Does military culture matter?

Orbis

Volumn 43, Issue 1, 1999, Pages 27-42

  Murray, Williamson ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0033472987     PISSN: 00304387     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1016/S0030-4387(99)80055-6     Document Type: Article

References (67)

1. 1 For a graphic account of the differences between military cultures, and their resulting effects on the battlefield, see Samuel W. Mitcham, Jr., Rommel's Greatest Victory: The Desert Fox and the Fall of Tobruk, 1942 (Novato, Calif.: Presidio Press, 1998). See also Brian Bond, British Military Policy Between the Two World Wars (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980); MacGregor Knox, Mussolini Unleashed: Politics and Strategy in Fascist Italy's Last War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982); and particularly, Andrew Gordon, The Rules of the Game: Jutland and British Naval Command (London: John Murray, 1997).
2. 1 For a graphic account of the differences between military cultures, and their resulting effects on the battlefield, see Samuel W. Mitcham, Jr., Rommel's Greatest Victory: The Desert Fox and the Fall of Tobruk, 1942 (Novato, Calif.: Presidio Press, 1998). See also Brian Bond, British Military Policy Between the Two World Wars (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980); MacGregor Knox, Mussolini Unleashed: Politics and Strategy in Fascist Italy's Last War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982); and particularly, Andrew Gordon, The Rules of the Game: Jutland and British Naval Command (London: John Murray, 1997).
3. 1 For a graphic account of the differences between military cultures, and their resulting effects on the battlefield, see Samuel W. Mitcham, Jr., Rommel's Greatest Victory: The Desert Fox and the Fall of Tobruk, 1942 (Novato, Calif.: Presidio Press, 1998). See also Brian Bond, British Military Policy Between the Two World Wars (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980); MacGregor Knox, Mussolini Unleashed: Politics and Strategy in Fascist Italy's Last War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982); and particularly, Andrew Gordon, The Rules of the Game: Jutland and British Naval Command (London: John Murray, 1997).
4. 1 For a graphic account of the differences between military cultures, and their resulting effects on the battlefield, see Samuel W. Mitcham, Jr., Rommel's Greatest Victory: The Desert Fox and the Fall of Tobruk, 1942 (Novato, Calif.: Presidio Press, 1998). See also Brian Bond, British Military Policy Between the Two World Wars (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980); MacGregor Knox, Mussolini Unleashed: Politics and Strategy in Fascist Italy's Last War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982); and particularly, Andrew Gordon, The Rules of the Game: Jutland and British Naval Command (London: John Murray, 1997).
5. 2 See Allan R. Millett and Williamson Murray, eds., Military Effectiveness, 3 vols. (London: Unwin Hyman, 1988); and Williamson Murray and Allan R. Millett, eds., Military Innovation in the Interwar Period (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996).
6. 2 See Allan R. Millett and Williamson Murray, eds., Military Effectiveness, 3 vols. (London: Unwin Hyman, 1988); and Williamson Murray and Allan R. Millett, eds., Military Innovation in the Interwar Period (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996).
7. 3 See in particular Michael Howard, "The Use and Abuse of Military History," Journal of the Royal United Services Institute, January 1962, pp. 4-10.
8. 4 Lt. Gen. Paul Van Riper, USMC (ret.) to the author in conversation, July 1995.
9. 5 Changes made in the 1920s to requirements for command positions were intended simply to aid the navy's fledgling aviation community, but as a result, by the late 1930s the navy had become the most aviation-minded in the world. See Barry Watts and Williamson Murray, "Military Innovation in Peacetime," in Military Innovation, pp. 383-405.
10. 6 Along these lines it is the opinion of the author that the efforts at cultural and intellectual change that Gen. Al Gray set in motion when he was commandant of the Marine Corps in the late 1980s (the creation of the Marine Corps University, the Commandant's Reading List, and FMFM 1 [Warfighting], among others) are only now beginning to exert their full impact not only on the senior marine leadership, but also on the larger body of the officer corps of that service.
11. 7 See Don M. Snider's discussion of military heterogeneity in his article in this cluster.
12. 8 The basic doctrinal manual for the Luftwaffe, Die Luftkriegführung [Waging Air War] (Berlin: n.p., 1966), for example, is a brilliant discussion of the operational and tactical framework within which air war has taken place (far superior to anything the U.S. Air Force has ever produced), but it ends with the note that sections on logistics and intelligence had yet to be written. They were never written, and the Luftwaffe's performance in World War II lived up to its sister services' appalling performance in those areas.
13. 9 MacGregor Knox, Mussolini Unleashed, p. 16.
14. 10 Ibid., p. 57.
15. 11 The Carabinieri, Italy's militarized police, have been regarded as the elite formation of the Italian military, a sure indication of the emphasis on the military's internal role over its external one.
16. 12 See Williamson Murray, "Why Did It Take the North So Long?" Military History Quarterly, Summer 1989, pp. 24-33.
17. 13 See Williamson Murray, "Computers in, Clausewitz Out," National Interest, Summer 1997, pp. 57-64.
18. 14 Perhaps an experience such as catastrophe can result in great change in the culture of military organizations, as occurred in Germany in 1945, but one suspects such a change reflected the changes in the larger political culture of German society after the war.
19. 15 See Williamson Murray, The Change in the European Balance of Power, 1938-1939: The Path to Ruin (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1984), chap. 1.
20. 16 While the general staff tradition had played a major role in the German army's inventing of modern war between 1916 and 1918, it remained a subculture within the army until 1920. See Timothy Lupfer, The Dynamics of Doctrine: The Changes in German Tactical Doctrine During the First World War (Fort Leavenworth, Kans.: Government Printing Office, 1981); and Martin Samuels, Command or Control? Command, Training and Tactics in the British and German Armies, 1888-1918 (London: Frank Cass, 1995).
21. 16 While the general staff tradition had played a major role in the German army's inventing of modern war between 1916 and 1918, it remained a subculture within the army until 1920. See Timothy Lupfer, The Dynamics of Doctrine: The Changes in German Tactical Doctrine During the First World War (Fort Leavenworth, Kans.: Government Printing Office, 1981); and Martin Samuels, Command or Control? Command, Training and Tactics in the British and German Armies, 1888-1918 (London: Frank Cass, 1995).
22. 17 James S. Corum, The Roots of Blitzkrieg: Hans von Seeckt and German Military Reform (Lawrence, Kans.: University of Kansas Press, 1992), especially chap. 4; Williamson Murray, "Armored Warfare," in Military Innovation, p. 20.
23. 17 James S. Corum, The Roots of Blitzkrieg: Hans von Seeckt and German Military Reform (Lawrence, Kans.: University of Kansas Press, 1992), especially chap. 4; Williamson Murray, "Armored Warfare," in Military Innovation, p. 20.
24. 18 Die Truppenführung (Berlin: n.p., 1933); quotation from the translation, Troop Leadership, U.S. War Department typescript (Washington, D.C.: 1936), p. 1.
25. 18 Die Truppenführung (Berlin: n.p., 1933); quotation from the translation, Troop Leadership, U.S. War Department typescript (Washington, D.C.: 1936), p. 1.
26. 19 A recent biography of Rommel, Sir David Fraser's Knights Cross: A Life of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel (London: Harper Collins, 1993), underlines the extraordinary interest and effort that Rommel devoted to the study of military history and his profession.
27. 20 See in particular, Robert Doughty, Seeds of Disaster: The Development of French Army Doctrine, 1919-1939 (Hamden, Conn.: Shoe String Press, 1985).
28. 21 The Royal Air Force's air staff explicitly stated in 1924 that an air force can "either bomb military objectives in populated areas from the beginning of the war, with the objective of obtaining a decision by moral effect . . . or, alternatively, they can be used in the first instance to attack enemy aerodromes with the aim to gain some measure of air superiority. . . . The latter alternative is the method which the lessons of military history seem to recommend, but the air staff are convinced that the former is the correct one." Public Record Office AIR 20/40, Air Staff Memorandum No. 11 A, March 1924.
29. 22 Andrew Krepenevich's The Army in Vietnam (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986) underlines the unwillingness of the U.S. Army to change its paradigm in accordance with the actual conditions of war in Southeast Asia. Timothy Travers, in his The Kitting Ground: The British Army, the Western Front and the Emergence of Modem Warfare, 1900-1918 (London: Allen and Unwin, 1987), is also particularly good on the similar inability of the British high command in World War I to adapt to the real conditions of war.
30. 22 Andrew Krepenevich's The Army in Vietnam (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986) underlines the unwillingness of the U.S. Army to change its paradigm in accordance with the actual conditions of war in Southeast Asia. Timothy Travers, in his The Kitting Ground: The British Army, the Western Front and the Emergence of Modem Warfare, 1900-1918 (London: Allen and Unwin, 1987), is also particularly good on the similar inability of the British high command in World War I to adapt to the real conditions of war.
31. 23 Even as late as 1941 the senior leadership of the RAF was arguing that a long-range escort fighter was technologically impossible. Sir Charles Webster and Noble Frankland, The Strategic Air Offensive Against Germany, vol. 1, Preparations (London: HMSO, 1961), p. 177.
32. 24 For a discussion of the air battles of 1943, see Williamson Murray, Luftwaffe (Baltimore, Md.: Nautical and Aviation Press, 1985), chaps. 5 and 6.
33. 25 See Martin Van Creveld, Fighting Power: German and U.S. Army Performance, 1939-1945 (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1982).
34. 26 See in particular Michael D. Dobler, Closing with the Enemy: How GIs Fought the War in Europe, 1944-1945 (Lawrence, Kans.: University of Kansas Press, 1994).
35. 27 To compare that with the performance of the British army in World War II, see Williamson Murray, "British Military Effectiveness," in Military Effectiveness, vol. 3, chap. 3.
36. 28 William Odom, After the Trenches: The Transformation of U.S. Army Combat Doctrine, 1918-1939 (Lawrence, Kans.: University of Kansas Press, forthcoming).
37. 29 As James Corum pointed out in a paper presented at the Dueling Doctrines conference sponsored by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (Washington, D.C., June 1998), there was a strong French influence on the American military since the 1840s and strong German influence since the 1870s.
38. 30 After World War II, the Army War College moved to Carlisle Barracks, Pa., while the National War College took over its buildings at Fort McNair.
39. 31 Over the past thirty years there has apparently been only one admiral who served on the faculty at Newport. Since it is hard enough for the navy to justify sending its best officers as students to Newport, this is not surprising.
40. 32 E.B. Potter. Nimitz (Annapolis, Md.: U.S. Naval Institute Press, 1976), p. 136.
41. 33 Barry Watts and Williamson Murray, "Military Innovation in Peacetime," in Military Innovation, pp. 383-405. Similarly, Admiral Spruance chose to come back from command in the Pacific to become president of the Naval War College.
42. 34 The one exception to this might be the German military, where Nazi ideology came to have a greater influence over the officer corps as the war approached, and over German military effectiveness throughout World War II. In particular, see Omer Bartov, Hitler's Army: Soldiers, Nazis, and War in the Third Reich (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991).
43. 35 See the discussion of the third day's mission against Baghdad flown during the Gulf War, in Williamson Murray, The Air Campaign in the Persian Gulf (Baltimore, Md.: Nautical and Aviation Press, 1996), pp. 86-96.
44. 36 Only the shattering experience of major fleet combat in the Solomons forced the navy toward a broader, less mechanistic view of fleet operations.
45. 37 Field Manual 100-5, U.S. Army Blueprint for Air/Land Battle, 1986, p. 16. The Marine Corps Manual FMFM 1, Warfighting, represented an even more emphatic statement of such a point of view.
46. 38 Adm. William Owens (former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs), "System of systems," Armed Forces Journal (January 1996), p. 47. See also, Thomas Duffy, "Breakthrough Could Give Forces Total Command of Future Battlefield," Inside the Navy, January 23,1995; and Peter Grier, "Preparing for 21st-Century Information War," Government Executive (August 1995), pp. 130-32.
47. 38 Adm. William Owens (former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs), "System of systems," Armed Forces Journal (January 1996), p. 47. See also, Thomas Duffy, "Breakthrough Could Give Forces Total Command of Future Battlefield," Inside the Navy, January 23,1995; and Peter Grier, "Preparing for 21st-Century Information War," Government Executive (August 1995), pp. 130-32.
48. 38 Adm. William Owens (former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs), "System of systems," Armed Forces Journal (January 1996), p. 47. See also, Thomas Duffy, "Breakthrough Could Give Forces Total Command of Future Battlefield," Inside the Navy, January 23,1995; and Peter Grier, "Preparing for 21st-Century Information War," Government Executive (August 1995), pp. 130-32.
49. 39 Department of the Air Force, New World Vistas: Air and Space Power for the 21st Century (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1995).
50. 40 Vice Adm. Arthur K. Cebrowski, USN, and John J. Garstka, "Network-Centric Warfare, Its Origin and Future," Proceedings of the U.S. Naval Institute, January 1998, p. 33. In Cebrowski's defense, he does at least argue for a bottom-up rather than a top-down approach to command and control. But in the world of economics, where he draws his examples, no one is trying to kill, maim, or mutilate his opponents. For a devastating reply, see Col. T.X. Hammes, USMC, "War Isn't A Rational Business," Proceedings of the U.S. Naval Institute, July 1998, pp. 22-25.
51. 40 Vice Adm. Arthur K. Cebrowski, USN, and John J. Garstka, "Network-Centric Warfare, Its Origin and Future," Proceedings of the U.S. Naval Institute, January 1998, p. 33. In Cebrowski's defense, he does at least argue for a bottom-up rather than a top-down approach to command and control. But in the world of economics, where he draws his examples, no one is trying to kill, maim, or mutilate his opponents. For a devastating reply, see Col. T.X. Hammes, USMC, "War Isn't A Rational Business," Proceedings of the U.S. Naval Institute, July 1998, pp. 22-25.
52. 41 Yet at the end of that war game, the navy's campaign had entirely failed to achieve the national objectives: despite massive bombardment by U.S. air power that destroyed the enemy's military forces and wrecked its country, the enemy remained defiant and unbroken. To learn how close to replicating the real world the war game was, see Anton Lieven, Chechnya, Tombstone of Russian Power (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998).
53. 42 Barry D. Watts, Clausewitzian Friction and Future War (Washington, D.C.: National Defense University Press, 1996), p. 132.
54. 43 See Williamson Murray, "Grading the War Colleges," National Interest, Winter 1986/1987, pp. 12-19; and, Williamson Murray, "How Not to Advance Professional Military Education," Strategic Review, Summer 1997, pp. 73-77. For the current state of U.S. professional military education, see Lt. Gen. Don Holder and Williamson Murray, "Professional Military Education in the Next Century," forthcoming in Joint Forces Quarterly.
55. 43 See Williamson Murray, "Grading the War Colleges," National Interest, Winter 1986/1987, pp. 12-19; and, Williamson Murray, "How Not to Advance Professional Military Education," Strategic Review, Summer 1997, pp. 73-77. For the current state of U.S. professional military education, see Lt. Gen. Don Holder and Williamson Murray, "Professional Military Education in the Next Century," forthcoming in Joint Forces Quarterly.
56. 43 See Williamson Murray, "Grading the War Colleges," National Interest, Winter 1986/1987, pp. 12-19; and, Williamson Murray, "How Not to Advance Professional Military Education," Strategic Review, Summer 1997, pp. 73-77. For the current state of U.S. professional military education, see Lt. Gen. Don Holder and Williamson Murray, "Professional Military Education in the Next Century," forthcoming in Joint Forces Quarterly.
57. 44 U.S. Air Force, Air Force Basic Doctrine, Air Force Doctrine Document 1, September 1997. Among the astonishing statements made in the manual is that decentralized command has not withstood the test of time.
58. 45 To gain a sense of the joint doctrine, consult "Joint Doctrine, Capstone and Keystone Primer," July 15, 1997; Joint Pub 0-2, "Unified Action, Armed Forces," February 24, 1995; and Joint Pub 3-0, "Doctrine for Joint Operations," February 1, 1995.
59. 45 To gain a sense of the joint doctrine, consult "Joint Doctrine, Capstone and Keystone Primer," July 15, 1997; Joint Pub 0-2, "Unified Action, Armed Forces," February 24, 1995; and Joint Pub 3-0, "Doctrine for Joint Operations," February 1, 1995.
60. 45 To gain a sense of the joint doctrine, consult "Joint Doctrine, Capstone and Keystone Primer," July 15, 1997; Joint Pub 0-2, "Unified Action, Armed Forces," February 24, 1995; and Joint Pub 3-0, "Doctrine for Joint Operations," February 1, 1995.
61. 46 Joint Vision 2010 (Washington, D.C., 1996), p. ii. Lt.Gen. Paul Van Riper, USMC (ret.), to the author in July 1997.
62. 47 For instance, "Commanders will be expected to reduce the cost of military operations, from environmental disruption in training to collateral damage in combat." JV2010, p. 8. "Full spectrum" quote on p. 19.
63. 48 Warfighting, pp. 1-2.
64. 49 Benjamin F. Schemmer, "Principled Disobedience," editorial, Strategic Review, Summer 1998, p. 3.
65. 50 André Beaufre, 1940, The Fall of France (New York, 1968), p. 47.
66. 51 Col. David Fastebend, "Toning Down the Silence," letter to the editor, Army, July 1998, pp. 5-6.
67. 52 MacGregor Knox, "Continuity and Revolution in Strategy," in The Making of Strategy, Rulers, States, and War, ed. Williamson Murray and MacGregor Knox (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), p. 645.