From the 30s of the last century to the present day, thousands of people trained to fight are engaged in commercial affairs
The significant increase in the complexity of weapons and military equipment (AME) and military art at the turn of the XIX-XX centuries demanded from the officers and especially the generals not only special training, but also a methodical increase in the level of knowledge and broadening of horizons. As a result, American society began to perceive military professionals differently, paying tribute to them not only as heroes of battles and military campaigns, but also as relatively decently educated people. If in the second half of the 19th century in the United States, only a small part of military leaders had a special in-depth education, then by the beginning of the First World War, for example, almost three quarters of the 441 generals of the American ground forces were graduates of the West Point Military Academy (school). In other words, the American officer corps has become truly professional.
But this fact, together with the growing prestige of representatives of the middle and higher command personnel of the army and navy in American society, did not destroy the artificial barrier that still separated its military and civilian representatives. In many respects, the reason for this, as Samuel Huntington emphasized, was the aspiration of a career officer to achieve the desired goal - efficiency in combat, which cannot be found analogous in the civilian field. Hence the difference between historically formed military thinking and the way of thinking of a civilian.
PACIFISTS IN RUN
Huntington notes that the military professional's mindset is universal, specific, and constant. This, on the one hand, unites the military into a certain specific environment or group, and on the other, it involuntarily makes them outcasts, separated from the rest of society. Moreover, this phenomenon, in principle revealed by Huntington, was developed already in the research of modern researchers of the Anglo-Saxon model of the military structure. So, Strachan Hugh states that a modern American or British military cannot but be proud of a job well done, but the society he serves, evaluating his military representatives, always separates the personal qualities of a particular person in form from the cause he serves or from the goal., which he is trying to achieve (and for which he sometimes even dies). This ambivalent attitude towards oneself does not contribute to the unity of the military and civilians.
Christopher Cocker, professor of international relations at the London School of Economics, is even more pessimistic. In his opinion, "the military is currently in despair that they are becoming more and more distant from civil society, which does not properly evaluate them and at the same time controls their thoughts and actions … They are removed from a society that denies them their honestly won glory." The scientist comes to the conclusion: "The Western military is in a deep crisis in connection with the erosion in civil society of the image of a soldier due to the rejection of sacrifice and dedication as an example to follow."
However, the isolation of the military from society, Cocker argues, is fraught with the danger of creating an unhealthy internal political environment. As a result, civilian control over the military will inevitably be undermined, and the country's leadership will be unable to adequately assess the effectiveness of its armed forces. For Cocker, a seemingly simple conclusion suggests itself: adjusting the professional military to the values of civil society. But this, the British professor argues, is a dangerous way to solve the problem, because the military should view war as a challenge and its purpose, and not as a work of coercion. In other words, they must be ready for sacrifice.
Meanwhile, Western analysts note that during the period of the “total war” on terrorism, civil society gets used to constant tension, hardens, but at the same time, with almost undisguised pleasure, places the responsibility of waging it on the professional military. Moreover, the thesis is very popular in civil society: "A professional military man cannot but desire war!"
In reality, and this is very clearly and logically proved by some Western researchers (albeit mainly from among people in uniform), an expert in military affairs, that is, a professional in this field, very rarely treats war as a blessing. He insists that the impending danger of war requires an increase in the number of weapons and military equipment in the troops, but at the same time he will hardly agitate for the war, justifying the possibility of waging it by expanding the supply of weapons. He advocates careful preparation for war, but never considers himself fully prepared for it. Any high-level officer in the leadership of the armed forces is well aware of the risks he runs if his country is dragged into a war.
Victory or lost, in any case, the war shakes the military institutions of the state much more than the civil ones. Huntington is categorical: "Only civilian philosophers, publicists and scientists, but not the military, can romanticize and glorify war!"
FOR WHAT ARE WE FIGHTING?
These circumstances, the American scientist continues his thought, subject to the subordination of the military to civilian authorities, both in a democratic and totalitarian society, force professional military personnel, contrary to reasonable logic and calculations, to unquestioningly “fulfill their duty to the fatherland,” in other words, to indulge the whims of civil politicians. Western analysts believe that the most instructive example from this area is the situation in which the German generals found themselves in the 1930s. After all, the German senior officers must have realized that Hitler’s foreign policy would lead to a national catastrophe. And nevertheless, following the canons of military discipline (the notorious "ordnung"), the German generals diligently followed the instructions of the country's political leadership, and some even benefited from this, taking a high position in the Nazi hierarchy.
True, in the Anglo-Saxon system of strategic management, with formally strict civilian control over the Armed Forces, there are occasional failures when the generals are no longer subordinate to their civilian bosses. In American theoretical and publicistic works, they usually cite the example of General Douglas MacArthur, who allowed himself to express disagreement with the presidential administration regarding its military-political course during the hostilities in Korea. For this he paid with his dismissal.
Behind all this lies a serious problem that is recognized by everyone, but has not been solved in any state to this day, Western analysts say. It is a conflict between the obedience of military personnel and their professional competence, as well as a closely related contradiction between the competence of people in uniform and legality. Of course, a military professional must first of all be guided by the letter of the law, but sometimes the “higher considerations” imposed on him confuse him and doom him to actions that, at best, contradict his internal ethical principles, and at worst, to trivial crimes.
Huntington notes that, in general, the ideas of expansionism were not popular among the American military at the turn of the 20th centuries. Many officers and generals saw the use of the military as the most extreme means of solving foreign policy problems. Moreover, such conclusions, modern Western political scientists emphasize, were characteristic of American military personnel on the eve of World War II and are expressed by them at the present time. Moreover, the generals of the United States not only openly feared the forced involvement of the country in the coming World War II, but subsequently resisted in every possible way the dispersion of forces and means between the two theaters of operations, calling for purely national interests and not to be guided by the British in everything.
However, if the generals of the United States and the officer corps led by them (that is, professionals) perceive the upcoming or incipient military conflict as something "sacred", they will go to the end. This phenomenon is explained by the deep-rooted idealism in American society, which tends to turn a just (in his opinion) war into a "crusade", a battle waged not so much for the sake of national security as for the "universal values of democracy." This is the point of view held by the US military regarding the nature of both world wars. It is no coincidence that General Dwight D. Eisenhower called his memoirs "The Crusade to Europe."
Similar sentiments, but with certain political and moral costs, prevailed among the American military in the initial period of the "total struggle against terrorism" (after the terrorist attacks in September 2001), which led to the invasion first into Afghanistan and then into Iraq. The same cannot be said about the wars in Korea and Vietnam, when the military was little listened to, and the "halo of the sanctity of the cause," for which sometimes one had to die on the battlefield, was not observed.
The relative failures of the United States in Afghanistan and Iraq in recent years have been indirectly reflected in society. It realizes that the goals set can hardly be achieved due to a number of reasons, including the inadequacy of the training of command personnel, who, moreover, were not marked by the glory of the winners and heroism in the past decades. The now famous American military scientist Douglas McGregor directly points to the obvious exaggeration and far-fetched success of the US Armed Forces in conflicts after World War II. In his opinion, hostilities in Korea ended in a dead end, in Vietnam - in defeat, intervention in Grenada and Panama - in "vanity" in the face of an almost absent enemy. The incompetence of the American military leadership forced the retreat from Lebanon and Somalia, the catastrophic situation that had formed in Haiti and Bosnia and Herzegovina, to the luck of the Americans, simply could not help but facilitate the conduct of essentially facilitated non-combat peacekeeping operations there, with a guarantee of success. Even the outcome of the 1991 Gulf War can only be conditionally called successful due to the unexpectedly weak resistance of the demoralized adversary. Accordingly, there is no need to talk about the outstanding courage and deeds of servicemen on the battlefield, and even more so about the merits of the generals.
ORIGINS OF ONE PROBLEM
However, the problem of the incompetence of a certain section of American officers, and especially generals, is not so straightforward and simple. It sometimes goes beyond the scope of purely military professional activities and in many aspects is rooted in retrospect, in fact, in the first years and decades of the functioning of the US military machine.is largely determined by the specifics of control over the military by the civilian authorities.
The founders of the United States and the authors of the American Constitution, sensing the general mood of society, initially determined that the civilian president of the country is simultaneously the supreme commander of the national armed forces. Consequently, he has the right to lead the troops "in the field." The first American presidents did just that. As well as for a lower-level commander, it was considered optional for the commander-in-chief to have a special education, it was quite enough to read special literature and have the appropriate moral and volitional qualities.
It is not surprising that Madison took up the direct organization of the defense of the capital during the Anglo-American War of 1812-1814, the Regiment during the war with Mexico (1846-1848), although he did not direct the troops in battles directly, personally drew up a campaign plan and constantly intervened in the leadership units and subdivisions. The latest example of this kind is Lincoln's development of a strategy for fighting the Confederates and his "leading" participation in the maneuvering of the Northern troops during the initial period of the Civil War (1861-1865). However, after two years of sluggish hostilities, the president realized that he himself would not be able to cope with the role of a commander …
Thus, in the second half of the 19th century, a situation developed in the United States when the head of state could no longer skillfully lead the military, even if he himself had some military experience. In fact, the presidents did not have the opportunity to perform this task qualitatively without prejudice to their main functions - political and economic. And nevertheless, in the subsequent attempts to interfere with the owners of the White House in the purely professional affairs of the military were noted more than once.
For example, during the American-Spanish War of 1898, Theodore Roosevelt more than once gave "recommendations" to the military on how to carry out certain operations. His distant relative, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, initially decided to personally lead the armed forces. He believed that he was brilliantly versed in military affairs and naively considered himself an equal in discussions with the generals on operational and tactical issues. However, after the Pearl Harbor tragedy, the American president, we must give him his due, immediately took his bearings and was “happy” to completely trust in military affairs to professionals, first of all, undoubtedly, the gifted military leader General George Marshall.
Truman, who replaced Roosevelt in the presidency, almost immediately showed himself as a tough and decisive leader in the international arena, nevertheless, with his "corrective" instructions during the Korean War, caused an outburst of indignation among the generals, allegedly eventually led to the aforementioned resignation of the influential combat general, Douglas MacArthur. But the next president, Dwight D. Eisenhower, a general, hero of World War II, had unconditional authority among military professionals at all levels, and therefore, despite frequent interference in the affairs of the armed forces, he avoided conflicts with their command.
John F. Kennedy remains one of the most popular US presidents to this day. But although he had experience in military service as a naval officer, he nevertheless gained fame as a leader who at least twice with "soft" decisions, contrary to the recommendations of the military, neutralized the situation that began to develop according to the American scenario during the invasion of Cuba in the spring of 1961 year and during the Cuban missile crisis in the fall of 1962.
Under presidents Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon, who were trying to adequately extricate themselves from the impending disaster of the Vietnam War, there were also attempts by senior civilian officials to intervene in purely military issues. However, an outburst of indignation over the "stolen victory", as in the period of the Korean War, did not follow. General William Westmoreland, the commander-in-chief of the US troops in Vietnam, being unwilling to agree with the content of the White House instructions every time, was quietly transferred to a high post. Another, more intractable and tougher opponent of the methods of warfare imposed by civilian authorities, Marine Corps Lieutenant General Victor Krulak, under pressure from Johnson, was denied advancement.
Most of the dissenting military leaders (like the promising commander of the 1st Infantry Division, General William DePewey) limited themselves to expressing their views on the pages of specialized media, in the course of scientific discussions, etc. American analysts emphasize that scandals, accusations related to the intervention of civilian officials in command and control of troops "in the field", after Vietnam was not noted. But this does not mean that the US civilian leadership once and for all managed to "crush" the military, depriving them of the right to their opinion, which is different from the presidential administration. An example of this, by the way, is the discussion that erupted on Capitol Hill on the eve of the introduction of American troops into Iraq in 2003, during which Army Chief of Staff, General Eric Shinseki, allowed himself to disagree with the plans developed by the Bush administration, which ultimately served the reason for his resignation.
Sometimes, as an argument in disputes about the reasons for the incompetence of servicemen in their professional affairs, such a thesis as "the burden of civilians on their functions on the military" emerges, which, they say, distracts the latter from performing their direct duties. This fact was noticed at one time by Huntington. In particular, he wrote that initially and in its essence, the task of a military professional was and is to prepare for and conduct war, and nothing more. But progress entails an avalanche-like complication of hostilities associated with the use of an increasing number of weapons and various equipment on an increasing scale. Consequently, more and more specialists are involved in the military sphere, having at first glance a very distant relationship to it. Of course, the scientist continues, you can force the military to study the nuances of the production of weapons and military equipment, methods of purchasing them, business theory and, finally, the features of economic mobilization. But whether it is necessary for people in uniform to do this, that is the question.
The complete lack of business interest in these problems forced the US leadership back in the 30s of the last century to shoulder all this burden on the shoulders of the military themselves. Since then, to this day, little has changed. Thousands of professionals trained to fight are distracted from performing their direct functions, and as part of the ministries and headquarters of the Armed Forces, the central directorates of the Pentagon, the offices of the Minister of Defense and the Chairman of the KNSH, they are essentially engaged in purely commercial matters: the formation and control of the implementation of the defense budget, pushing orders for weapons and military equipment through the Congress etc.
An alternative to such a vicious order of things, American analysts emphasize, within the framework of the same Anglo-Saxon model of management in the military sphere, is another, more pragmatic system, established in Great Britain, according to which “military planners are only indirectly related to the economy, social and administrative problems . This entire complex of issues has been transferred to specialized agencies, departments, etc., to provide the British military with everything necessary.
