War From the Ground Up (44 page)

7
. Andreas Herberg-Rothe,
Clausewitz's Puzzle
, p. 32. Herberg-Rothe cites Carl von Clausewitz,
The Campaign of 1815. Strategic Overview
, p. 89, translated and edited by Daniel Moran, unpublished manuscript (Monterey: 2005).

8
. Clausewitz,
On War
, Book 6, ch. 30, p. 501.

9
. Ibid.,
On War
, Book 8, ch. 3, p. 582.

10
. Ibid.,
On War
, Book 3, ch.16, p. 218.

11
. Ibid.,
On War
, Book 6, ch. 30, p. 516.

12
. Ibid.,
On War
, Book 8, ch.4, p. 597.

13
. Clausewitz,
Two Letters on Strategy
(1827), edited and translated by Peter Paret and Daniel Moran (1984).
http://www.clausewitz.com/readings/TwoLetters/TwoLetters.htm

14
. Clausewitz's views evolved as he was writing
On War
, which was an unfinished Book at the time of his death. In many places he can legitimately be seen to be obsessed with the destruction of the enemy, and advocates this as the default operational method. Yet in the books he revised towards the end of his life, namely Book 1 and Book 8, the mature Clausewitz offers a far more nuanced analysis which recognises the primacy of policy and the need of an operational approach to satisfy political objectives.

15
. Clausewitz,
On War
, Book 6, ch. 30, p. 516.

16
. Clausewitz's work only came to real prominence in Europe following Prussia's successes in the wars of German unification (1866–71).

17
. Both Jomini and Clausewitz drew upon, and challenged, the work of a retired Prussian Officer, Heinrich von Bülow (1757–1807). Bülow's conception of strategy conformed to its ‘traditional' location, between tactics and policy; strategy was defined as: ‘all military movements within the enemy's cannon range or range of vision', tactics was ‘all movements within this range'. What distinguished Clausewitz and Jomini's works in relation to Bülow's was their reaction to his advocacy of universal military principles. Peter Paret, the American military historian and Clausewitz specialist, has argued that Jomini agreed with Bülow's approach, but disagreed with his conclusions, replacing Bülow's universal principles with his own. Peter Paret,
The Cognitive Challenge of War, Prussia 1806
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009), pp. 111–12.

18
. This was the concluding 35th chapter of the 3rd volume of his
Traité de grande tactique
.

19
. Peter Paret,
The Cognitive Challenge of War, Prussia 1806
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009), pp. 111–12; see footnote 6 on p. 111 for discussion of publication dates of the
Résumé
.

20
. Clausewitz criticised General von Bülow and Antoine-Henri Jomini for looking for set rules that applied universally in war. This is perhaps an unfair criticism given that their views were in fact very similar to his; the key difference is the distinction as to the context in which they are applied. See for example the extensive footnote in
On War
, Book 6, ch. 3, p. 363; also Book 6, ch. 30, p. 516.

21
. Peter Paret,
The Cognitive Challenge of War
, pp. 112 and 129.

22
. John Shy stresses how Jomini's view was that irregular warfare was not the
business of regular armies; he rejected civil wars and religious wars as ‘wars of opinion' that were ill suited to rigorous analysis; Antoine-Henry Jomini,
Précis de l'art de la guerre
, new edn, 2 vols. (Paris, 1855; reprinted Osnabrück, 1973), 1:83. Jomini found guerrilla warfare morally repugnant; he did not think it was the business of regular armies. He wrote that soldiers prefer war ‘
loyale et chevaleresque
'. Jomini had for example written about the horrors of the French experience of guerrilla warfare in Spain. Jomini advanced that if armies were forced to engage in such conflict the principles of conventional war did not apply. Rather than striking a decisive point, a mobile force should be created, while other territorial ‘divisions' garrisoned each conquered district; commanders of such forces should be ‘
instruit
' (politically attuned). Antoine-Henry Jomini,
Traité des grandes opérations militaires, contenant l'histoire des campagnes de Frédéric II, comparés à celles de l'empereur Napoléon; avec un recueil des principes généraux de l'art de la guerre
, 2nd edn, 4 vols. (Paris, 1811), 4: 284–85n; John Shy, ‘Jomini', in Peter Paret (ed.),
Makers of Modern Strategy
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986), pp. 170–71.

23
. Shy, ‘Jomini', pp. 179–84. The ‘six principles' of the American Thayer Mahan's very influential
The Influence of Sea Power upon History 1660–1783
(1890), for example, popularised Jominian method in naval context. Giulio Douhet's
The Command of the Air
(1921) anticipated the notion of ‘air power' and its associated principles.

24
. Daniel Moran,
Strategic Theory and the History of War
(US Naval Postgraduate School, 2001), p. 7.

25
. Karl-Heinz Frieser,
The Blitzkrieg Legend: The 1940 Campaign in the West
, translated by John T. Greenwood (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2005); first published as Karl-Heinz Frieser,
Blitzkrieg-Legende. Der West-feldzug 1940
(Munich: Oldenbourg Verlag, 1995).

26
. Ibid., cited in Hew Strachan,
The Lost Meaning of Strategy
, p. 46.

27
. Hew Strachan, Clausewitz's
On War, A Biography
, p. 17.

28
. Eric Ludendorff,
Kriegführung und Politik
(Berlin: E. S. Mittler, 1922), pp. 320–42. Cited in Hew Strachan,
The Lost Meaning of Strategy
, p. 45.

29
. Neil Sheehan,
A Bright Shining Lie
, p. 637; this is the father of the General Krulak associated with the ‘three block war' concept. See also Lieutenant Colonel John Nagl, ‘Counter-insurgency in Vietnam', in Daniel Marston and Carter Malkasian (eds),
Counterinsurgency in Modern Warfare
(London: Osprey, 2008), p. 139.

30
. Brian M. Jenkins,
The Unchangeable War
, RM-6278–2-ARPA (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 1970), p. 3. The speaker is not identified by name.

31
. Hew Strachan, ‘Strategy or Alibi? Obama, McChrystal, and the Operational Level of War',
Survival
, 52:5 (2010),pp. 157–82.

32
. Ibid., p. 160.

33
. Strachan cites Tommy Franks,
American Soldier
(New York: Regan Books, 2004), p. 440.

34
. Ibid., p. 166.

35
. Edward Luttwak,
Strategy
:
The Logic of War and Peace
(Cambridge, MA: Belknap Harvard, revised enlarged edn 2002), p. 111. The same argument relates to the distinction between ‘strategic' and ‘tactical' nuclear weapons.

36
. Shy, ‘Jomini', p. 154.

37
. Shy notes that this term had already been used by Henry Lloyd and the Prussian Colonel Fredrick von Tempelhoff.

38
. ‘Security and Stabilisation: The Military Contribution', Joint Doctrine Publication 3–40 (London: Ministry of Defence, 2009), pp. 4–24.

39
. Susan L. Woodward, ‘The Paradox of “State Failure”, States Matter; Take Them Seriously',
Enjeux Internationaux
(Brussels), special issue on state failure edited by Jean-Paul Marthoz, no. 11, 2006,
http://www.statesandsecurity.org/_pdfs/enjeuxintle.pdf

40
. Gian P. Gentile, ‘A Strategy of Tactics, Population Centric COIN and the Army', US Army War College
Parameters
magazine (Autumn 2009).

41
. Edward Luttwak, ‘Dead End: Counter-insurgency Warfare as Military Malpractice',
Harper's Magazine
(February 2007), pp. 33–42.

42
. Daniel Dombey and Matthew Green, ‘US shifts Afghan tactics to target Taliban',
Financial Times
(17 March 2011).

43
. See particularly US DOD
Joint Force Quarterly
52 (1
^st
quarter 2009); 58 (3
^rd
quarter 2009); two op-eds of
Small Wars Journal
in particular comment on the issue: Shawn Brimley, ‘Mediating Between Crusaders and Conservatives' (October 2008), and Robert Haddick, ‘Nagl and Gentile Are Both Right, So What Do We Do Now?' (November 2008).

44
. Nagl has also argued for the creation of a corps of advisers to conduct low-level counter-insurgency-type missions worldwide in partnership with local forces to deal with potential conflicts before they become bigger problems.

45
. John Nagl,
Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife: counterinsurgency lessons from Malaya and Vietnam
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005, reprint of an earlier thesis).

46
. Brigadier General H. R. McMaster, ‘On War: Lessons to be Learned',
Survival
(February-March 2008); cited by John Nagl, ‘Let's Win the Wars We're In', US DOD Joint Force Quarterly 52 (1
^st
quarter 2009), p. 23.

47
. Bob Woodward,
Obama's Wars
, ch. 8, p. 83.

48
. Ibid., Glossary, p. 381.

49
. Colonel Gian P. Gentile, ‘Freeing the Army from the Counter-insurgency Straitjacket', US DoD
Joint Force Quarterly
58 (3
^rd
quarter 2010), p. 121.

50
. Colonel Gian P. Gentile, ‘A Strategy of Tactics: Population Centric COIN and the Army', p. 6.

51
. Plutarch,
Life of Pompey
, 10, 7.

52
. John Paul Vann quoted in Neil Sheenan,
A Bright Shining Lie
(London: Jonathan Cape, 1988), p. 67.

53
. General Sir Frank Kitson,
Low Intensity Operations: Subversion, Insurgency, Peace-keeping
(London: Faber and Faber, 1971), p. 199.

54
. See for example
A New Way Forward, re-thinking US Strategy in Afghanistan
, A Report of the Afghanistan Study Group (August 2010).

55
. Although most obviously associated with Malaya, the term ‘hearts and minds' was possibly coined by Sir Robert Sandeman, a British official associated with the campaigns in South Baluchistan in the 1870s. See David Loyn,
Butcher and Bolt: Two Hundred Years of Foreign Engagement in Afghanistan
(London: Hutchinson, 2008), p. 162.

56
. Alex Marshall, ‘Imperial nostalgia, the liberal lie, and the perils of post-modern counter-insurgency',
Small Wars and Insurgencies Journal
21:2 (2010), pp. 233–58. His argument concludes by criticising policy-makers in the context of Afghanistan for not having provided a political context in which counter-insurgency as an operational concept can have political utility, if the counter-insurgent is not the sovereign power. I would not go this far, as counter-insurgency was highly effective in Iraq, and has so far achieved localised effects in Afghanistan. However, I agree with Marshall's broader point about the critical association of political context and operational method.

57
. Neil Sheehan,
Bright Shining Lie
, pp. 365, 373.

58
. Ibid., p. 374.

59
. British Army Training Team (BATT) notes on the raising and training of irregular forces in Dhofar, p. 65, paragraphs 4 and 12, document from the Middle East Centre, St Anthony's College, Oxford. I am grateful to the Counterinsurgency Scholars Programme at the US Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, run by Professor Daniel Marston, for this document.

60
. Many of the observations for the Dhofar section were presented by veterans of the Oman Sultan's Armed Forces (SAF) at a conference in Oxford run by members of the US Army Counterinsurgency Scholars Programme, US Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth. The SAF veterans present were: Ian Gordon, Mike Lobb MBE, Knobby Reid OBE, John McKeown. I am grateful to Lt. Col. (retired) McKeown for his unpublished Masters dissertation,
Britain and Oman: The Dhofar War and its Significance
(submitted to the University of Cambridge, 1981). See also Ian Gardiner,
In the Service of the Sultan
,
A First Hand Account of the Dhofar
Insurgency
(London: Pen and Sword, 2007). Also General Sir John Akehurst,
We Won a War
(Salisbury: Michael Russell, 1982); Peter Thwaites,
Muscat Command
:
The Muscat Regiment in Oman in 1967
(Combined Books, 1995).

61
. Major Shaun Chandler and Captain Emile Simpson, ‘The Shade-Shift Approach to Operations',
British Army Review
, no. 150 (Winter 2010/2011).

62
. Emile Simpson, ‘Gaining the Influence Initiative: Why Kinetic Operations are Central to Influence in Southern Afghanistan',
British Army Review
, no. 147 (Summer 2009).

63
. I am not sure who coined this. I have tried and failed to find the source.

1
. A good account of the diplomatic aspects of the Commonwealth position is presented in John Subritzky,
Confronting Sukarno
(London: Macmillan, 2000); the military contribution of Australian and New Zealand forces in particular is well covered in Peter Dennis and Jeffrey Grey,
Emergency and Confrontation: Australian Military Operations in Malaya and Borneo 1950–1966
(St Leonard's, NSW: Allen and Unwin, 1996); and Christopher Pugsley,
From Emergency to Confrontation: The New Zealand Armed Forces in Malaya and Borneo 1949–1966
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003).

2
. Denis Healey to the House of Commons, 27 November 1967, in General Sir Walter Walker, ‘How Borneo Was Won',
The Round Table
(January 1969), p. 395.