Thanks to everyone for your interesting responses to my post based on my new book, War Made New, which I've been reading while in Houston today on my book tour. (Tomorrow am off to Dallas followed by Kansas, where I'm speaking at the Army's Command and General Staff College.) My plan is to continue to post excerpts from the concluding chapter all week. You will see that future excerpts will address many of the points raised in today's postings.
For instance, a number of commentators suggest that economic power is more important than military prowess, with the most commonly cited example being World War II: Wasn't the outcome determined by the greater economic and demographic resources of the Allied powers over the Axis? I address this point at length in my book and will address it in very short form in an excerpt planned for Thursday.
But in short the answer is: No, World War II doesn't make the case for economic determinism. In the early stages the Axis had tremendous success against a coalition of states that were much larger in aggregrate but much less prepared for war in the Second Industrial Age. Thanks to their early success, Germany, Italy and Japan overran much of Europe and East Asia, which should have allowed them to compete in a war of resources with the Allies. That they failed is in part because the Soviets and the American exhibited greater skill in mobilizing the resources of their societies.
It was also because, after making terrible tactical blunders early on, the Allies learned their lesson and managed to utilize tanks, aircraft carriers, bombers, submarines, and other important technologies as skillfully as their enemies did. If they hadn't, not even the Allies' superiority in materiel would necessarily have been sufficient to prevail. (For greater elaboration of this point, see Richard Overy's excellent book, Why the Allies Won.)
In War Made New, I chronicle numerous instances of the smaller, poorer power defeating a bigger, richer adversary, starting with the Battle of the Spanish Armada: In 1588 Spain was much bigger and richer than England but lost anyway because it had not yet mastered sail and shot tactics as effectively as the English had. We are seeing a similar story play out in the present day, with ragtag Iraqi insurgents defeating the armed forces of the world's No. 1 economic power. You can argue that what we're suffering in Iraq is a political, not a military, defeat, but what's the difference? The point of military action is to achieve political results and if you don't get the results you want, you've been defeated, even if (as in Vietnam or Iraq) you win every single battle.
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At one point in the 1620s, the rebellious Dutch provinces had more available revenue (i.e revenue not going to debt service) than the entire Spanish Empire. While in 1588 things weren't that bad, the resources put forth to equip the Armada were taken right out of the pockets of the Spanish treasury in the 1600s.
That said, I agree that economic power only wins in the long term, while strategic skill wins in the short term.
I don't think this is true at all. Against the Germans, only the sheer firepower and overwhelming manufacturing capability of the western allies were able to overwhelm them on the western front. The Germans had much better tanks (although they were a lot more prone to mechanical problems), planes and weapons (although their ordnance did tend to have a lot more duds), but the Americans and British just had so many more of them. On the Eastern Front, the Soviet tanks were as good as the Germans, but again they were able to overwhelm the Germans in both manpower and tank and artillery production. The Germans produced about 9000 Mark IV tanks and 6000 Panthers, their main battle tanks. The allies produced about 35000 each of the T-34 and Sherman. The T-34 was a better tank than the Pz IV and could stand up to the Panther.
To say that the Germans won their early battles against the British and the Russians because of superior weaponry is simply untrue. In both the battle of France and Barbarossa, the stinging defeats suffered can be laid at the feet of political blunders, not even battlefield losses. In France, both the British and the French had superior and could hold their own in air power. The British and the French armies were in better shape and the German Army weaker than it was in World War I. When the French Army began to retreat and the French government panicked (as it had a tendency to do), the British, instead of encouraging the French to halt the retreat (like they had done 36 years before), panicked too and fled for Dunkirk. Of course, Churchill wrote the history and blamed it all on the French. The Germans won with inferior weaponry (especially their tanks) and panicky Brits.
A year later in Russia, the Germans once again owed their initial successes to the disasterous "no retreat" policies or Stalin and the purges of officer corps during the thirties.
The German tactics had nothing to do with their success if France?
While I have just begun reading your book, I am beginning to have some of the same problems that I have in regards to revolutions in military affairs as they are presented in the CGSC curriculum. It seems to me that the most important revolution needed now is a doctrinal one, not a technological one--especially in couterinsurgency warfare.
I am disturbed by the Army's focus (and yours?) on technology, especially as I prepare to go back to Iraq, as the solution to the tactical/operational problem. I think that how we operate is far more important than the equipment we operate with, and if we had a revolution in military affairs that that focused on doctrinal solutions, we could win.
Doctrinal innovation can prevent political defeat. Technological innovation can't.
One thing about the Vietnam and Spanish Armada points is that it's a heck of a lot easier to defend your own country than run over someone else's. I mean, it's not like the Chinese and Viet Cong could have even made a game of it against an American state--nor the Brits against the Spanish homeland.
Likewise with Iraq--no other country on earth could even really attempt what we are doing in Iraq. Just because the mission is so difficult does not mean that economics takes a back seat to tactical understanding--sometimes, it's the war objective itself that is what struggles against economic strength.
Regarding WW2, I think it's the classic case of economic determinism. Germany won early because it had the advantage of picking the time and place of battle. Once the game was in full force and the US was fully engaged, it was only a matter of time before the American juggernaut wore Germany down. The economic determinism argument does not really apply to individual battles or campaigns so much, so the fact that Hitler ran to Paris doesn't really refute the economic determinism argument for who wins a war.
Technology and doctrine are both very important, but what wins on the battlefield is small unit leadership.
Counting Allied_Dollars vs Axis_Dollars is not enough. You have to multiply the Allied_Dollars by Allied_Power_Per_Dollar to get Allied_Power, and compare that vs. Axis_Power.
(with the law of diminishing returns, a function with the input as Dollars and the output as Warfighting_Power will be more complicated than an exercise in multiplication, but multiplication is better than nothing at all)
Now change the equation to Armored Vehicles + Trained Crew vs IEDs + Terrorists, and you can see that insurgents need very little in terms of money, at least compared to what America needs. Their opportunity costs are much lower—a bunch of common chemicals and a goatherd.
The idea that economic power is the most important thing in the long run is not always right. In WWII, America was able to develop weapons systems comparable to the Nazis'. But even if every scientist and engineer in the Western world set to work on new war technology, the fundamental equation (tanks + tankers vs. IEDs + goatherds) doesn't change. That's where doctrine comes in.
Telling our soldiers, "relax, we're going to win eventually because have so much more money than them (as evidenced by my new Lexus), so just go over there and stay the course until it happens" is not a plan. I'm not saying "stay the course" is always wrong, but if you want to stay the course because economic determinism (or religious determinism, or any other kind) has convinced you we're guaranteed to win--that's not a plan.
But as the technological see-sawing above suggests, none of these countries enjoy a revolutionary advantage over the other that is comparable to gunpowder vs. non-gunpowder (think Europe in Africa in the 19th century) or information age vs. 2d industrial revolution (think Gulf War I). As WWII shows, there will still be winners and losers among countries with armies having similar technologies. But no one wants to be the Zulus at the Roark's Drift.
This is certainly true with respect to economic performance. The difference between countries that perform well and those that perform poorly does not lie in different access to technology, but different ability to organize their people to be productive. This is what distinguished Japan from China, and England from France. 19th century China had just as much access to Western technology as Japan did (probably more), more and better land, and a large capable population, but a disorganized and demoralized government and world view. Result was that Japan was able to dominate China within 50 years of beginning Western-style development.
I wonder if there is really such a difference between the general civilian culture and the military one - whether a country with a successful, adaptive, flexible civilian culture will not necessarily produce military leaders who are successful, adaptive and flexible (and contrarily whether a rigid society, unable to roll with the punches can produce an officer corps which is capable of flexible, adaptive leadership). Of course, there are individual cases of genius (Napoleon comes to mind) but I don't know of any cases of hidebound states producing adaptive armies.
I largely agree. However, I would point out that there are additional differences between (i) modern armies and (ii) guerrillas/terrorists. First, the number of "acceptable" casualty for guerrillas/terrorsts is much higher than modern armies. This is even more true when you consider casualty rates. Second, guerrillas/terrorists are typically not bound by the "rules of war" as modern armies are. Therefore, guerrillas/terrorists have a freer hand to choose various strategies both against their enemy and civilian populations.
I think you are right about not following the "rules of war." Adherence to old rules often hurts one side. I'm thinking of the use of peasant archers and the longbow; of the French reluctance to give up the noble Pantaloon Rouge in the early 20th century; of the barbarism of Sherman and Grant, cutting loose from their supplies and living off the land; perhaps even of Napoleon's artillery and bayonet doctrines. I'm sure there are other examples. When small, or less "noble", armies use new tactics to their advantage, you can be sure that their enemies will cry foul. It's been that way for centuries.
??? The T-34 had much better armor, a rather better gun, a diesel engine that didn't "light the first time, every time," etc. Not to mention wider tracks for less ground pressure.
I knew a fellow who took Shermans up against T-34s in Korea, and he sure wasn't of the impression the Sherman was superior. He was successful because of superior tactics and ingenuity, not because of superior machines.
Posted by the son of the T-4 who's crew held the ETO time record for changing out a 105 tube. (They cheated and used the boom on a wreaker.)
As for Sunni Arab violence, that persists only because we haven't waged war Middle Eastern style. But our Shiite and Kurdish allies are - that's why the prewar Sunni Arab population has dropped by a third, most of it in the last year. It's a tough neighborhood.
I also disagree about World War Two. It was won by economic prowess. The Nazi state plain lacked the political ability to adequately integrate allied, let alone captured, economies into its war production. Consider how little effective use was made of northern Italy's productive capability. Sure the Nazis got a fair amount anyway, but they should gotten far, far more. In occupied countries they did little more than loot.
German conquests reduced potential Allied industrial production while increasing German production only a tiny fraction of what could have been done with a less barbaric and outright counterproductive occupation policy.
Even if you are right (and in large part I think you are), Germany still had its chances beforehand and lost them both because of strategic blunders and because of technological deficiencies.
The most obvious blunder was losing patience with the attack on Britain and turning on the Soviet Union. The problems Germany had with Britain were technological, in a lot of ways. First, there was the naval disadvantage. This was something Germany should have corrected before it decided to start its spree. Then, in the air, the British had access to radar, which helped Britain survive. If Britain had been able to either blockade Britain, or attack it with ground troops, the entire shape of the war would have been radically different.
Even if Germany had maintained its alliance with Russia, things might have gone alot differently. And if we hadn't run out of military bombing targets, and not fortuitously blown up a heavy water plant, who knows, maybe the Germans would have beaten us to the bomb.
So its true that in the long slog, our economic superiority won out, much as we won the Civil War along the same lines, over a long haul. But there were things that could have gone differently in the short term, that might have changed everything. Just as the South had its chances in the Civil War, and might have won if it could have, say, captured Washingon, or had some other victory that would have forced France and England to have recognized it.
We should also consider massively arming the Kurds, even threatening to give them a nuke. The Kurds, who support federalism and a weak central government, would have greater bargaining power as a result in those discussions. You won't see the Prime Minister backstabbing President Bush in the Iraqi press after that. Iran might accelerate its nuclear program in response, or it might suspend its nuclear program if we threaten to arm the Kurds. Turkey would get scared of a Kurdish state arising. So would Syria and Iran, both with Kurdish minorities of 20% and 10%, respectively. Seven-party talks might work then to resolve the issue, as all countries bordering Iraq have a fear of refugee flows if an actual civil war breaks out, Iran and Turkey and Syria are the likely invaders in such a case, and Iran and Syria are currently intermeddling for political reasons. We need to turn that dynamic on its head with economic force and the threat of destabilizing the regimes currently destabilizing Iraq -- or in the region and directly affected but not helping enough. Fix the security situation or we arm and fund the Kurds as we withdraw.
The political incoherence of the Nazi state did them in. It prevented adequate strategic planning, adequate economic planning, and anything remotely like an adequate occupation policy. Basically the German state and nation were hijacked by barbarians.
So in the end it came down to raw power.
Godfrey,
It would be futile to do that. Economic reconstruction must take a back seat to security operations, whose end is about a year out, even if we take on Iran which could happen at any time now.
Not to mention the effects of corruption. Iraq will be a bottomless hole for American money even after the Sunni Arabs are gone.
I love how people put forth the argument two steps behind yours and act as if you hadn't already taken it into account. The point is that economic reconstruction and security operations have a functional relationship. You cannot separate the two; that is the problem. Likewise, treating the other states bordering Iraq as if they have no involvement simply misunderstands the political dynamic at work. Likewise, ignoring that the political outcome we seek within Iraq is one favored by the ethnic minority that just happens to have an interest in regime change in Syria and Iran and lives n Iraq, Syria, and Iran, is simply foolish. The two are tied together, and pretending that one is separable from the other in reality simply because one can use assign different words to interdependent and interrelated parts of one event is part of the reason our Iraq policy is failing. Plato was no Henry Kissinger. The only thing you can say with certainty you know it would be futile to do in Iraq is continuing to do exactly what we have been doing in Iraq, which, for your information, Tom, has not been working. I doubt you even knew that Kurds lived in Syria.
The Anglosphere's enduring technological advantage come from the Common Law, which permits what it doesn't prohibit. Got a new idea? Do it! If there's a problem, we'll handle it when a conflict arises. Experiences guides the rules, so people with creative breakthroughs just go ahead and try them out.
The Continent's occasional technological advantage comes from the Roman Law, which prohibits what it doesn't permit. Got a new idea? Ask the bureaucrats if it's ok! They'll ponder whether a probem might arise, and while they're pondering, they put everything on hold. That doesn't sound like it would lead to any advantages, but when the rich and powerful mobilize to launch a new technology, the whole nation gets behind it, so the technology launches massively. Most of the time, though, everything's on hold while bureaucrats ponder. Logic guides the rules, except when power does. If you've got a creative breakthrough, put it on hold until you find a patron.
Both Western traditions invoke the rule of law, whether inductive or deductive. The Eastern tradition invokes the rule of man, which makes the rules very unpredictable, and even more subject to favoritism than in the Roman Law. Chinese Law just permits what it permits and prohibits what it prohibits, and you find out if you can by trying. It is sometimes better to ask forgiveness than permission. If you've got a creative breakthrough, find a patron and hope they let you keep something when it's a success.
Squelching is much easier in the Roman Law and the Chinese Law, where you have to ask permission, than in the Common Law, where it's your right. So, while creativity is evenly distributed, the conditions needed to turn creativity into innovation are not so evenly distributed. The Anglosphere will have an enduring advantage in technology. Creative people will leave other nations to come to where they have the liberty to pursue their dreams. But that enduring advantage only holds while we can keep our liberties. Creeping bureaucracies threaten not only out liberties, but the technological advantage that lets us deter foreign attacks against our sovereignty.
For an example, just look at the FDA's effect on our ability to respond to biological warfare. Since it prohibits drugs that it doesn't permit, drug development has gotten enormously expensive and the creative individual hasn't got a chance to develop and try out a vaccine or cure. We can't afford to be that ponderous with the new technologies that will let a terrorist cell create a genome to order.
Recent research has destroyed the argument that we beat the Germans solely through superior resources. As Peter Mansoor states,
To say that the Germans won their early battles against the British and the Russians because of superior weaponry is simply untrue.
It is also untrue to say the French and British lost because their political leaders "panicked". The British and French lost for military reasons - organization, training, doctrine, tactical/operational leadership on the ground and in the air - not political cowardice at the top. In essence, the British and French militaries had a lot of good equipment, but they had not created viable combined arms forces as the Germans had.
I believe there was a book on this some decades ago.... maybe a long paper ... entitled the Military Revolution, something like that. Thesis was essentially that in, oh, 1400, Europe was a very modest part of the world. Tiny states squabbling over borders, ignored, save for raiding and grabbing territory, by China, Turkey, the real superpowers as it were. 3-4 centuries later, Europe ruled the globe. What had happened? I believe he concluded that improved military organization that made it possible to exploit new technology was the deciding point. From mobs of warriors came armies and then more flexible armies. "Battles" of thousands of pikemen became companies and platoons that could deploy flexible, screened by at least somewhat disciplined cavalry and small units of artillery.
What was the Napoleonic reference -- one mameluke horseman could take on two Frenchmen, but two French could fight two mamelukes, and a hundred could take on two hundred of them.
The Military Revolution: Military Innovation and the Rise of the West, 1500-1800, by Geoffrey Parker
Don't play straw man and gotcha games on a legal board. This is our day job. Your misrepresentation of what I said shows how little confidence you have in your contentions.
Real life is a question of degree. "Either or" is rarely true.
Compare the extreme differences in unemployment rates between Kurdish and Sunni Arab areas - almost a factor of ten. This difference exists because of security issues. The Kurds have minimal local security problems.
Sure some attention must be paid to economic matters and employment in Sunni Arab areas, but that is tertiary to security and public health.
Furthermore we simply can't provide security in Sunni Arab areas unless we have significant local cooperation. What has happened is that Shiite, and to a much lesser extent, Kurdish, death squads have been performing manual attitude adjustments on the Sunni Arabs, as in, "cooperate with the Americans, die or leave". A third have already left. IMO most of the rest will follow. Good riddance. Economics is secondary.
You may be confusing the late war T-34/85 ('44-'45 and Korea) with the T-34/76 that was used (in three main flavors) from 1940-1943.
The Sherman and T-34 had similar front armor (it varied, but was from about 55-75mm thick; the T-34 had slightly more, but it was more brittle), and the Sherman's 75 was better than the the T-34's 76mm gun in terms of accuracy (by a wide margin) and slightly in terms of penetration (60mm vs. 52 mm at 1000 meters).
The Sherman was also *much* more reliable, had a faster turret, and had a faster rate of fire (due, in part, to having a three man turret). The T-34 was better in mud and snow, however.
The Korean war saw T-34/85s vs. M4A3E8 (Easy-8) Shermans. On paper, the tanks were fairly similar, with the E8 having slightly more armor and the 76mm gun on the Sherman (not the same gun on the early war shermans) having roughly the same penetration as the T-34/85. However, the Easy-8's convincingly beat the T-34's in every battle - although I'm happy to attribute most of this the the US tankers.
(Earlier in the war, the T-34/85's savaged US Chaffees (a type of light reconnaisance tank), which were the only US tanks in Korea initially.