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 New Part Three - January 23: James Fallows Robert Coram Donald Vandergriff Part Two - January 15: James Fallows Robert Coram Donald Vandergriff Part One - January 8: James Fallows Robert Coram Donald Vandergriff Robert Coram is the author of three acclaimed nonfiction books and seven novels. Twice nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for his work in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, he has also been featured in The New Yorker and numerous other magazines. He is a commercial-rated pilot and one of the few civilians to have flown both the F-100 and the F-15. Donald Vandergriff is an active duty army officer currently serving as deputy director of Army ROTC at Georgetown University. He was editor of Spirit, Blood, and Treasure: The American Cost of Battle in the 21st Century. He is the author of around twenty-five articles on military affairs. James Fallows is The Atlantic's national correspondent and the author of Breaking the News: How the Media Undermine American Democracy (1996) and of Free Flight: From Airline Hell to a New Age of Travel. To learn about his new book and look through an archive of his recent articles, visit jamesfallows.com. Previously in Fallows@large: Inside Admissions (September 25, 2002) A dialogue between James Fallows and Jacques Steinberg, the author of The Gatekeepers: Inside the Admissions Process of a Premier College. The Price of Wealth (July 3, 2002) A dialogue between James Fallows and Kevin Phillips, the author of Wealth and Democracy: A Political History of the American Rich. Signals of Saturation (April 3, 2002) James Fallows exchanges e-mail with Todd Gitlin, the author of Media Unlimited: How the Torrent of Images and Sounds Overwhelms Our Lives. More by James Fallows More on books More on defense Join the conversation in Post & Riposte. |
fallows@large | Dialogues with James Fallows The American Way of War An e-mail exchange with Robert Coram, the author of Boyd, and Donald Vandergriff, the author of The Path to Victory ..... From: James Fallows To: Robert Coram and Donald Vandergriff Subject: What's wrong with the military? Dear Donald Vandergriff and Robert Coram: Thanks very much for joining this exchange. I have two goals in mind for the conversation we're about to begin. First, I hope to introduce as many readers as possible to the arguments and implications of your recent books. For reasons we're all aware of, military policy is the part of public life where generally informed people tend to be most ignorant. Part of the explanation is cultural. Three decades of a volunteer army, following a decade of skewed draft policy in the Vietnam years, have steadily reduced the overlap between the policy-making class and the people who know about, serve in, and think about the military. There's also a political factor. For most of the last twenty years, neither Republicans nor Democrats have found it worth concentrating on the operating realities of military policy. For Republicans, it's generally been enough to be "pro-defense," which in turn has meant supporting more spending. Democrats live in constant fear of being called "weak" or "anti-defense," all the more so in the anti-terrorist era. So they try to split the difference—opposing a specific program or weapon, for instance the missile-defense system, but not offering a coherent, alternative concept of defense spending or military policy. When it comes, say, to medical coverage or tax-and-spending policy, most Democratic politicians feel comfortable enough with the subject to know what an alternative to Republican policy would look like. (Whether they feel daring enough to present it is a different matter, as we saw last fall.) But on military policy most Democrats feel themselves on shaky ground. The result is that politicians from both parties revert to discussing defense issues as simple budget totals. The Republicans want to spend more and more, the Democrats want to spend not quite as much. The situation is enough to make me look back fondly on the mid-1980s, when Republican politicians like Charles Grassley, William Cohen, and the young Dick Cheney could join Democrats like Gary Hart in discussing specific ways to improve weapons, strategy, training, leadership, and so on. Anyone who reads your books will be in a much better position to discuss defense policy on grounds other than budget totals or gee-whiz observations about the latest precision-guided bombs. My other goal is more immediate: to draw on your expertise in providing context for the war which, as I write, seems to be days or weeks away. Neither of these books is directly about Iraq, but you're very well positioned to give perspective on the equipment, strategy, tactics, and stakes of what may soon occur. Now, a word about each of your books. I was surprised when reading them to find that despite their differences—in approach, tone, length, documentation, official subject—they're really about the same thing: the role of character in military affairs. Robert Coram's biography of John Boyd is about an under-appreciated pioneer in twentieth-century military tactics and strategy. Donald Vandergriff's Path to Victory is about internal changes in Army rules and culture that are at odds with military effectiveness. But, at least to me, it seems that you're both writing about a cultural or even moral tension. The tension is between what it takes to "be" somebody in today's military—above all, to get your stars as a general or admiral—and what it takes to "do" the right thing, in developing new strategies and ultimately in winning wars.
What I'd like to stress now is the ethical struggle that you present as the running theme of Boyd's life in the military. Boyd himself was, by nature, a rock-the-boat guy who probably would have been a rebel in whatever career he chose. But time and again when he was counseling ambitious officers about their careers, he would warn them that sooner or later they would face a moral choice. If they wanted to rise within the Pentagon they would inevitably be asked to compromise principles, hedge the truth, go along with budget requests of weapons programs they knew weren't really justified, and generally sacrifice the sense of service that drew them to the military in the first place. We're used to this kind of Faustian bargain when it comes to success in politics, or Hollywood. But every single one of the "Acolytes" that you say John Boyd attracted paid a significant career price for honesty.
Here's the question I have for both of you as this discussion begins. Can things be as bad as you suggest? Here is the American military, as seen by the public on what feels like the eve of war: The military is bigger and certainly stronger than any opposing force anywhere on earth. It is probably stronger than any other force in history. While it has suffered occasional failures and reverses in the years since Vietnam—for instance, the Black Hawk Down episode in Somalia—it has generally won its battles far more quickly than anyone predicted. When military ventures have failed in a strategic sense, such as by letting much of al Qaeda leak away at Tora Bora, these have generally been seen as political failures rather than operational military problems. And while there's a low-level buzz in the press about overpriced airplanes (the F-22) or flawed testing programs (for the V-22 "Osprey") or sweetheart deals for military contractors (take your pick), the machinery most often in the news is the latest generation of precision weapons, which have worked dramatically well. To begin our discussion here, and to assist readers in their understanding of a military that is about to go to war, can you please give us a "glass half empty"/"glass half full" assessment of military strengths as you see them? Don, the burden here is mainly on you, since you're writing about the modern-day Army. You're worried about the way its personnel system changes the character of leaders. Will that make a difference in the war we're about to see? You place tremendous stress on "unit cohesion." Military forces have historically done best when they have worked together over time and trusted each other almost as family members. We're shipping out an army that is based on the "interchangeable cog" model. How much difference will that make? In short, how seriously should we take the cultural problems you have emphasized? Robert, your work is mainly historical—but you described the impact that John Boyd's thinking had on the first Gulf War. (For many readers, the big news in the book will be the way Boyd affected Dick Cheney's thinking about how to attack Saddam Hussein a dozen years ago.) But having spent years writing about ethical debates in the military and their impact on machines, doctrine, and careers, you certainly have standing to speak about the military's situation today. Your book could make readers feel good, because of the positive effect John Boyd had on military doctrine. Or it could make them feel terrible, because of the endless battles between reformers and the "careerist" system—most of which the system finally won. Which would you have us believe? Thanks, and over to the two of you. Jim Fallows
Next Page: Robert Coram - January 8
Donald Vandergriff - January 8 Part Two - January 15: James Fallows | Robert Coram | Donald Vandergriff New Part Two - January 23: James Fallows | Robert Coram | Donald Vandergriff
What do you think? Join the conversation in Post & Riposte. More on books in Atlantic Unbound and The Atlantic Monthly. More on defense in Atlantic Unbound and The Atlantic Monthly. Copyright © 2003 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All rights reserved. | [an error occurred while processing this directive] | ||||||||
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