OK, there's quite a big history with how counterinsurgencies screw up the culture at home, too. Really, people got to read more about the US Army in the 1970s, how they got out of the post-Vietnam chaos.
The obsession with "courage" and lethality reminds me quite a bit of certain third-world non-state actors and separatist regions, most notably Chechnya between 1996 and 1999, with the destruction of civil society and widespread radicalization of veterans.
Also, there's something called the "kill 'em all" delusion. Ever heard of the book "Devil's Guard"? It's probably a fabrication, but there's a very big reason why it sold so well: it appealed to the generation of veterans' frustration. Trust me, frustration is an incredible emotion.
Unfortunately, I chose chemistry as a degree due to job prospects and the fact that I will probably get depressed if I do politics. So someone else will have to pick up the fight.
This is great. Thank you. Decades ago, when I reached my first posting, I heard other officers refer to themselves or others as being “warriors,” or talking about how we all needed to be “warriors.” My reaction was both horror and derision—I thought it was childishly hilarious. We still referred to our service members as service members, sailors, soldiers, marines, service men, service women.
But that was the seed of something awful. And through my career, that seed has bloomed into a truly toxic phenomenon, with, as you discuss so well, potentially dire consequences for the country.
Clausewitz also wrote, as I recall it, about how the longer a conflict endured the more likely it was to experience a continuing escalation by both sides in turn after turn. Bruce Condell and David T. Zabecki present the army manual prepared between the two world wars by the Reichswehr/Wehrmacht in their book On the German Art of War: Truppenfuhrung (2001). I was still mildly startled to read in the manual's discussion of dealing with non-cooperative civilians the recommendation to take hostages - right there in black and white. I could only surmise that this reflected Prussian/German experience in the Franco-Prussian War and possibly with the tribal revolts in what is now Namibia.
As you (and Clausewitz) say, "... the purpose of war is not destruction, the mere satisfaction of instinctual enmity. The purpose is to induce your enemy to fulfill your will, to gain something."
And, as you rightly point out, it seems like, with Hegseth, that "We are talking about the choice of the armed forces or government to insist that extreme conduct in war is itself a means to victory."
Valid points.
I would only add that ever since 9/11, the US military has gone down a road that logically leads to this conclusion. Invading Afghanistan and Iraq, and using the AUMF to kill enemies hardly even tangentially connected to AQ all over the world. is the same thing. The US government has forgotten the purposes of strategy, the purposes of war, and instead has been engaged -- more or less openly since 2006 -- in destruction for the sake of destruction in the hopes that something better will come out the other end.
That this doesn't really happen is no loss to them; careers and money is made in the interim. And the ugly truth is that destroying Libya or Syria or Iraq *is* useful, as those places become negative sinkholes, who cannot threaten external machinations. Yes, it sucks to be a civilian in those places but DC cares not. It is in this sense that "making the rubble bounce" is used, as is the killing of all organized resistance as Hegseth is suggesting, as the wreckage and ruin is the point. The "something" of which they gain is destruction.
I think the post 9/11 practice is something distinct (though the temptation/tendency is present). The war on terror has a strategy behind the destruction (whatever its merits may be), namely keeping certain organizations weak in view of the limited American commitment.
It really seems like you're just straining to make a vaguely "clauzewitzian" argument to justify the fact that you don't like Pete Hegseth or Trump. You can just not like Trump or SecDef, without trying to add a gauzy film of academe over you're preconceived political preference, and do violence ro Clausewitz in the process.
There's nothing in Hegseth's priority of making the military more effective at warfihting that tends towards Imperial Germany and it's lack of civilian oversight unless you independently insert the liberal meme of "Trump authoritarian, scary!" over everything SecDef says.
Hegseth obviously is not discounting the need for logistics or other supporting functions to conduct war--those are obviously implied in conducting war effectively. It's not like he's saying "get rid of TRANSCOM" or something.
He obviously is not disregarding other means of state craft to achieve political end states, he's just focusing the military on the M in DIME, which he explicitly says.
I get it, you don't like Trump. You can just say that, without bringing Carl into it.
Both, I suppose. You create a straw man (labelled Hegseth's "school of thought"), and then make tendentious arguments based on broad, vaguely "clausewitzian" principles to enlist a dude who lived over 200 years ago to substantiate your dislike of Hegseth's rhetorical outlook. It's hard to say what coherent "point" your making besides "I've read clausewitz and also Hegseth is bad." I think you know you're doing this.
Hegseth has very plainly stated that the reason the US lost its war in Afghanistan was the lack of indiscriminate killing of civilians.
Clausewitz is widely recognized as the authority (or the best explorer of) the nature of war and how it should best be thought of. It is only natural that I (someone who studies Clausewitz) would bring his ideas into comparison when criticizing the SecDef’s campaign for “lethality” and a “warrior ethos.”
If my characterization of Hegseth’s position seems like a strawman, I welcome any alternative interpretations, but I am not especially inclined to give the benefit of the doubt to someone with his track record of incompetence, amorality, and personal misconduct.
Yeah, it's just apparent thatlike you're mischaracterizing Hegseth left and right. For instance, I'm guessing that when you say he "plainly stated" that we need to "indiscriminately kill civilians," you're referencing how he takes issue with overly-restrictive ROEs that inhibit the ability of forces to engage with the enemy. There's a whole lot of space between saying, "let's not make overly-restrictive ROEs and mayne avoid putting our soldiers in those situations in the first place," and saying "yeah let's just kill civilians." There's room for discussion in that space. But that discussion won't happen so long as military experts (like yourself) just latch onto the "Trump bad/Hegseth bad" narrative and say "ahhh Pete's just a baby killer," that discussion won't happen. You need to understand him on his terms. And from what I can see, those terms are generally using conventional military power in combat to fight actual wars where the ROEs, the enemy, and the end states are clear...not pseudo wars where the ROEs, enemy, and end states are amorphous and always changing. I get reality is more complicated, but I think SecDef's starting point is much more sound than what we've apparently had in military leadership for the past generation or so.
You seem to miss in all this the fundamental loss in judgement of previous Presidents who decided that non-warfighting and non-logistics military politicians should control the process. I worked in the military technology area for 25 years. Most of the officers involved peaked at LTC because, God love them and as good as they were, they weren’t warfighters (with a few notable exceptions). I would not want to see them running the military (your point about McNamara is true). In the same way someone experienced in public affairs or personnel does not provide good leadership in combat. You all know political generals who checked all the right boxes but had no right commanding warriors. Fredenhall was a lousy combat commander but did a good job in a training command. Leaders such as Rommel and Patton rarely rise to the Chiefs level because they want to focus more on war than politics.
We have had more than our fair share of bad SecDefs. Your assessment of Hegseth may be right or wrong but only time will tell. He is at least an improvement over Austin or Carter. Weinberger was probably the best of the lot with both the Army and Navy being turned around from the post Nam trough. Perhaps you could provide Carl thoughts on the last ten or so Sec Defs rather than focusing on just the one you currently dislike.
As a career Navy man, with another 21 years in the DoD, my impression is that the niceties of war should be handled by the diplomats and civilian leaders, and implemented by things like the Geneva Convention. The military’s job is to “kill people and break things” until told otherwise.
One of Clausewitz’s key insights is that it’s futile to try and draw a line between politics (as directed by civilians) and war. War is conducting politics with the addition of “killing people and breaking things”. Those additions have to be in line with the overall political purpose. Killing more people and breaking more things in many cases does not help achieve the purpose. This is of course more relevant the higher the level of responsibility, generals must consider political aims more than privates, but there is nevertheless the potential for the “strategic corporal”, ie one corporal’s decision whether to ignore or enforce ROE could spark a wave of unrest in the occupied country or undermine negotiations ongoing.
So, attempting to confine the military to “purely” military matters will produce unintended consequences. (This was the philosophy of imperial Germany, which I have written on, and Samuel Huntington derived many of his norms for civil-military relations from). War is violence directed towards a political goal, and not all violence is equally helpful, or necessarily helpful at all. It is part of the overall process of politics, an extension, not a completely different state (even if its effects on politics can be dramatic).
The military rarely likes the constraints put upon it by the civilian leadership. They have been complaining about it for decades. They are more than willing to follow the law, and strategic directions of their civilian leaders, but when it comes down to how to fight, just want to concentrate on how to decimate the enemy’s capabilities. The decisions of who, how, and when to kill; and what, how, and when to destroy are tempered by ethics and strategy, but the focus is on combat efficiency.
The quote "Death solves all problems - no man, no problem" is misattributed. It was created by author Anatoly Rybakov in his book Children of the Arbat, Rybakov himself admitted that he had no sources for the quote in his book a novel of memoirs.
This is an excellent read. Thank you!
With the recent fiasco of Trump and Hegseth, I am reminded of other pieces that dissect their military "thinking".
https://blackcloudsix.substack.com/p/canada-doesnt-need-warriorsit-needs
https://secretaryrofdefenserock.substack.com/p/the-triumph-of-the-operator
https://secretaryrofdefenserock.substack.com/p/the-rise-of-american-bushido
https://secretaryrofdefenserock.substack.com/p/american-bushido-in-practice
OK, there's quite a big history with how counterinsurgencies screw up the culture at home, too. Really, people got to read more about the US Army in the 1970s, how they got out of the post-Vietnam chaos.
The obsession with "courage" and lethality reminds me quite a bit of certain third-world non-state actors and separatist regions, most notably Chechnya between 1996 and 1999, with the destruction of civil society and widespread radicalization of veterans.
Also, there's something called the "kill 'em all" delusion. Ever heard of the book "Devil's Guard"? It's probably a fabrication, but there's a very big reason why it sold so well: it appealed to the generation of veterans' frustration. Trust me, frustration is an incredible emotion.
Unfortunately, I chose chemistry as a degree due to job prospects and the fact that I will probably get depressed if I do politics. So someone else will have to pick up the fight.
This is great. Thank you. Decades ago, when I reached my first posting, I heard other officers refer to themselves or others as being “warriors,” or talking about how we all needed to be “warriors.” My reaction was both horror and derision—I thought it was childishly hilarious. We still referred to our service members as service members, sailors, soldiers, marines, service men, service women.
But that was the seed of something awful. And through my career, that seed has bloomed into a truly toxic phenomenon, with, as you discuss so well, potentially dire consequences for the country.
Clausewitz also wrote, as I recall it, about how the longer a conflict endured the more likely it was to experience a continuing escalation by both sides in turn after turn. Bruce Condell and David T. Zabecki present the army manual prepared between the two world wars by the Reichswehr/Wehrmacht in their book On the German Art of War: Truppenfuhrung (2001). I was still mildly startled to read in the manual's discussion of dealing with non-cooperative civilians the recommendation to take hostages - right there in black and white. I could only surmise that this reflected Prussian/German experience in the Franco-Prussian War and possibly with the tribal revolts in what is now Namibia.
Excellent points all round. Brilliantly written and very well put. Thank you 🙂👍
As you (and Clausewitz) say, "... the purpose of war is not destruction, the mere satisfaction of instinctual enmity. The purpose is to induce your enemy to fulfill your will, to gain something."
And, as you rightly point out, it seems like, with Hegseth, that "We are talking about the choice of the armed forces or government to insist that extreme conduct in war is itself a means to victory."
Valid points.
I would only add that ever since 9/11, the US military has gone down a road that logically leads to this conclusion. Invading Afghanistan and Iraq, and using the AUMF to kill enemies hardly even tangentially connected to AQ all over the world. is the same thing. The US government has forgotten the purposes of strategy, the purposes of war, and instead has been engaged -- more or less openly since 2006 -- in destruction for the sake of destruction in the hopes that something better will come out the other end.
That this doesn't really happen is no loss to them; careers and money is made in the interim. And the ugly truth is that destroying Libya or Syria or Iraq *is* useful, as those places become negative sinkholes, who cannot threaten external machinations. Yes, it sucks to be a civilian in those places but DC cares not. It is in this sense that "making the rubble bounce" is used, as is the killing of all organized resistance as Hegseth is suggesting, as the wreckage and ruin is the point. The "something" of which they gain is destruction.
I think the post 9/11 practice is something distinct (though the temptation/tendency is present). The war on terror has a strategy behind the destruction (whatever its merits may be), namely keeping certain organizations weak in view of the limited American commitment.
It really seems like you're just straining to make a vaguely "clauzewitzian" argument to justify the fact that you don't like Pete Hegseth or Trump. You can just not like Trump or SecDef, without trying to add a gauzy film of academe over you're preconceived political preference, and do violence ro Clausewitz in the process.
There's nothing in Hegseth's priority of making the military more effective at warfihting that tends towards Imperial Germany and it's lack of civilian oversight unless you independently insert the liberal meme of "Trump authoritarian, scary!" over everything SecDef says.
Hegseth obviously is not discounting the need for logistics or other supporting functions to conduct war--those are obviously implied in conducting war effectively. It's not like he's saying "get rid of TRANSCOM" or something.
He obviously is not disregarding other means of state craft to achieve political end states, he's just focusing the military on the M in DIME, which he explicitly says.
I get it, you don't like Trump. You can just say that, without bringing Carl into it.
Do you disagree with the arguments I made? Or do you just take issue with the subject of the criticism?
Both, I suppose. You create a straw man (labelled Hegseth's "school of thought"), and then make tendentious arguments based on broad, vaguely "clausewitzian" principles to enlist a dude who lived over 200 years ago to substantiate your dislike of Hegseth's rhetorical outlook. It's hard to say what coherent "point" your making besides "I've read clausewitz and also Hegseth is bad." I think you know you're doing this.
Hegseth has very plainly stated that the reason the US lost its war in Afghanistan was the lack of indiscriminate killing of civilians.
Clausewitz is widely recognized as the authority (or the best explorer of) the nature of war and how it should best be thought of. It is only natural that I (someone who studies Clausewitz) would bring his ideas into comparison when criticizing the SecDef’s campaign for “lethality” and a “warrior ethos.”
If my characterization of Hegseth’s position seems like a strawman, I welcome any alternative interpretations, but I am not especially inclined to give the benefit of the doubt to someone with his track record of incompetence, amorality, and personal misconduct.
Yeah, it's just apparent thatlike you're mischaracterizing Hegseth left and right. For instance, I'm guessing that when you say he "plainly stated" that we need to "indiscriminately kill civilians," you're referencing how he takes issue with overly-restrictive ROEs that inhibit the ability of forces to engage with the enemy. There's a whole lot of space between saying, "let's not make overly-restrictive ROEs and mayne avoid putting our soldiers in those situations in the first place," and saying "yeah let's just kill civilians." There's room for discussion in that space. But that discussion won't happen so long as military experts (like yourself) just latch onto the "Trump bad/Hegseth bad" narrative and say "ahhh Pete's just a baby killer," that discussion won't happen. You need to understand him on his terms. And from what I can see, those terms are generally using conventional military power in combat to fight actual wars where the ROEs, the enemy, and the end states are clear...not pseudo wars where the ROEs, enemy, and end states are amorphous and always changing. I get reality is more complicated, but I think SecDef's starting point is much more sound than what we've apparently had in military leadership for the past generation or so.
I went to infantry school in 1979, the DS said we were training for conflict.
You seem to miss in all this the fundamental loss in judgement of previous Presidents who decided that non-warfighting and non-logistics military politicians should control the process. I worked in the military technology area for 25 years. Most of the officers involved peaked at LTC because, God love them and as good as they were, they weren’t warfighters (with a few notable exceptions). I would not want to see them running the military (your point about McNamara is true). In the same way someone experienced in public affairs or personnel does not provide good leadership in combat. You all know political generals who checked all the right boxes but had no right commanding warriors. Fredenhall was a lousy combat commander but did a good job in a training command. Leaders such as Rommel and Patton rarely rise to the Chiefs level because they want to focus more on war than politics.
We have had more than our fair share of bad SecDefs. Your assessment of Hegseth may be right or wrong but only time will tell. He is at least an improvement over Austin or Carter. Weinberger was probably the best of the lot with both the Army and Navy being turned around from the post Nam trough. Perhaps you could provide Carl thoughts on the last ten or so Sec Defs rather than focusing on just the one you currently dislike.
As a career Navy man, with another 21 years in the DoD, my impression is that the niceties of war should be handled by the diplomats and civilian leaders, and implemented by things like the Geneva Convention. The military’s job is to “kill people and break things” until told otherwise.
One of Clausewitz’s key insights is that it’s futile to try and draw a line between politics (as directed by civilians) and war. War is conducting politics with the addition of “killing people and breaking things”. Those additions have to be in line with the overall political purpose. Killing more people and breaking more things in many cases does not help achieve the purpose. This is of course more relevant the higher the level of responsibility, generals must consider political aims more than privates, but there is nevertheless the potential for the “strategic corporal”, ie one corporal’s decision whether to ignore or enforce ROE could spark a wave of unrest in the occupied country or undermine negotiations ongoing.
So, attempting to confine the military to “purely” military matters will produce unintended consequences. (This was the philosophy of imperial Germany, which I have written on, and Samuel Huntington derived many of his norms for civil-military relations from). War is violence directed towards a political goal, and not all violence is equally helpful, or necessarily helpful at all. It is part of the overall process of politics, an extension, not a completely different state (even if its effects on politics can be dramatic).
The military rarely likes the constraints put upon it by the civilian leadership. They have been complaining about it for decades. They are more than willing to follow the law, and strategic directions of their civilian leaders, but when it comes down to how to fight, just want to concentrate on how to decimate the enemy’s capabilities. The decisions of who, how, and when to kill; and what, how, and when to destroy are tempered by ethics and strategy, but the focus is on combat efficiency.
The quote "Death solves all problems - no man, no problem" is misattributed. It was created by author Anatoly Rybakov in his book Children of the Arbat, Rybakov himself admitted that he had no sources for the quote in his book a novel of memoirs.
That’s why I described it as apocryphal :)