The Strategist’s Short Catechism:
Six Questions Without Answers
by
Philip A. Crowl
FIRST, let me bring greetings from the nation’s
oldest service college to the nation’s young-
are nations or societies or institutions that reject
or deny the relevance of their collective past.
est service academy. The US Naval War College, The question then is not whether history is use-
which it is my honor to represent before this dis- ful, but rather how is it used. Here there is room
tinguished audience, was founded in the year for honest argument, and argument there has
1884—93 years ago. Now, before you dismiss been. And since we are concerned tonight with
this fact as mere “ancient history,” let me remind the formulation of military strategy, let us ex-
you of something that may have escaped your plore for a moment how strategists of past gen-
attention. And that is this. On the date when this erations have in fact used history for their own
institution—the US Air Force Academy—cele- very practical purposes.
brates its 93rd anniversary some of you will still A hundred years ago, no serious student of the
be around. On that date, which I calculate to be art of war would have dreamed of challenging the
the year 2047, some of you will be here—de- proposition that history taught useful lessons to
crepit but still alive, and no doubt full of tiresome military practitioners. In those confident times,
tales of the good old days when the Air Force when the dogmas of theology were giving way to
Academy was young and in its prime. the certainties of science, it was held as axio-
I mention this only to call to your attention one matic that history provided the raw data from
fact that may have escaped you; i.e., that much of which could be deduced the “scientific laws of
what passes as history today falls within the war.” These laws could be expressed as “the
memory of living men and women. The past is principles of war.” And the search for these prin-
not nearly as remote as it sometimes seems. ciples was, in the words of Maurice Matloff, the
Much of it unfolded—as you will some day real- US Army’s Chief Historian, an effort “to distill
ize—only yesterday. from the great mass of military experience over
At this point you are probably expecting me to the centuries simple but fundamental truths to
launch into a fervent defense of the teaching and guide commanders through the fog of war.”1
study of history, its relevance, and its utility to This was the basic assumption of Captain Al-
you as citizens and as future officers in the US Air fred Thayer Mahan, who came to the Naval War
Force. Professional historians like myself are College shortly after its establishment to teach
likely to get quite exercised over this subject, es- naval history. Like most so-called scientific his-
pecially as we inspect the figures on declining en- torians of the 19th century, Mahan firmly be-
rollments in college history courses and the lieved that a study of history would permit the
declining market for historical monographs. You discovery of certain immutable principles in the
will no doubt be relieved to hear that tonight I in- field of human affairs comparable to the laws of
tend not to enter into any argument about the science governing the physical universe. Spe-
relevance of history—largely because I think it is cifically he believed that from the study of naval
a non-issue. The utility of history is, it seems to history would emerge certain principles of mari-
me, self-evident, and I do not feel called upon to time strategy, certain permanent truths of equal
defend it. History is simply recorded memory. applicability today as yesterday, and tomorrow
People without memory are mentally sick. So too as today. Or, to quote from Mahan’s first great
work, The Influence of Sea Power upon History
Reprinted from The Harmon Memorial Lectures in Military History, No. 20, 6 October 1977, pp. 1–14.
Published 1977 by Harmon Memorial Lecture, US Air Force Academy.
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, 1660–1783: “… while many of the conditions of unemployment results?” If this is to be the end
war vary from age to age with the progress of product of years of intensive study of several
weapons, there are certain teachings in the centuries of warfare, then what indeed are the
school of history which remain constant, and can uses of history? What practical value, if any, can
be elevated to the rank of general principles. For military or civilian leaders derive from the historical
the same reason the study of the sea history of study of war, or its causes or consequences?
the past will be found instructive, by its illustra- The truth of the matter is, I am afraid, that scien-
tion of the general principles of maritime war.”2 tific laws of war cannot be precisely deduced
Now if Mahan was ardent in his search for the from history for the obvious reason that history
general principles of war to guide naval strate- never exactly repeats itself. The present is never
gists, Army strategists throughout the western exactly analogous to the past, and those who
world were even more so. At the Kriegsakademie would draw simple analogies between past and
in Berlin, the École Superieure de Guerre in Paris, present are doomed to failure. Even Mahan, for
and the US Army War College in Carlisle, Penn- all his dedication to the search for fundamental
sylvania, great effort was made to develop a truths, was aware of the dangers of historic
body of general principles that presumably gov- analogies. Although he believed that there were
erned the conduct of war on land. But if these “certain teachings in the school of history which
military analysts agreed that history taught clear remain constant,” he also warned that because of
and useful lessons, and that these lessons could rapid technological change, “theories about the
be expressed in terms of scientific laws or “prin- naval warfare of the future are almost thoroughly
ciples,” they did not necessarily agree as to what presumptive.” He warned of the “tendency not
these principles were, or even how many there only to overlook points of difference, but to exag-
were. The Swiss General Jomini and the French gerate points of likeness” between the past and
Marshal Foch, for example, each enumerated the present.5 In short, Mahan, for all his efforts to
four, but their separate lists bore very little re- deduce principles of war from the study of naval
semblance to each other.3 US Army field manu- history, was at least aware that the past could not
als over the years have added to, or subtracted be used as a precise predictive instrument.
from, the official list of principles, and in 1968 set- Then why do we who are concerned with the
tled down to the figure of nine—nine “fundamen- great issues of war and peace, of strategy and
tal truths governing the prosecution of war.” policy, of statesmanship and generalship con-
These are, in order: Objective, Offensive, Mass, tinue to study it? My answer is not that we can
Economy of Force, Maneuver, Unity of Com- predict the future on the basis of the past, be-
mand, Security, Surprise, and Simplicity—all cause for the most part we cannot. My answer is
duly inscribed in Army Field Manual 100–5 in simply that the study of history will help us to ask
capital letters, as eternal verities should be. But, the right questions so that we can define the
as the Field Manual itself pointed out, these prin- problem—whatever it is.
ciples “may tend to reinforce one another or to be So this evening, what I propose to do is to out-
in conflict.” And, as the official Army historians line some of the questions history suggests that
admitted, the violation of these principles has strategists must ask before they commence a
brought as frequent success on the battlefield as war, or before they take actions which might
has their observance.4 Small wonder then that in lead to war, or before they undertake a wartime
the most recent (1976) version of FM 100–5, spe- campaign, or before they end a war in which
cific reference to the “principles of war” was they are already engaged. By strategists I mean
omitted altogether. both the civilian and military leaders in whom this
One is driven to ask therefore: “What good are and other nations have entrusted major responsi-
they? or were they? Are these indeed to be looked bility for decision-making in these matters, and
on as ‘fundamental truths’ or are they mere on their advisors, which no doubt some day will
truisms, tautologies, empty and meaningless include some of you. I shall specify six such ques-
platitudes?” Is the old Army Field Manual’s sol- tions, with several variations on each. The
emn pronouncement that “every military opera- number is arbitrary and could no doubt be easily
tion must be directed toward a clearly defined, expanded, though perhaps not so easily con-
decisive, and obtainable objective” really much tracted. All of these questions are suggested by
more helpful than Calvin Coolidge’s famous the history of war and diplomacy in the Western
statement that “when many men are out of work, world over the past century and a half.
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