|
Scales on War: A Q&A with MG Bob Scales, USA (Ret.)
 [US Naval Institute] Recently, we asked LTG H. R. McMaster, USA, to host a Q&A with Fox News commentator MG Bob Scales, USA (Ret.), author of Scales on War: The Future of America's Military at Risk. Part I of their exchange follows.McMaster: Your call for a historical-behavioral approach to military strategy and defense policy is consistent with Graham Allison's and Niall Ferguson's recent essay in the Atlantic in which they call for a board of historical advisors to advise the president to improve the wisdom of foreign policy. What is the value to contemporary affairs and why do you think it is underappreciated? Scales: Not only do I think Presidents need historians to provide advice I believe the military does as well. War is the only profession that's episodic. Soldiers don't practice war (thankfully) as much as they study it. Thus the intellectual backbone of our profession should be the study of past wars. Sadly, it is not. Reluctance to study war among our senior leaders is, in a way, understandable. A newly appointed general has spent half his or her life (or more) actively engaged in fighting or preparing to fight a war. It's reasonable for a serving officer to question the merits of study when he's fully engaged in practicing the profession. As we witnessed with the British Army in the late nineteenth century these habits are hard to break. Imperial officers published under a pseudonym for fear of being labeled an intellectual. Conversation in the officer's mess was about sport, not tactics. And the British paid a painful price when they were unable to adapt intellectually once they shifted from a native to an industrial age European enemy. The lesson is clear. We must artificially induce our young officers to shift from the visceral to the vicarious, an unnatural act for a contemporary Army on active service. Posted by: Besoeker 2016-09-25 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=468521 |