Riding the Red Horse
Page 46
1. When I write something like this, I try to take a more conversational tone expressly to relieve that pedantry. I know I don’t always succeed.
2. In your studies be wary of Fuller; he will sometimes lie in a heartbeat to try to “prove” a point. Note that Jomini takes a bad rap for allegedly trying to create and foment a highly regular and geometric view of war. I say “bad rap” because I read him as doing no more than trying to simplify with visual drawings and word pictures some concepts that are, indeed must be, first grasped in simple form before the mind can expand to take them in with greater complexity. If some soldiers, perhaps most notably some of our generals on both sides in the Civil War, misused Jomini’s teachings, perhaps the fault lies more with them than with him.
3. http://usacac.army.mil/cac2/cgsc/carl/download/csipubs/principlesofwar.pdf
4. https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/lin-biao/1965/09/peoples_war/ch05.htm
5. http://www.armedforcesjournal.com/12-new-principles-of-warfare/
6. Yezhov, “the disappearing commissar,” was a high ranking NKVD official, prominent in carrying out Stalin’s purges. After he was, himself, executed, photos all over the USSR were retouched to eliminate his appearance. He was made an “unperson.”
7. As Marine General James Mathis put it: “[W]e must recognize that the term effects-based is fundamentally flawed, has far too many interpretations, and goes against the very nature of war to the point that it expands confusion and inflates a sense of predictability far beyond that which it can be expected to deliver.” http://strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pubs/parameters/Articles/08autumn/mattis.pdf
8. We shouldn’t read too much into that single word, “effects.” The US military is exceptionally good at tossing out buzzwords while paying the meaning of those words no attention whatsoever. For example, when the first plan for the 2003 invasion of Iraq it was rejected, apparently by Rummie, himself, as being insufficiently awe-shucksful, Tommy Franks’ staff added into the exact same plan the phrase, “Shock and Awe,” if memory serves, one hundred and twenty-seven times. It was then approved as being sufficiently and shockingly awful. You can’t make this crap up. Well, you could but nobody would believe it.
9. Oddly, the Rommel legend appears to live mostly in the west. I’ve had a number of conversations, sometimes sober, sometimes not, with sundry German officers where Rommel’s name came up and the stated opinion was, generally, “Glory-hunting son of a bitch.”
10. Lest you get the wrong idea, ideas are not all that count in war. Hitler’s military judgment was, as shown, generally sound. He failed, however, in being a ditherer and being prone to panic. These were, however, matters of character, not judgment.
11. Are you, gentle reader, laughing too?
12. For my take on Cannae, albeit with a different focus than the present piece, go here: http://www.baen.com/DecisionCycles.asp
14. One wonders is there isn’t some sort of counterpunching meme floating around Orthodox civilization that makes them more likely to develop skill in this kind of defensive-offensive.
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