Some of today's respondents have expressed skepticism about my assertion that having a better bureaucracy was the key advantage enjoyed by England over Spain in the 1580s or by the U.S. over Iraq more recently. If it didn't have a better bureaucracy--i.e. one capable of producing a more effective navy, with better ships, better cannons, better sailors, and better commanders--it is hard to know how England could possibly have defeated the Spanish Armada, when Spain was considerably richer and bigger than England. For the record, here is a very brief excerpt from Chapter One of my book which gives a partial overview of the English bureaucratic advantage (there is much more on this in the book itself):
"The Royal Navy was ready to meet them [i.e., the Spanish warships]. It had ancient roots, but as an official body it had existed for only half a century. In medieval times English kings would raise fleets from among the merchant marine when necessary in time of war, and few if any ships were built expressly for fighting. Even the king’s personal ships, when not needed in a campaign, would be used to transport Bordeaux wine or other goods for the royal household. Henry VIII (r. 1509-1547), Elizabeth’s father, had pioneered among European monarchs a standing fleet belonging to the crown, and, as important, a standing department to administer it. This was part of what is sometimes called the Tudor Revolution, which gave England the prototype of a modern bureaucracy long before Spain possessed one. Under Henry VIII and his energetic ministers, Thomas Wolsey and Thomas Cromwell, the center of English administration shifted away from the royal household and toward new governmental departments.
"To manage the navy, officials were appointed with such titles as Master of Naval Ordnance, Lieutenant of the Admiralty, Treasurer, Controller, Clerk of the King’s Ships, and General Surveyor of the Victuals for the Seas. Beginning in 1546, many of these senior managers sat together on the Council of the Marine, popularly known as the Navy Board, direct ancestor of the modern Admiralty. The slightly older Ordnance Board was responsible for procuring weapons and everything needed to operate them. Together, these two organizations provided England with more efficient naval administration than that of any contemporary state, with the possible exceptions of Portugal and Venice. The Spanish navy was a virtual one-man operation by comparison, and that man was the overworked King Philip II, isolated in his gloomy cell at the Escorial.
"Spain had nothing like the royal dockyards and storehouses that had sprung up around southern English ports like Portsmouth, Woolwich, and Deptford. Nor did it have officials, as England had, who carefully drew up mobilization plans to make full use of its maritime might. England, not yet possessing lucrative colonies, was much poorer than Spain (Elizabeth’s ordinary revenues were a tenth of Philip II’s ) and could not keep a large fleet mobilized for long periods. It needed accurate intelligence and ready contingency plans to defend itself when danger materialized. There was no margin of safety. As part of this planning, the Elizabethan navy launched an ambitious program of construction in the 1560-1570s to take advantage of a (so to speak) sea change in warship design."
As for the U.S. and Iraq, there was no question that the U.S. was much bigger than Iraq so it should have defeated Iraq--if the bigger power were guaranteed to come out on top. But it isn't. We found that out in the Vietnam War. We're finding it out today in Iraq. Iran learned the same lesson when it failed to defeat Iraq during their war in the 1980s even though Iran has about three times as many people. The U.S., of course, is even bigger and richer than Iran, so the odds are that we would defeat Iraq no matter what--but no one expected that coalition forces would win the 1991 Gulf War as easily or cheaply as they did. That was a tribute to American skill at warfighting--especially to the changes made in the previous decade to incorporate new technologies (e.g., stealth and smart bombs) and new organizational models (the all volunteer force, Goldwater Nichols, etc.). The result: one of the most lopsided defeats in military history. The reason the U.S. proved more effective, I would argue, is that it had a more efficient organization for marshalling military power. Whereas Saddam frittered away his military capabilities with a perverse organizational model designed NOT to field powerful armies--for fear that they would rise up against him.
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My objection to your first post was that I took you to be focusing too much on the actual technology and not the structure/organization that would develop and stay on top of that technology.
In the Vietnam case the politicians prevented victory not the military.
There is always going to be a number of factors that decide who comes out on top.
The issue is whether the better ships, better cannons, better sailors, and better commanders were produced by the anemic English naval bureaucracy of the time or by private enterprise. Maritime war under Elizabeth was at least as much a private as a public enterprise, and was to a degree funded by commercial investors who expected a profit.
In The Safeguard of the Sea, N.A.M. Rodger indicates that English naval administration was superior to Spanish. But was this really the margin of victory? Was the Spanish navy even outfought? After all, the English did not take or destroy many Spanish ships. Bad plans, bad weather, and bad leadership had more to do with Spanish defeat than bad administration, in my view.
As for the U.S. and Iraq, there was no question that the U.S. was much bigger than Iraq so it should have defeated Iraq--if the bigger power were guaranteed to come out on top. But it isn't. We found that out in the Vietnam War. We're finding it out today in Iraq.
Bureaucratic effectiveness was not the issue in either the Vietnam or the Iraq case. We did not lose in Vietnam because we had an ineffective bureaucracy. We lost because of bad strategy. The military bureaucracy brilliantly brought US resources to the fight in Southeast Asia - major innovation occurred over the course of the war - but this was all for nought because US resources were being applied towards incorrect ends. The North Vietnamese bureaucracy was hardly a model of efficiency, but this did not matter because Hanoi applied their resources correctly in pursuit of a sound strategy.
In the 1990-91 Persian Gulf War, bureaucracy was also irrelevant. Saddam pursued a bad strategy - trying to hold Kuwait in the face of overwhelming opposition - and it did not matter that his military bureaucracy was incapable of finding innovative ways to do this. The US pursued a good strategy - kill Saddam's army in Kuwait and don't attempt to occupy Iraq. The US military bureaucracy eventually found an innovative way to do this (the Left Hook), but we should also note that the stupid solution the bureaucracy first devised - straight up the middle into Kuwait - would also have worked, albeit with more casualties. In short, in this war strategy was far more significant than relative bureaucratic effectiveness at generating innovation.
In the current Iraq war, strategy again trumps bureaucracy. Unlike the previous bout with Saddam, the US military is being asked to do a thing that it's poorly suited to doing. No amount of bureaucratic innovation on the part of the military (and we should acknowledge that there has been considerable innovation since 2003) can repair that basic strategic error.
no one expected that coalition forces would win the 1991 Gulf War as easily or cheaply as they did. That was a tribute to American skill at warfighting--especially to the changes made in the previous decade to incorporate new technologies (e.g., stealth and smart bombs) and new organizational models (the all volunteer force, Goldwater Nichols, etc.). The result: one of the most lopsided defeats in military history. The reason the U.S. proved more effective, I would argue, is that it had a more efficient organization for marshalling military power.
You will note that from 2003 to the present, the US military has been even more skillful at warfighting than it was in 1991. The technology and the organizational model of today is clearly superior to that of 2003, but this does not matter because our strategy is flawed. Our superior bureaucratic ability to generate warfighting innovation is essentially moot.
Yes. Spain's naval administration was not very efficient, but neither was England's. The Armada mission would have failed even if the English had not put to sea: the Dutch would have prevented Parma's barges from entering, much less crossing, the Channel.
I would turn Mr. Boot's lesson on its head, and -- paying attention to the Syrian political scientist Bassam Tibi, who wrote, before the war started, that Muslims have no interest in democracy -- say that because the U.S. is pursuing a strategically impossible program, the efficiency of its administration (not all that impressive, anyway) is beside the point.
Iraqi (or, as I understand the strategy to be, southwest Asian democracy) is a tough sell because the targeted buyers do not want any.
Or, to put it in terms more relevant to Wall Street Journal concerns, the reason GM is not making money is not because its administration is half as efficient as Toyota's (although that is the case), but because given a choice, people want Corollas and don't want Impalas.
They pay premiums to avoid GM junk. In Iraq, people are paying a very different sort of premium to avoid democracy.
Yours, TDP, ml, msl, &pfpp
My understanding -- gained largely from "The Confident Hope of a Miracle: The True History of the Spanish Armada," by Neil Hanson -- is that the British navy at the time was atrociously managed and supplied. Not enough food, not enough gunpowder, not enough anything. The Spanish navy, on the other hand, had an extremely effective "back office"; the sheer size of the armada should be proof of that.
I agree with Enoch. The British victory was due largely to technology and training that had been obtained in the course of privateering.
After days of sniping at the Armada, the English had managed to reduce it by exactly 3 ships -- one of those from a collision. The English guns were too small to seriously damage the Spanish ships. The Spanish guns were too short-ranged to reach the English. But the English could not penetrate the Spanish defensive arrangement.It was a standoff.
Except that the Spaniards were able to anchor their fleet a stone's throw from the shore of England.
The Spaniards did not then land the landing force because they were waiting for the barges of Parma from the Netherlands, which never sailed -- not because the English prevented them. The English never even saw them.
The English fireship attack on the Armada after it has transferred itself to the European shore was ineffective but it did force the Spaniards to sea in disorder. Storms did the rest.
Naval history is a fad of mine. I go into so much detail not because I think it important in itself but because the events are being used to explain something else. If the events are not thoroughly understood, the 'something else' is likely to be misconstrued as well.
The same applies to Vietnam. The Americans lost there, too. We were big and rich, but neven we could not afford indefinitely to swap helicopters for bicycles.
All in all, the best explanation of England's survival and Spain's disaster is that the Spanish monarch was supreme. He was entirely committed to a very specific vision that current naval technology simply didn't allow.
The plan was for the Armada to sail into the Channel, meet up with the invasion force, and ferry the invading army into England.
However, after having spent more than a year in preparing the Armada there was absolutely no element of surprise, many of the Spanish ships were rotting, many of the sailors were dead from disease or had deserted, the invasion fleet couldn't get built... by the time the Armada sailed into the Channel it was a shell of the original vision.
Aside from better officers, the English had another huge advantage: they were just a few hours from their home ports. This became important when they ran low on powder and shot after just a few hours of fighting at long range. Both sides went into the battle anticipating that the new, larger cannons would change tactics. Previously, guns were mostly used to weaken the enemy crew before the ships grappled together and tried to board, but the real battle was fought hand to hand across the decks. Now, they expected to be trying to sink each other, and at long range since the new guns were very accurate at long range on the proving ground. No one had anticipated the increased ammunition requirements that would result from those different tactics, let alone the waste of ammunition on the first day before the captains realized that firing from a heaving deck was different than the proving ground, and they could only get hits from point blank range. The standard provision was enough powder and shot to fire each gun 30 times. English ships might often have been shorted on that. The Spanish ships had a double load of 60 rounds per gun because it was going to be a long campaign, which turned out to be a gross underestimate. The English ships could and did return to port and get more ammunition, but the Spanish had to make what they had last.
And of course, when the storm came in and the English Channel became a graveyard for ships, the English ships were safe in sheltered ports.