The play’s the thing but blood is its trumpet
If you ignore the physical forces in war, you get the opening phase of Operation Iraqi Freedom. If you ignore the moral forces in war, you get Vietnam. In Vietnam, the U.S. Army killed Vietnamese a plenty but lost the contest of moral forces (the North Vietnamese had the good sense to liquidate their media lackeys and hippies when they got uppity). In the opening phase of OIF, there was a lot of emphasis on psychological effect but not enough emphasis put on physically locking down Iraqi forces. Nathan Bedford Forrest, a master of shock, speed, and maneuver, had two parts to his strategy. A Churchillian war of eloquence may deliver the first part, put the scare into ’em, but it may fail to deliver the second: and keep it on. Iraqi forces certainly fled and eventually disappeared but no control was exercised over these wandering soldiers. They were allowed to wander off. Large parts of the country were left un-Americaned for too long. The scare was put into them but it wasn’t kept on. Eventually shock and awe, however much there really was, wore off and it was open season on American soldiers. Contrast this with Germany and Japan after World War II. The scare was put on and if it wore off, there were still American troops with guns patrolling the streets to put it back on. And, if the Americans annoyed you, they could always go home and leave you to the tender mercies of the Russians.
The implicit threat of Muscovite hordes may have done more to keep the fear on the Germans and Japanese than anything the Americans did. After all, the Russians had the most effective mix of narrative and mass of the second World War. Marxist-Leninist-Stalinism had the strategic advantage of integrating Clausewitz at its inception. This helped Stalin demonstrate a masterful grasp of mixing politicking and warfare under the direction of politics. If people thought Americans could be bled into disengagement, they were under no illusions that they could do the same to the Russians. If the Russians came, they would break you. They had the narrative of communism to inspire fellow travelers and useful idiots (the first to go into the GULAG when Soviet troops actually arrived) and they had a well-earned reputation for brutality to inspire everyone else. This narrative was backed by masses of tanks, artillery, planes, trains, automobiles, millions of Russian soldiers, and generals who weren’t afraid to use them to the last man.
If today’s Americans need a Churchill to seek strategic inspiration from, especially in wedding story with mass, they’ll have more luck with John Churchill than his loquacious great-great-great-great grandson.
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larrydunbar:
March 5th, 2014 at 4:30 am
True enough, but the sound of the trumpet is usually only short and sweat.
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The play of British military, at the time of the second Churchill, represented a structure that was both wide and deep.
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Perhaps it was a structure we needed, even if the sound of it was one that was not wanted.
Graham:
March 25th, 2014 at 4:47 pm
Well said, on the whole and especially toward the end.
It’s a pity about WW2 Britain, but I think they really only had the one mass land war in them.
I am not wholly convinced that the dichotomy is between UK on the one hand and US/USSR approaches on the other. Cast the way you have done, it makes sense, but your comments toward the end lean more in the direction I would go myself- which is to argue that the Americans of that time were doing something somewhere in between what the British were doing and what the Russians were doing.
By Soviet standards, the Americans were putting a lot more emphasis on narrative, an indirect approach at the strategic and operational levels, and casualty aversion. The heavy and direct element was more in the use of materiel where the Soviets could go big on both materiel and manpower. America wasn’t capable of fighting that kind of war. There weren’t even enough Americans to do that, at least not at casualty rates America would tolerate.
As a matter of broader speculation, I always considered all of the “big 3” vital.
The UK was ultimately vital mainly as a supporting player and launch platform in NW Europe, but more vital for being the only one in the war between June 1940 and June 1941, a year with the Soviets on the wrong side of neutrality and 18 months with the US not formally involved. If Britain had already been out, would the US have come into the ETO at all, let alone at the same time and with the same advantages?
The USSR was indisputably vital as the only one able and willing to both take and give that kind of punishment against Germany. No one was going to win without that, unless and until the US could bring atomic weapons to bear. The US alone wasn’t going to defeat Germany by conventional means.
On the other hand, I don’t know quite enough to be sure but despite Soviet capacity and undoubted success with their war industry, they took a lot of vehicles, aircraft, food and other support from the Allies. It seems briefly to have been near run enough that perhaps they would not have won alone either.
The US, arguably, is the only one that could have won alone, but likely only with atomic weapons and it is highly debatable whether they would have been able or willing to do that enough times to have the desired effect, in the absence of being part of a war coalition as above. Especially if the scenario doesn’t involve Germany already being put on the ropes by conventional means by combined forces.
Just discovered this site, by the way, by series of links to specific posts put up by The Scholar’s Stage. I am really enjoying this material, yours and your colleagues.
Grurray:
March 25th, 2014 at 7:50 pm
“If Britain had already been out, would the US have come into the ETO at all, let alone at the same time and with the same advantages?”
Good point.
A lot of people like to think that, had Hitler not declared war on the US, we would never have entered the European war.
The fact is we were financially and materially supporting Britain and France as early as 1939. FDR would have had us fighting much earlier, but he was prevented from doing so by Americans’ implicit and explicit isolationism.
There was a strong public distaste for supporting a losing cause in Europe, but the tide in public opinion turned after the Battle of Britain and when German forces were proven to be beatable. England not only fought off Germany but convinced us to join the fight.
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Could Americans have tolerated millions killed?
There were severe restrictions and censoring on any news and information. No one knew what was really going on and didn’t find out about any news or casualties until well after the fact.
The sad fact is it probably wasn’t necessary. There was a total civil commitment to the war effort.
Kids lied about their age to join up.
Men committed suicide out of despair and guilt if they were labeled 4F.
People really thought that if Hitler overan Europe he was just going to keep going and come across the Atlantic.
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If Americans had used the same operations plans and strategy as the Soviets –
i.e. inexperienced junior officers in command because of political purges
with dilapidated equipment made from the backwards industrial system
made by recently freed gulag prisoners
manned by untrained Asian reserves that were shot if they retreated
and used as cannon fodder for luring Wermacht divisions around in circles
then, yes, we probably wouldn’t have done too well.
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On the other hand, if we had faced forces personally commanded by Hitler, who decided how to dispatch his panzer divisions depending on whether he was in a good mood that morning, and finally decided to attack a city with no strategic value but surrounded by the Red Army,
then maybe we wouldn’t have done so badly.
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In other words, the question may not be whether or not the American GI could be deployed in sufficient numbers or tolerate a land war in Asia.
The correct question may be
how much sooner would we have won and how much less Russian bloodshed would there have been
had our amphibious landings been across the Black Sea instead of the English Channel?