Lying to Ourselves: Dishonesty in the Army Profession

Strategic Studies Institute ^ | February 17, 2015 | Dr. Leonard Wong, Dr. Stephen J. Gerras

[LambSlave]

The Susan Rice problem is a real one, and one that is an inherent feature of our Constitutional Republic. The founding fathers were afraid of giving the Army too much power because of the threat of military coup, so they elected to have ultimate civilian leadership of the Army. Unfortunately, the great generals of history were great because they were gifted men who thought and fought the three levels of warfare simultaneously (tactical, operational, strategic) better than their adversaries to attain a clear end state that defined victory as a clear outcome that furthered their national interest. When generals have to fight wars with no input to the strategic (to include policy) objectives, and now with considerable civilian guidance on the operational art (the military means of best attaining the policy/strategic objectives) they cannot win wars, just battles.

For example, in Vietnam our enemy's strategic objective quickly became to weaken our political will to fight by using the media to distort our progress (Tet is a great example of this) and reduce civilian support (interviews, focus on American casualties, narrative that this was a civil war and that we were not wanted, etc.) while simply surviving at the operational/tactical level. If the generals had been allowed to counter this, by restricting media access and message, by having a pro-American international media voice to strongly counter these lies, by utilizing our political capital to pressure our allies to condemn the Communists, etc. they could have attained the same success at the strategic level that they attained at the tactical and operational level, in my humble opinion. For this reason, it bothers me when people say we won in Vietnam, because we won every tactical battle. They are wrong and in saying lose sight of the key point of the conflict; we won every battle but lost the war because we allowed our enemy to outmaneuver us at the strategic level and rejected the wisdom of our general officer corps to establish objectives that would have assured victory.

[huldah1776]

what is your point of view on the rules of engagement now? What ROE will the Rice paddy inflict on them?

[LambSlave]

My personal view is that the current/recent ROE are too restrictive. However, most of my career military officer friends disagree strongly, and after hearing their perspective their reasoning is rational, just a different way of thinking about war. I believe in total war; killing anyone who appears to be hostile or supporting hostiles for whatever reason, without reservation will set a clear example that you are with us or against us. I believe since these cultures only respect force, and only side with the perceived winner with no real concept of loyalty, that this is the way to go. So, anyone acting suspiciously, providing material support or intelligence support would be fair game to get lit up.

Obviously, this is not our policy. Surprisingly, most experienced military officers from recent conflicts that I know disagree with my opinion, saying that showing great restraint can be effective in fostering cooperation and trust, and for a variety of complex reasons it is worth the risk. I can't easily imagine a situation in which this would change, given how the current ROE has been accepted and ingrained in the military professional culture nearly universally by field grade/general officers. It would take a new generation to change this I think, or an extremely different conflict in which our restrictive ROE put us at a distinct disadvantage against a near peer nation that could leverage the disadvantage to produce tactical successes.