiers, but rather a social activity that involves entire nations. Prussian military theorist Carl von Clausewitz noted that passion, probability and policy each play their role in war. Any understanding of war that ignores one of these elements is fundamentally flawed.
The passion of the people is necessary to endure the sacrifices inherent in war. Regardless of the system of government, the people supply the blood and treasure required to prosecute war. The statesman must stir these passions to a level commensurate with the popular sacrifices required…. The greatest error the statesman can make is to commit his nation to a great conflict without mobilizing popular passions to a level commensurate with the stakes of the conflict.
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The most tragic error a general can make is to assume without much reflection that wars of the future will look much like wars of the past....
After visualizing the conditions of future combat, the general is responsible for explaining to civilian policymakers the demands of future combat and the risks entailed in failing to meet those demands…. The general who speaks too loudly of preparing for war while the nation is at peace places at risk his position and status. However, the general who speaks too softly places at risk the security of his country.
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While the physical courage of America's generals is not in doubt, there is less certainty regarding their moral courage. In almost surreal language, professional military men blame their recent lack of candor on the intimidating management style of their civilian masters. Now that the public is immediately concerned with the crisis in Iraq, some of our generals are finding their voices. They may have waited too long.
Did LTC Yingling “shoot himself in the foot”, i.e. end his career with this article? James Joyner suggests that he hasn’t:
An interesting critique and one that has a long tradition in modern militaries, which tolerate respectful dissent as part of their constant learning process. Indeed, a young Winston Churchill first came to public attention with a series of essays his wrote as a second lieutenant for the London Daily Telegraph criticizing the tactics used in the India frontiers wars. The resulting 1897 book, Story of the Malakand Field Force, was derided by some as “A Subaltern’s Advice to the Generals” but it was nonetheless read.
I respect him for taking the risk and telling the truth as he sees it. According to Mt. 18:8 the risk is worth taking.
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