A quintessential general by Victor Davis Hanson

U.S. Grant:

I've recently read Lodge's history of Grant's Vicksburg campaign, and I realize that I have been unjust to the man in accepting the common reading of historians. Grant was indeed the equal of any general of his age, at least.

Interestingly, there is a new biography of Grant by one of the gentleman soldiers of VMI. It's gotten a positive review by V. D. Hanson. Here's a piece of it that caught my eye, given our recent discussions:

What made him a great general? The campaigns to take Forts Henry and Donelson were inspired; the capture of Vicksburg was beyond the powers of any contemporary Northern general save Grant. But it was not just know-how that made Grant singular. As Bunting rightly notes, "Grant understood that his predecessors in command in the East had failed not because of inferior tactical brains but because they lacked, simply, will."

Introduction

Hello everyone,

My name is Daniel and I've been asked to teach the Tactics portion of the Military Science project here in Grim's Hall. I'm a former Marine, infantry of course, who also went to a few advanced schools to develop Close Quarter Battle skills. The end of my tour saw me in a Heavy Weapon's Platoon as part of a CAAT (Combined Anti-Armor Team) unit ; essentially three heavy machine-gun vehicles and two TOW vehicles per squad, with 3 squads. My area of expertise is small unit actions.

Now, I'll sit back, shut-up... push the 'publish post' button... and hope this thing works.

Daniel

Grim's Hall

MilSci #2

You may have missed KGC's early reactions to Warfighting, but I'd like to draw your attention to what he noticed:

I finished Chapter 1 this weekend, and here are the key phrases I underlined / took home with me.

Human will factors hugely into the author's descriptions of war.

WAR DEFINED, p4:
"The object in war is to impose our will on our enemy."

FRICTION, p6:
"One essential means to overcome friction is the will; we prevail over friction through persistent strength of mind and spirit. ...we must attempt at the same time to raise our enemy's friction to a level that weakens his ability to fight."

He also points out the inherent chaos of war, and what little we can do to combat it (as well as noticing the "butterfly effect" of "small actions":

UNCERTAINTY, p7:
"The very nature of war makes certainty impossible; all actions in war will be based on incomplete, inaccurate, or even contradictory information."

p8:
"...we can never eliminate uncertainty, we must learn to fight effectively despite it...by developing simple, flexible plans; planning for likely contingencies; developing standing operating procedures; and fostering initiative among subordinates."

p8:
"Outcomes of battles can hinge on the actions of a few individuals... ."

FLUIDITY, p9: "Since war is a fluid phenomenon, its conduct requires flexibility of thought."

He points out that war is an event somewhat like a symphony (my analogy) with rising and falling action:

p10: "The tempo of war will fluctuate from periods of intense combat to periods in which activity is limited... ."

DISORDER, p11:
"...we cannot think of today's battlefield in linear terms... ." "The natural result of dispersion is unoccupied areas, gaps, and exposed flanks which can and will be exploited..."

"...we must not only be able to fight effectively in the face of disorder, we should seek to generate disorder and use it as a weapon against our opponent."

This struck me as being an especially effective insurgency tactic.

COMPLEXITY, p12: "In reality, each belligerant is not a single, homogenous will guided by a single intelligence. ... War... emerges from the collective behavior of al the individual parts in the system interacting locally in response to local conditions and incomplete information." -- the obvious home-court advantage. "...Efforts to fully centralize millitary operations and to exert complete control by a single decisionmaker are inconsistent with the intrinsically complex and distributed nature of war."

PHYSICAL, MORAL, and MENTAL FORCES, p15: "Although material factors are more easily quantified, the moral and mental forces exert a greater influence on the nature and outcome of war."

The SCIENCE, ART and DYNAMIC of WAR: "Art includes the creative, situational application of scientific knowledge through judgment and experience, and so the art of war subsumes the science of war." "...the conduct of war is...human competition requiring...the knowledge of science and the creativity of art but driven ulimately by the power of human will."

I think this would be a good place to begin a discussion, for those who've had time to read this far. War is primarily about human will. Napoleon said "the morale is to the physical as three is to one."

One of the tasks of the enemy in warfighting, then, is to try to sap your will to fight. What are some ways to counter that? This is posed as a general question for discussion, not specific to the situation in Iraq, or to insurgency/counterinsurgency fighting. In all wars, it will be necessary to raise, boost, and maintain morale in the face of an enemy effort to break it. What kinds of things can you do in this regard?

NPR : A Marine Unit's Experience in Fallujah

"Lava Dog" & Devil Dogs

NPR has a report from Fallujah. The commentary is nearly worthless -- actually, in the mode of most of the reporting, it's of negative worth.

If you ignore most everything Anne Garrels says, however, you will get to hear several Marines allowed to speak for themselves. Set aside how she characterizes what they have to say, which she does at length before every clip in order that you won't come away thinking for yourself about what you've heard. Just listen to the men talk.

Hello the Hall.

Greetings, Everyone.

Those who haunt the comments will know of me already. Posting topics, (as opposed to commenting from the peanut gallery) is a new experience for me, so I'll thank you all in advance for your forebearance, and we'll see what happens next.

I look forward to it, and hope you all do too.

format

Slight Format Change:

Since this is now a group blog, I've changed the format slightly. The author's ID is now printed above the entry, so you'll know up front who is speaking. Carry on.

Fallujah, Iraq

Fallujah from Space:

The Federation of American Scientists has posted a new view of Fallujah, Iraq. Taken 14 November, it is the most up-to-date sat image on the web. You can see in the full-sized version the destruction in the southern sectors, where Blackjack had to operate.

The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Columnist: Postcards From Iraq

A Good Day for the NYTimes:

Tom Friedman has the best day in living memory. The highlight:

Readers regularly ask me when I will throw in the towel on Iraq. I will be guided by the U.S. Army and Marine grunts on the ground. They see Iraq close up. Most of those you talk to are so uncynical - so convinced that we are doing good and doing right, even though they too are unsure it will work. When a majority of those grunts tell us that they are no longer willing to risk their lives to go out and fix the sewers in Sadr City or teach democracy at a local school, then you can stick a fork in this one. But so far, we ain't there yet. The troops are still pretty positive.

So let's thank God for what's in our drinking water, hope that maybe some of it washes over Iraq, and pay attention to the grunts. They'll tell us if it's time to go or stay.

There's an insight for the ages. But here's a better one, an insight ad astra:

We are trying to host the first attempt in the modern Arab world for the people of an Arab country to, on their own, forge a social contract with one another. Despite all the mistakes made, that is an incredibly noble thing.

That's the finest single thing I've seen written about the war in the NY Times. And, it is only the half of the truth.

The full truth is this: faced with extraordinary danger, and an enemy that was pledged to our destruction, the United States has chosen not to destroy him but to embrace him. We are spilling the blood of our own sons, not to raze the enemy that might destroy us; but, instead, to raise him. Out of poverty, out of tyranny, out of misery, and into hope.

We are faced every day by people who point to the problems and the difficulties that remain. The fact that those difficulties exist does not change the fact that the human spirit is greater than they. The enemy has power, power to destroy and to ruin, to slaughter and to oppress. Yet we have the greater power, which is to hope.

We have embarked upon a project like Shelley's Prometheus:

To defy Power, which seems omnipotent;
To Love, and bear; to hope till Hope creates
From its own wreck the thing it contemplates.

Faith is not a fool's project. The hopeless looks at the difficulty, and sees the power of the cruel, and wearies at the thought.

The faithful man walks in the morning of the world. Everything can be, and might be, through hope and sacrifice.

The Basic School

Reference Material:

Daniel, who will be joining us as a teacher of tactics in February, sends a link to the reference pages at The Basic School. TBS is in Quantico, VA, and is the USMC's school for newly minted officers. There are short, introductory papers to most topics of military science.

I'll review these and see which ones we might want to examine. In the meantime, if you'd like to look around yourself, feel free.

Yahoo! Mail - grimbeornr@yahoo.com

Old Men Like Us:

Bill Faith sends this item, under a heading he describes in terms that would have pleased Fritz Leiber:

Of Unsung Heroes and Split-second Decisions. Of Mo Duc and Fallujah. Of Soldiers and Marines and Killing or Dying. Of Kevin Sites and a Camera. Of Doing The Right Thing.

It's not as noble a story, but I told a similar tale from my days with the Southeastern Detective Agency here. In many ways it mirrors the story Bill's friend has to tell.

One of them is the epistemology of risk. It's interesting to notice the similar breakdowns in these two groups:

1) Those who say that it was right to take down Saddam, even though the WMD evidence was uncertain,

2) Those who say the Marine in Fallujah was right to finish off the terrorist, though the question of the threat he posed was uncertain.

I know one fellow -- our honored friend Deuddersun -- who is group 2 but not group 1. Everyone else seems to be breaking down the same way.

Both Bill's friend and I made the same choice, and accepted a real risk to avoid carrying the guilt of killing an innocent. It happened to work itself out right in both cases. It could have gone otherwise.

When you're guarding the weak, or the backs of your brothers, you've got to look at things differently. What is an acceptable risk when nobody but you is on the line, may not be acceptable when you're protecting a child, or a brother Marine. Any Marine would rather go before a court martial than carry the guilt of having gotten his brothers killed. He would rather go to prison. I suspect it is likely that he would rather go to Hell.

Rethinking doomsday | thebulletin.org

Doomsday:

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, keepers of the Doomsday Clock, have some theories they'd like to share on what scenarios are most likely to lead to the end of the world.

It's always been a harum-scarum project, the Doomsday Clock. Take what they say with that grain of salt -- they're serious thinkers, but they want you to be scared so you'll not argue with their policy ideas. That said, you might want to take a few moments to see what they've got to say. When they say you shouldn't bother worrying about something, you can really stop worrying about it.

Intelligence Overhaul Bill Blocked (washingtonpost.com)

A Win:

Oddly, this bill was highly popular. I didn't expect anything to be done about it, as all sides endorsed the idea of an "Intel Czar" during the campaign. I thought and still think that centralizing intelligence is a bad idea, because it will encourage rather than diminish the problem of stovepiping. If you've got a central authority over all intel agencies, all intel agencies will be wanting to tell him what he wants to hear. At least now, having both a DCI and a SECDEF, you get two independent pictures instead of just one.

In addition, there are different notions of how to go about intel. We had this discussion during the elections, as re: the person of retired Admiral Stansfield Turner, who very strongly favors SIGINT over HUMINT. He caused a great deal of damage at CIA through that prejudice; but at least we had a DIA that was still serving the needs of the military, and the country.

But Congress seemed sure to follow the principle Dogbert advocated to prospective management consultants -- centralize everything that is decentralized "to improve efficiency"; then, when the new system breaks, decentralize all those centralized functions "to remove bottlenecks." I'm pleased and impressed to read this in today's paper:

Hunter said he opposed the bill because Senate conferees had removed a White House-drafted section ensuring that tactical or battlefield intelligence agencies would still be primarily directed by the secretary of defense, even as they reported to the new national intelligence director. The compromise called for the president to issue "guidelines" on the respective authorities of the director of national intelligence and defense secretary, which Hunter said, "was elevating for the DNI but detrimental to the defense secretary . . . a change that would make war fighters not sure to whom they report and translate into confusion on the battlefield."

Collins called Hunter's argument "utterly without merit," saying the measure actually would improve the real-time satellite intelligence that troops receive in combat. Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.), another key negotiator, said: "The commander in chief, in the middle of a war, said he needed this bill" to keep the American people and military safe.

Rep. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), a House conferee on the legislation, said, "Clearly, House Republicans never really wanted this bill. . . . Sadly, there are those who are so wedded to the Department of Defense that they, ultimately, ensured the bill's demise."

Partisan wrangling aside, this looks like a win to me. Not "a win for conservatives," though that is how the Post is billing it; but a win for a thoughtful and needed reform of American intelligence. This was a move to set aside campaign rhetoric, and take the time to think things through in an quieter environment.

The Green Side

A Postscript Explained:

The Green Side has a letter from the front. It is a complete account of the battle for Fallujah -- at least, as complete as has been written so far. Some future Teddy Roosevelt or Henry Cabot Lodge may write a better, fuller version in future days. For now, this will do.

At the end, the author, Marine LtCol Dave Bellon, mentions some writing he encountered on "Kos' Bridge":

On the Fallujah side of the bridge where the Americans were hung there is some Arabic writing on the bridge. An interpreter translated it for me as we walked through. It read: "Long Live the Mujahadeen. Fallujah is the Graveyard for Americans and the end of the Marine Corps."

You may remember a story from earlier this week about a message the 3/5 Marines left on that bridge:

This is for the Americans of Blackwater that were murdered here in 2004.
Semper Fidelis
3/5

P.S. Fuck you.

Now it all makes perfect sense.

Ammunation

AmmuNation:

Business kept me away from my desk yesterday, and prevented my mentioning the start of "National Ammo Week!". Readers are encouraged to purchase ammunition, preferably lots of it, in accordance with their local laws. This is a show of support:

The goal of National Ammo Day is to empty the ammunition from the shelves of your local gun store, sporting goods, or hardware store and put that ammunition in the hands of law-abiding citizens. Make your support of the Second Amendment known--by voting with your dollars!

Also, it's not a bad idea to shoot up the old stuff. Fresh ammo is happy ammo.

ladwell dot com / Personality Plus

The Swamp of Psychology:

Here is a piece on psychology from The New Yorker. Particularly, he's interested in the problems of personality tests. It's quite a problem:

Quiet by nature, Nininger was tall and slender, with wavy blond hair. As Franklin M. Reck recounts in "Beyond the Call of Duty," Nininger had graduated near the top of his class at West Point, where he chaired the lecture-and-entertainment committee. He had spent many hours with a friend, discussing everything from history to the theory of relativity. He loved the theatre. In the evenings, he could often be found sitting by the fireplace in the living room of his commanding officer, sipping tea and listening to Tchaikovsky. As a boy, he once saw his father kill a hawk and had been repulsed. When he went into active service, he wrote a friend to say that he had no feelings of hate, and did not think he could ever kill anyone out of hatred. He had none of the swagger of the natural warrior. He worked hard and had a strong sense of duty.

In the second week of January, the Japanese attacked, slipping hundreds of snipers through the American lines, climbing into trees, turning the battlefield into what Reck calls a "gigantic possum hunt." On the morning of January 12th, Nininger went to his commanding officer. He wanted, he said, to be assigned to another company, one that was in the thick of the action, so he could go hunting for Japanese snipers.

He took several grenades and ammunition belts, slung a Garand rifle over his shoulder, and grabbed a submachine gun. Starting at the point where the fighting was heaviest-near the position of the battalion's K Company-he crawled through the jungle and shot a Japanese soldier out of a tree. He shot and killed snipers. He threw grenades into enemy positions. He was wounded in the leg, but he kept going, clearing out Japa-nese positions for the other members of K Company, behind him. He soon ran out of grenades and switched to his rifle, and then, when he ran out of ammunition, used only his bayonet. He was wounded a second time, but when a medic crawled toward him to help bring him back behind the lines Nininger waved him off. He saw a Japanese bunker up ahead. As he leaped out of a shell hole, he was spun around by a bullet to the shoulder, but he kept charging at the bunker, where a Japanese officer and two enlisted men were dug in. He dispatched one soldier with a double thrust of his bayonet, clubbed down the other, and bayonetted the officer. Then, with outstretched arms, he collapsed face down. For his heroism, Nininger was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor, the first American soldier so decorated in the Second World War.

Suppose that you were a senior Army officer in the early days of the Second World War and were trying to put together a crack team of fearless and ferocious fighters. Sandy Nininger, it now appears, had exactly the right kind of personality for that assignment, but is there any way you could have known this beforehand?

There's quite a bit more, just as interesting both in the stories told and the questions raised. For example, did you know that the main personality test used worldwide was developed by a housewife trying to figure out her college-aged daughter's fiance? She read Jung, misunderstood him completely, and then...

Spirit of America

To Shepherd the Weak:

Thanksgiving is a time for charity, as well as thanks. Everyone has their own ideas about this, and I don't intend the following to suggest that you ought to donate to any of these groups. These are just some folks I've dealt with in the past, whom I've seen do some good with what they've gotten. If you're looking around, you might look here.

Grim's Hall is joining the Spirit of America "Friends of Iraq" challenge -- although I understand that most of you have divided loyalties on this score, as several of your other favorite blogs may be members. I won't take it personally if you donate on their team instead. In any event, you'll remember that the Hall helped out during their challenge over the summer, which was to help the Marines set up broadcasting services to show good news to the people of Iraq. That was a success, bringing hope to a weary people.

Some of you may prefer to donate closer to home. You will remember that my favorite military charity is The Navy-Marine Corps Relief Society. It sometimes looks after sailors and Marines who have come into need, but especially it looks after their families, and survivors of the honored dead.

Another of my favorite charities is Second Harvest. No American should go hungry during the holidays, fasting while we feast. Food banks are one of the surest ways to make certain no one does. Second Harvest is fairly impressive: they can put fifteen meals on the table for just one dollar.

Many of you may be donated out, with the political season just ending. That's easy to understand -- I know a lot of people gave more to political causes this year than ever before. There's no shame in that. If you want to give but are out of money, another option is a blood donation to the Red Cross. You may wish to use their webpage to look up a donation center without actually scheduling an appointment. My experience is that they badger you a bit if they have an appointment listed -- I've had as many as seven calls, and never fewer than four, reminding me to show up. Take a friend, if you go: you'll double the good done and enjoy the trip more to boot.

You could also set aside a week's poker winnings to donate to charity. Er, if you're good at poker. Otherwise, playing poker is a kind of charity in and of itself. To each his own.

Voices

Voices About The Hall:

For the first time, Grim's Hall will be seeing posts by authors other than Grim. I've extended to Eric an invitation to join as a poster, in order to facilitate his participation as one of the teachers of this Military Sciece project.

Other teachers will also be extended invitations. I've asked several people to consider it, though I haven't heard back firmly from anyone yet. There is also an open invitation to regular readers with military backgrounds -- if you can think of a book you'd like to teach, drop me an email explaining your background and what book you want to teach.

My blog has always been described as a "hall," which word was meant to evoke the great mead halls of legend: Heorot, the hall of Hrolf Kraki, and others besides. I'm proud to welcome warriors to this hall, and to give them a chance to hold the floor.

Sandmen

Sandmen:

I've added a new link over in the "Other Halls" section. It's to a blog called My Sandmen, which I discovered only today.

One of the writers there has the pen of a Psalmist.

Victory has been liberated. Her face shines again now. It is humble and benevolent in the light of commensurate respect... yet fiercely resolute when the dark stain of threat soils her tranquility.

A newborn spirit facing ageless horror...

Victory destroys perfidy.
It challenges obstinance.
It terrifies those forsaken.
It detests appeasement.
It is ruthlessly patient.
It is brutally efficient.
It yields mercy to the vanquished.
It vindicates the heroes.
It rewards constitution,
And lends courage to generations.

A Psalm to Victory, who -- as we were discussing just a few days ago -- was known in Greek as Athena, Odysseus' only friend.

"Odysseus," you may not know, means "The Man of Trouble." In the Greek, it is not clear whether he suffers trouble, or causes them. In the poems, he does both.

The psalm is not a mode we often see, any more. The few who can still write them, I admire. It takes a purity and certainty of belief that is rarely to be found.

God of gold and flaming glass,
Confregit potentias
Acrcuum, scutum, Gorlias,
Gladium et bellum.

Such a prayer is only answered for a time. For that reason, we still forge swordsmen.

It happens that the fellow has a post on that, too. It cites Ayn Rand, with whom I'm not in the habit of agreeing. This time, I find that I do.

West Point has given America a long line of heroes, known and unknown. You, this year's graduates, have a glorious tradition to carry on -- which I admire profoundly, not because it is a tradition, but because it is glorious.

Well and truly spoken. Welcome to the Sandmen, who are encouraged to drop by more often.

Grim's Hall

MILSCI #1:

As discussed in the comments to the post below, the class will begin with a study of Warfighting, which is the USMC's introduction to military science. It is required reading for all Marines.

We will be reading this for two weeks, until 2 December. However, I will welcome questions immediately, should any occur to you as you are reading it. Feel free to pose these in the comments to this post. I will take particularly challenging questions and make them into new posts for discussion.

Grim's Hall

Military Science "Book Club":

So, I've been exchanging emails with some of you over the post about the need for more knowledge of military science among the citizenry. Responses break into two categories:

(1) "Right on!"
(2) "How dare you call me ignorant?"

The first group I won't address here, since they and I see eye to eye on the point. To the second group, I'll begin with a public apology. I wasn't attempting to use the issue as a bludgeon to beat you with. I intended the statement as a challenge, not an assault.

The challenge is this: all citizens have a duty to the defense of the nation, just as all citizens have a duty to the common peace. We perform the latter not only with jury duty, but by taking the time to achieve a basic understanding of the law so that we can do our part to obey it and uphold it -- or to challenge it, if that is what we feel is necessary.

Similarly, you have a duty to the defense of the country. Some fulfill that duty by volunteering and serving in the military, but even if you don't, the duty doesn't go away. You have to fulfill it in other ways. One of these -- which I think is incumbent upon every citizen, because we all must make decisions in the voting booth on these matters -- is to take the time to achieve a basic understanding of military science. You ought to understand the principles involved. This is one thing you can't leave to experts, any more than you can afford to leave the law to lawyers.

To that end, I propose to run a "military science book club." We're all busy folks, so we'll have an easy-to-keep schedule of readings; and we'll start off with some publications I know that are available on the internet, so you won't have to trek down to the library or book store, at least not until you can judge whether this activity is worth your trouble.

We'll apply the usual "Grim's Hall" rules as to comments, so that the discussion will be respectful and fair to all parties. You'll have the benefit of some strong military minds, too, who will be glad to answer your questions. Many of them love to kick this stuff around anyway. Others will do it for the same reason I'm doing it: because we think it's important that all citizens know this stuff, if only because someday you'll probably win one of these elections. When that happens, we'll all be better off if you've got a grounding in these things.

So -- any takers, among my small but devoted community of non-veteran readers? If so, I'll put together a short reading list for us to start with, and ask a few folks to help spread the word. Feel free to mention it around, if you know any activist types out there who want to run the world someday, and who can be trusted to keep to the rules so that this will be pleasant and polite for all parties.

Any of you vets who'd like to volunteer to help teach a lesson, ya'll shout out too. I know some of you have field-specific expertise that I can't match. I'd be only too glad to have your help.