More on Technological War

Lieutenant Colonel Donald R. Baucom has raised interesting points about the impact of technology on war. Technology, with all its ambiguities, is certainly intriguing. It is immune to ideology, inexorable in application, yet unpredictable in its outcome. However, it is not mythical in its impact on the process of waging war.

To the soldier contemplating or engaged in combat, nothing is more important than belief in the effectiveness of his weapon. It is the nature of man when he prepares for fighting to seek an advantage beyond a positive purpose. The better weapon offers an increased chance for survival and victory. In times of peace, better weapons sometimes present easier alternatives to hard training, discipline, and risk-taking. When these alternatives are taken, however, the fault lies with the soldier, not the weapon or the technology it embodies. For these reasons, I cannot accept the idea that technology detracts in any way from the role of combat leaders. To be sure, some of our twentieth century leaders, to their great discredit, did not think through the implications of new technology on the battlefield and, as a result, were educated at great cost in men and materiel— Patton’s disbelief in the role and effectiveness of air power being a good example.

The U. S. military profession does not overemphasize technology; we misapply it. Technology cannot be competitive with superior leadership, willingness to sacrifice, and risk-taking. These factors are decidedly human; courage or cowardice are in no way analogous to muzzle velocity or mach number.

The American attitude toward technology tends to exaggerate its importance, but this exaggeration is only for public consumption and is not reflected in military application. In fact, the military attitude toward technology is quite the opposite. My favorite example of this is Wampanoag, a steam vessel that could have put the United States a full generation ahead of all navies if it had been employed. Unfortunately, a Navy board composed of experienced Navy combat leaders and seamen found in 1869 that

The U.S. military has had many Wampanoags in its history — swept-wing jet fighters after World War II and precision-guided munitions (PGMs) after Korea are but two Air Force examples. Yes, PGMs! We need more today because they work and are much more effective than conventional weapons. This is factual technology, not myth. Unfortunately, PGMs cost a great deal of money, and we cannot really afford to buy all we need in the near term and still modernize our force structure. So we end up in the preposterous position of having late twentieth-century aircraft carrying nineteenth-century ordnance. However, this is an indictment of what is practical and not an indictment of technology.

Colonel Baucom expressed concern about the "legions of managers, engineers, technicians, and bureaucrats" and their displacement of the true soldiers. He is asking a fundamental question—who will do our fighting and dying? The same people who Shave always done the fighting and dying. As President Lincoln reminded us:

Things are not really that different today, and no peacetime army prepares its soldiers for the ultimate reality of combat.

Our times of peace are periods to prepare for war. It is during these times that managers, engineers, and technicians structure the machines of war and, in many way, establish parameters for how the war will be conducted. Many of these men are warriors at heart, and

. . . when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger;
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,

Shakespeare, Henry V, III.1

Until that time, however, there is no way to distinguish between those who will and those who lack the moral fiber.

Colonel Baucom also lamented the declining role that military leaders play in national strategic thinking. This is regrettable, but there are very clear reasons why this is so. Technology expanded the spatial aspects of war, and after World War II, military expertise significantly and profoundly lagged behind weapon development. Lacking traditionally empirical evidence for the quantum jumps in weaponry, there was a shift to theoretical postulations on weapon effects, application, and strategic meaning. Naturally, the nuclear weapon produced the ultimate schism between military experience and strategic thinking. In this type of environment, game theory prevailed over campaign ribbons, and war strategy became a matter of firepower equations subject to presumed rational laws of marginal analysis. Unfortunately, we military professionals had no alternative construct that factored in leadership, courage, unit integrity, etc. These are the troublesome qualitative factors that tend to be ignored, especially when the ultimate measure of merit is the dollar.

Perhaps military expertise will never be restored to a position of prominence in strategic matters. Nevertheless, professional soldiers must endeavor to influence these matters with integrity and consistency — something we have not always done! Too much effort has been devoted to preserving traditional service roles, and much that could be done by the military in providing wise counsel is clouded in parochial jargon that tends to confuse issues and delay decisions. The whole process of developing military options is burdened with consensus thinking and compromise. Internal bargaining receives disproportionate attention—sometimes at the sacrifice of substance. In this environment, services tend to exaggerate their positions to achieve bargaining advantage. Diogenes would have an equally long search today were he in search of a truly "purple suited" military professional. In this particularly acute problem area, I do not see the matter of technology in any way operative. I see human failings: careerism and self-serving interest.

Finally, Colonel Baucom attempted to establish a relationship between technology and lethality on the battlefield. The approach reminded me of Stalin’s infamous comment that "one man’s death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic." I believe the analysis ignored important psychological and ideological factors in postulating technology’s influence on lethality.

Surely we must recognize the significant influence on the territorial imperative. Clausewitz recognized it in his analysis of Napoleon’s 1812 battle of Moscow: "The effectiveness of resisting to the last had not yet been discovered." Men will fight against all odds and expose themselves to casualty when they perceive a threat to their homeland. Was not this type of influence present with the Germans, French, and British to a greater extent than with the Americans in World War I and World War II?

Ideological influences also have a tremendous impact on casualties. The "death before dishonor" ideology of the Japanese soldier immediately comes to mind—the death charges of Korean and Chinese soldiers in like manner. One did not need high technology to kill soldiers who were inviting slaughter and were not in a true sense engaged in combat.

Both psychological and ideological factors were heavily involved in the Vietnam and Middle East wars. I am not sure what long-term lessons, if any, we can learn from these conflicts. I am convinced that we have already made too much over our Vietnam experience. Vietnam was not a failure of technology! It was a failure of leadership and purpose. There is also an abundance of analysis on the Middle East wars, and some believe that the intensity of the battlefield is an accurate analogue for what we might expect in Europe. Sir John Hackett’s popular fiction, The Third World War, tends to reinforce this belief, and I am astonished that it is widely accepted as being most factual in its portrayal of the next European war—were there to be one. I remain unconvinced. The situation is quite different in Europe, and it will not start and inflame through miscalculation for the simple reason that there is too much at risk.

Colonel William R. O'Rourke, Jr. (USAFA; M.B.A., Auburn University) is Commander, 3505^th USAF Recruiting Group, Chanute Air Force Base, Illinois.

The conclusions and opinions expressed in this document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression, academic environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air Force or the Air University.