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iii

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v

Strategic Studies Institute

and 

U.S. Army War College Press

WHAT SHOULD THE U.S. ARMY LEARN FROM 

HISTORY?

RECOVERY FROM A STRATEGY DEFICIT

Colin S. Gray

July 2017

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ISBN 1-58487-763-4
vii

FOREWORD

What is commonly known as history is really the 

past, as it is often selected and preserved both by professional historians and by non-specialist citizens. The 

past is such a large and diverse repository of happenings, thoughts, and experiences that it requires treatment with a disciplined respect. Frequently, respect for 

the truth about the past is a victim of contemporary circumstance. In this monograph, Dr. Colin S. Gray seeks 

to explore how historical data might best be used for 

the benefit of the U.S. Army and, therefore, the United 

States. He pulls no punches in explaining how challenging it is to penetrate the fog that obscures much of 

the past. Since the future cannot be foreseen reliably, 

we are left rather uncomfortably with a seemingly ever 

changing today.

Despite the difficulties that are soon found by 

efforts to identify lessons from history, Dr. Gray does 

believe there are a few major precepts to which respectful attention should be paid. For example, he states and 

argues in this monograph that the decision to wage 

war is always a gamble, despite the many advantages 

owned by the United States in most circumstances. In 

particular, thinking especially of such unhappy protracted episodes as the conduct of warfare in Vietnam, 

Afghanistan, and Iraq, the work is impressed by the 

extent and depth of the American lack of knowledge 

and understanding of combat zones. The author hopes 

that this modest study will help American soldiers 
cope with the huge scope and mass of potential data 

from the relevant past.

DOUGLAS C. LOVELACE, JR.

Director

Strategic Studies Institute and

U.S. Army War College Press

viii
ix

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

COLIN S. GRAY is Professor Emeritus of International Politics and Strategic Studies at the University of 

Reading, England. He worked at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, England, and 

at the Hudson Institute in Croton-on-Hudson, New 

York, before founding the National Institute for Public 

Policy, a defense-oriented think tank in the Washington, DC, area. Dr. Gray served for 5 years in the Ronald Reagan administration on the President’s General 

Advisory Committee on Arms Control and Disarmament. A dual citizen of the United States and the United Kingdom, he has served as an adviser to both the 

U.S. and British Governments. His government work 

has included studies of nuclear strategy, arms control, 

maritime strategy, space strategy, and special forces. 

Dr. Gray has written 29 books, including: The Sheriff: 

America’s Defense of the New World Order (University 

Press of Kentucky, 2004); Another Bloody Century: Future Warfare (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2005); Strategy 

and History: Essays on Theory and Practice (Routledge, 

2006); Fighting Talk: Forty Maxims on War, Peace and 

Strategy (Potomac Books, 2009); National Security Dilemmas: Challenges and Opportunities (Potomac Books, 

2009); The Strategy Bridge: Theory for Practice (Oxford 

University Press [OUP], 2010); War, Peace and International Relations: An Introduction to Strategic History, 2nd 

Ed. (Routledge, 2011); Airpower for Strategic Effect (Air 

University Press, 2012); and Perspectives on Strategy

(OUP, 2013), which is the follow-on to Strategy Bridge. 

The final volume in the Strategy Bridge trilogy, entitled 

Strategy and Defence Planning: Meeting the Challenge of 

Uncertainty, was published by OUP in 2014. Dr. Gray 

is a graduate of the Universities of Manchester and 

Oxford.

xi

SUMMARY

This monograph examines the potential utility of 

history as a source of education and possible guidance 

for the U.S. Army. The author considers the worth in 

the claim that since history (more accurately termed 

the past) is all done and gone, it can have no value for 

today as we try to look forward. This point of view 

did not find much favor here. The monograph argues 

that although history does not repeat itself in detail, 

it certainly does so roughly in parallel circumstances. 

Of course, much detail differs from one historical case 

to another, but nonetheless, there are commonly broad 

and possibly instructive parallels that can be drawn 

from virtually every period of history, concerning 

most circumstances.

An argument that finds very little favor here is that 

attracted to claims for the value of assertions of historical analogy. This monograph suggests that the strict 

requirements for detailed evidence that is required for 

credible claims of analogy are effectively impossible 

to meet. Since it can be important not to lose all grasp 

of the comparison, the idea—perhaps the habit—

of claiming historical analogy should be dropped. 

Instead, a much more useful concept that avoids the 

error of foolish analogy is the idea of the historical parallel. The parallel claim conveys the core of the analogical one, while expediently saving us from the need to 

try to make claims that are bound to exceed the accessible evidence.

We explore and carefully consider the popular 

idea expressed by writer L. P. Hartley half a century 

ago that “the past is a foreign country.” This idea is 

important and remains quite popular, but it does not 

withstand careful criticism. Controversially, I am sure 
xii

this monograph, though recognizing and welcoming 

much change in world affairs, is unconvinced that 

truly major themes in human political and spiritual 

life have altered significantly over the centuries. While 

nearly all of the detail and what may be termed dismissively as the decorative and even mechanical features 

of private and public life have changed greatly over 

the past 2 centuries, the values of morality, politics, 

and the connections between effort and reward, have 

not really altered at all. For a leading example, the 

standard and traditional formula of ends, ways, and 

means (and assumptions) works for the interpretation 

of all cultures, in all periods of history. The reason is 

because the interdependence of the four vital ideas, 

at all times and in all circumstances, enjoys the rare 

status of being a truth for the whole human race, and it 

is an important key for unlocking the details of many 

disparate civilizations.

The analysis here is not unfriendly to the idea of 

change, but it is unimpressed with many claims for 

alteration that are not, in fact, evidence of radical 

improvement. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, relatively 

little with the highest value for human life is found to 

have changed over a long passage of time. By way of 

empirical evidence for this argument, the aspirations 

and achievements, as well as many of the crimes, as we 

might choose to label them, continue to make sense to 

us. It is impressive that three of the four greatest books 

on war, statecraft, and strategy were written millennia 

in the past, while the most outstanding book on land 

warfare, by Carl von Clausewitz, was first published 

184 years ago.

Among the conclusions reached in this analysis is the important thought that history teaches no 
xiii

lessons—it is historians who do that. The study reaches 

four significant conclusions; they are the following:

1. Behave prudently (meaning with regard for 

the consequences of action).

2. Remember the concept of the great stream 

of time.

3. Do not forget that war nearly always is a 

gamble.

4. War should only be waged with strategic 

sense.

1

WHAT SHOULD THE U.S. ARMY LEARN FROM 

HISTORY?

RECOVERY FROM A STRATEGY DEFICIT

INTRODUCTION: SHOULD THE U.S. ARMY 

LEARN FROM HISTORY?

It is my contention that the late British author and 

dramatist, L. P. Hartley, was substantially in error 

when he offered audiences the potent thought that 

“the past is a foreign country: they do things differently 

there.”1 It is an assumption for this monograph that 

history offers much from which the U.S. Army could 

learn. However, this analysis approaches the injunction in the title principally as a hypothesis to be tested, 

rather than as a great and solemnly reliable truth. The 

trouble is that there is no such thing as history. History 

is what historians write, and historians are part of the 

process they are writing about as well.2 The Hartley 

quote is particularly instructive for two reasons. First, 

it offers a very plausible common thought that today 

approaches the status of being an all but revealed truth 

that speaks sense to a common error. Second, in the 

opinion of this scholar, Hartley is seriously mistaken 

in his understanding of history, at least in the level of 

his understanding, which I deem to be somewhat shallow. That said, the facts remain that Hartley’s striking 

thought and particularly his choice of words merits 

our serious attention and even much respect. There is 

a notable plausibility about Hartley’s phrase-making 

that commands attention. In short, he expresses what 

reads like a well-considered conviction resting upon 

an impressive pile of historical evidence! However, we 

ought to ask: Is it true?—notwithstanding its apparent 

plausibility.
2

A prior question must be posed before one seeks 

to tackle this topic. An unavoidable issue of legitimacy precedes that of topicality. Is it sensible simply 

to assume that history carries meaning for us today? 

The idea of our learning from whatever we decide history to be deserves to be regarded as a proposition for 

disciplined consideration, not as a matter that already 

is comfortably settled. Our past is not only one with 

a dynamic national boundary, but also one that both 

has, and provides context for, the national narratives 

of other peoples. It is not hard to see how complex the 

idea of history rapidly can become.

Fortunately, this monograph is designed to answer 

a particular need of the U.S. Army for specific advice 

on what should be learned from history. An obvious 

problem here is the need to decide on a rule for the 

education in question. Common sense must be our 

practical guide, even though it requires toleration of 

unpoliced intellectual frontiers. A large and general 

issue could be, but will not be, debated here. Specifically, there is a highly significant difference between 

history and the past. In popular discussion, and also 

unfortunately in professional scholarship, history is 

the human story usually framed and drafted to promote a specific narrative, and the past is simply the 

real story of what happened, why, and to whom. The 

latter concept is close in reality to the early medieval 

chronicles. By and large, authors today have a point 

of view that they wish to project, and we live in a society that permits this. The subject of this monograph 

may appear unmanageably broad, but in reality, one 

assumes that authors debating the proper valuable use 

of historical evidence will be guided in detail by a set 

of assumptions. These assumptions will be believed 

both to be widely shared within American society, and 
3

endorsed by the institutions licensing the research, 

writing, and dissemination of the view expressed. It 

is plausible to argue that monographs written for the 

educational purposes of the U.S. Army are near certain 

to reflect assumptions friendly to concerns for national 

security. A possible lack of objectivity is not really relevant to my argument, because I am stating a necessary truth. When we learn from our history, there is 

no avoiding the consequences of the particular details 

that, as individuals, we cannot help but bring to the 

exercise. It can be a challenge for scholars, including 

those who attempt to educate soldiers more fully, to 

avoid permitting bias to defeat education.

Soldiers, among many others, may learn from the 

history that they are taught that the righteous side did 

not always win. This possible judgment ought not to 

disturb students who already have been introduced to 

the culturally challenging notion that America could 

and did lose some wars, or at least some phases of particular wars—even if the whole wartime narration is 

more kind. Military students in most countries know 

that defeats happen occasionally, and they learn that 

the whole course of national military history is not one 

of unblemished success. Indeed, it is important for an 

institution that seeks to teach the national strategic 

narrative to be able to teach also the facts concerning 

occasional military failure. Historically, American soldiers have needed to be educated by the reality of failure as well as victory. From time to time, especially 

when introduced into what becomes the late stage 

of a war, the U.S. Army has been seriously short of 

combat skills—at least for a brief period.3 For example, 

a German enemy provided rapid on the job training.

From time to time, historical judgements are presented and quite plausibly rejected as irrelevant. A 
4

principal problem is created not by the appeal to 

what is claimed to be history, but much rather by the 

careful selection of episodes in the past on which the 

requirements for evidence are levied. While it is commonplace to reject possible and potential evidence of 

sound or apparently unsound behavior, it is not usually feasible to evade the problem created by our foreknowledge entirely. This is probably the oldest and 

least forgiving of authorial sins. Specifically, we know 

what happened and cannot pretend convincingly that 

we do not. When a complete historical narrative is 

well known, it is tempting simply to ignore the possibly glittering paths that were not explored. A professional historian generally will not touch interesting 

plot inventions adopted even for the purpose of illustrating of an argument judged worthy of presentation, 

explanation, and augmentation. If an author chooses 

to liven up their narrative, he or she may lose the necessary anchor of well-evidenced actuality that helps 

keep him or her from slipping into the realm of fiction. 

As it is, the interdependence of fiction and non-fiction 

can pose a significant challenge to an understanding of 

the past, without inviting a new source of fiction to join 

the party. This author has never felt compelled to use 

deliberate fiction in order to strengthen an argument. 

I have always felt that the uncertainties of contemporary strategic fiction were sufficiently exciting as not to 

need colorful embellishment.

The utility argument in praise of research on the 

future rapidly runs into the venture stopping problem 

that, since the future by scientific definition has yet to 

happen, it is quite a challenge to assess any weight of 

evidence in (self) praise of one’s own foresight! Fortunately, we are not quite as blind on the future as I 

may have just appeared to suggest. Nonetheless, the 
5

nature and number of genuine certainties is quite limited, despite their high significance.

Perhaps the most helpful thought one can offer on 

the likely value of history for our security tomorrow 

is the following: today is only tomorrow’s yesterday. 

If nothing else, it should encourage a rare humility in 

futurologists.

UNDERSTANDING THE PAST: A FOREIGN 

COUNTRY?

This belief is as popular, even if often regretted, 

as actually it is exceedingly dubious. The differences 

from past to present and on into the future certainly 

are considerable, but often they tend not to relate to 

the deeper phenomena that bear on our human performance. There is a good and readily understandable 

reason why this should be so. Specifically, for reasons 

of personal security, we human beings find it necessary to live in groups, or societies, great or small in 

size. In order to live with tolerable security in a society—any society—we need guidance as to the distinction between acceptable and unacceptable behavior. 

The group, or society if you prefer, into which we all 

happen to be born, in every contemporary political 

geography and also in every known period in history, 

finds it necessary to instruct its children about the difference between rightful and wrongful behaviors. Similarly, all people, everywhere, are subject to parental 

and societal influence.

Over millennia and in very different geographies, 

most peoples, certainly the socially and politically successful ones, have been able to adapt to what could 

prove to be challenging geographical and human 

political and strategic conditions. However, extreme 
6

conditions of stress have not generally resulted in truly 

extreme consequences of a kind that repudiated what 

went before. Even when there have been noteworthy 

violent interruptions to the normal conditions of civilized life, one finds that the most obvious changes in 

political, social, and military affairs are less traumatic 

than appeared the case on a more superficial assessment. The more closely we examine, and the more 

broadly we consider the past, the more familiar it 

seems with reference to our contemporary times.

A trap we need to be careful to try to avoid is the 

drawing of powerful sweeping conclusions based on 

singular, outstanding, and quite possibly unusual historical happenings. In short, we need to try to avoid 

being over-impressed by individual, perhaps stand 

alone, occurrences or even inventions. The argument 

that advances the potent proposition that the past is 

a foreign country is true in the main, but there are 

important respects in which the argument should be 

dismissed as a plausible fallacy. Of particular interest is the subject of human behavior and misbehavior. 

This author has often been impressed by the similarities between contemporary people and those in the 

time of Ancient Greece and Rome.4 While there can be 

no doubt that imperial politics in the Roman Empire 

could have a distinctly rough edge for the losers in 

power struggles, the probable motivation and temptations appear substantially comprehensible to today.

The range of possibility in human physiology and 

psychology has not altered dramatically through the 

centuries. If that were not so, we should probably not 

be able to read Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian 

War with much understanding of the politics, tactics, 

operations, and strategies it seeks to explain.5 Not 

only is Thucydides’ book the outstanding work from a 
7

period of intense intercity strife 2,400 years in the past, 

but particularly when well translated from the challenging Greek-style in which it was written, it speaks 

clearly to us today. Former Secretary of State General 

George C. Marshall argued that one could not be a fully 

competent contemporary observer of international 

politics if one were not familiar with Thucydides.6 Of 

course, fashions, habits, and legally permissible tactics, operations, and strategies have changed over the 

centuries, but the morality theme in the human tale 

has not altered unrecognizably.7 The stories in Shakespeare’s plays that are set in times even then long past 

do not require translation for today, any more than do 

his late 16th-century plays.

Probably the most difficult challenge one needs to 

face in striving to make moral, social, political, and strategic sense of historical figures is the need to attempt 

to understand the largely silent assumptions made by 

them.8 It is in the nature and character of assumptions 

that typically they contain or imply beliefs that do not 

require explicit justification or even expression. We 

function day to day on the basis of assumptions, as did 

all the historical figures in whom we have an interest. 

An assumption is a belief that is accepted as true, even 

though the evidence on its behalf may be shaky at best. 

A common problem posed to historians by the phenomenon of the assumption is the widespread reality 

of a genuine lack of self-knowledge in its respect. An 

assumption can be regarded as a belief in support of 

which we have not sought persuasive evidence. An 

assumption is a belief that is beyond, or even above, 

evidence. By their nature, assumptions pose tough 

challenges to the historian. It can be a difficult idea 

to convey to young people, because it challenges the 

scientific spirit of our era. When properly explained, 
8

much, though not all, of the difficulty vanishes. The 

challenge lies in the requirement to believe, or at least 

accept, that particular claims are true, or likely to be 

true enough, in the face of a lack of what usually is 

understood as supportive evidence. Emphatically, this 

does not mean that an assumption is wrong, only that 

it is not supported by what is regarded as tolerably 

accurate evidence. The understanding of what should 

be considered accurate evidence typically requires 

effort and empirical results.

An understanding of assumptions is important 

because all human behavior—past, present, and presumably future—is driven by people who cannot help 

making and holding them. Assumptions are crucially 

significant for our values, moral compass, and choices. 

The historical experience from which we expect and 

require American soldiers to be both inspired and 

warned is shot through with collective, but also individual, distinctively moral choices between better and 

worse behavior. Students of history, both national 

and foreign, learn at a young age that they inhabit 

and must conduct themselves in a society founded 

upon a code of what is regarded as morally acceptable 

behavior. When studying history, the student is introduced to a wide spread of behaviors that the teacher 

will explain either in generally positive or negative 

terms. Students probably will not recognize the reality of their situation, but that context will always be a 

moral one. Students will be exposed to both more and 

less successful examples of the human experience, but 

regardless of the details of time and place, the teacher 

will be explaining about a morally structured world. 

The students always will be taught the differences 

between positive and negative performances, both collective and individual. Regardless if one is studying 
9

Thucydides or Julius Caesar, the relevant universe for 

action in history is a moral one. Ideas, standards, and 

laws have varied widely, but we humans have always 

found it necessary to endorse an ethical code expressing notions of morally acceptable behavior.

PERSISTING CONCERNS AND ENDURING 

HAZARDS

In order for a false belief to be exposed as a fallacy, 

it first needs to be recognized as seriously flawed. Only 

then, once expressed to public view and possibly confronted with contrary empirical evidence, can the truth 

be established. The most obvious difficulty with falsity 

of assumptions for soldiers and their political masters is that prediction is a notably uncertain activity in 

human political and strategic affairs. This condition of 

uncertainty is particularly acute for America’s soldiers, 

given that the most crucial aspects of their professional 

readiness all but require them to achieve the impossible with anticipation of the future. Given that reliable 

prediction of the future is not a physical, mechanical, 

or electronic possibility for us, we need to examine our 

history in a search for guidance on prudent international behavior.9

Sometimes it is a dominant truth in international 

politics that the United States ought not to be cast in 

the role of principal actor, meaning that foreign concerns and decisions lead the way in deciding when, 

and possibly where, the country is moved to commit 

to violent action. Regarding the whole of the 20th century, we were ready neither for the World Wars (1917, 

1941) nor for the limited ones (1950, 1965, and 2001). 

The country hoped to be able to sit out both World 

Wars, but that proved impossible. The falsehood of 
10

American assumptions about its international context and prudent choices was revealed fairly conclusively in 1917 and yet more so in 1941. It soon became 

obvious that the political assumptions upon the basis 

of which military policy was founded were unsound. 

The most popular beliefs about the country’s national 

security were erroneous both in 1917 and 1941. More 

arguably, perhaps, the Truman administration, which 

enjoys almost a stellar reputation today for its eventual 

management of Soviet peril concerning the balance of 

power in Europe and much of Asia, was caught unprepared over nuclear weapons both materially and conceptually in Korea in 1950.

The most serious weakness in the American way 

of war since World War II has been what deserves to 

be labeled the strategy deficit.10 The theory of strategy 

is almost brutally clear in the emphasis it places upon 

the political meaning that there needs to be to all warfighting, actual or potential.11 Admittedly, the problem 

is a political one for the whole of American national 

security, not a narrow challenge solely to the American conduct of war. Repeatedly in armed conflicts in 

the second half of the 20th century and the opening 

decade of the 21st, the United States waged war (in 

Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq) with too little effort 

being devoted to the whole narrative and context of 

conflict. A U.S. military effort and the political energy 

that it generated should have learned from history 

that warfare is always really about politics and must 

have political consequences. This was true for Ancient 

Greece and Rome, neither less nor more than for the 

contemporary United States. Strict logic, common 

sense, and abundant historical experience should be 

allowed to tell us that what strategy is about are the 

consequences of military action or sometimes inaction. 
11

It can be difficult to bear this point in mind, but all 

military behavior has some political meaning, great or 

small. Military behavior in times of peace and of war 

always has political consequences, both anticipated or 

not and desired or otherwise.

Just as military use always has consequences—ones 

less than accurately anticipated—they are frequently 

surprising. This is a plain generically repeated lesson 

from most historical experiences. The root problem, of 

course, is the unpredictability of the future. The pertinent challenge to us is to identify the elements in 

history that bear significantly upon the security and 

general well-being of the American people, but which 

are not unduly vulnerable to thoughts and actions that 

malign individuals and institutions. This is a tough 

but not impossible task, hence the feasibility of this 

monograph. In a later section of this monograph, I 

risk identifying the lessons that American soldiers 

can and should derive from their study of history—

not just American history. Prominent among these 

lessons is the condition that well merits the title used 

in this monograph, a strategy deficit. The problem 

has not been especially difficult to identify, but it has 

been nearly impossible to correct. The very structure 

of American governance, with the constitutional protection of a separation of powers, almost guarantees 

a probability of considerable difficulty with respect to 

the provision of a sound balancing of ends, ways, and 

means. Strategy is by far the most challenging activity, 

as contrasted with policy and military tactics, so it is no 

surprise that it has posed difficulties that are unusual 

in their severity. This unremarkable conclusion was 

reached in a recent major study by the RAND Corporation. Attempting to summarize why the American 
12

national security effort over the past 13 years has been 

unsatisfactory, the study argued the following:

First, civilian policymakers and the U.S. military have 

different conceptions of how policy and strategy should 

be made. Second, policymakers have a tendency to 

eschew strategy and focus on tactical issues. Third, 

and perhaps most important, is a desire to pursue a 

technocratic approach to strategy that aligns tactical 

and operational successes without securing the ultimate 

objectives sought. Finally, policymakers and military 

leaders may not see strategy as an essentially adaptive art 

for coping with the uncertainties of war and the lack of 

perfect knowledge. A significant body of scholarship has 

identified these issues, and some effort has been made to 

increase and improve education in strategy, but a wider 

appreciation of the degree to which this deficit produces 

suboptimal national security outcomes may be lacking.12

With the advance in military-relevant technology 

as the leading contemporary example, we know that it 

has to be a reliably safe bet for us to anticipate a continuation of the still maturing digital revolution. Historical experience cannot advise as to which technical and 

behavioral solutions should and will find most favor 

with the Army in the future, but we can be totally confident in expecting adequate answers to be located. 

Looking forward to yet an even more digital age (and 

beyond), the study of history tells us that the age-old 

competition between technical offense and defense is 

certain to continue. After all, since such competition, 

if sometimes very slow, has been characteristic literally for millennia, why should it stop now? There is, 

and will never be, a final technical move (that we could 

survive). The pace of technical change accelerates and 

decelerates, driven substantially by appreciation of 

perceived acute military need. The only technology to 

date to have evaded reliably certain technical negation 
13

is the weaponization of atomic energy.13 However, 

American soldiers, among others, can hardly have 

avoided noticing that for the 72 years since Hiroshima 

and Nagasaki, nuclear weapons have played a notable background role on behalf of American national 

security. The point is not that nuclear weapons do not 

much matter, which would be far from the truth, but 

rather that typically they are allowed to play little part 

in America’s explicit statecraft. They are uniquely valuable, indeed literally indispensable, but they appear to 

have played only a key contextual role. This is not a 

criticism; long may nuclear-armed forces be assigned 

only a background role! The answer to the technical 

challenge posed by nuclear weapons has been consistently clear. We accept nuclear weapons as having a 

prospectively permanent character as a military threat 

to which there is no thoroughly reliable solution for 

negation. Since the mid–1950s, we have accepted a condition of mutual deterrence as being the best, indeed 

the only, solution to the military problems posed by 

Soviet nuclear-armed forces. The danger posed by a 

small number of nuclear weapons has meant that even 

warfare on behalf of vital interests has acquired an all 

but impossible quality of risk. However, this condition of acute danger, with nuclear peril overhanging 

great-power politics, has had an arguably surprisingly 

limited effect on America’s military activity. Korea, 

Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq, assayed cumulatively 

have been extensive enterprises. I am tempted to comment that for a nuclear well-armed superpower, the 

United States, and its Army in particular, has had a 

busy and indeed a hard and trying time.

Modern history tells us that the United States lost its 

wars in Vietnam, and probably Afghanistan and Iraq. 

It is hard to maintain credibly that American backed 
14

arms were proven undoubtedly successful in recent 

conflicts. So much for the unsatisfactory military historical record. On the plus side of the historical ledger 

we must record the successful defense of South Korea 

and, above all else, the framing and persistent execution of a defense strategy for the North Atlantic Treaty 

Organization (NATO) countries of Western Europe. It 

is perhaps ironic that America’s greatest success in the 

field of competitive international security was in Western and Central Europe, where nuclear dangers were 

most acute. The scale of danger may have promoted 

prudence, but still history must record a bold, successful, and vital nuclear grand strategy effected largely by 

the United States. Today, the Soviet peril has been at 

least partially born again in the unpleasant character 

of the new authoritarian Russia under Vladimir Putin. 

In addition, the hazards in mutual nuclear deterrence 

continue to lurk, possibly in dark unpredictable corners, and thereby, especially in dangerous ways.

In conflict after conflict, the U.S. military establishment, alongside its many strengths, has revealed the 

same weakness—in strategy. As is well known, there 

is not or should not be a need for savior generalship, 

or indeed other extraordinary performance. The persisting problem is that the military, the U.S. Army in 

particular, has failed to heed well what it teaches itself 

in its institutions of higher military education about 

the virtues of strategy. When strategy is neglected or 

impossible, tactics and operations are not connected to 

what ought to be understood as their purpose. Ulysses 

Grant understood this basic point in 1864; it was the 

most effective reason why the Civil War ended how 

and when it did. Grant fought purposefully; unfortunately, U.S. military action for several decades has not 

been close to being so well-led.14
15

A FAMILIAR PAST? PARALLELS AND 

ANALOGIES

Erroneous analogy is one of many blights to which 

users of English may fall victim.15 At its best, analogy 

aids understanding by means of the simple linguistic 

trick of changing one topic in debate from a subject on 

which you are not well versed, to one for which you 

are much better prepared. The explicit or implicit similarity in some potentially significant degree between 

the two cases legitimizes the introduction of analogy. 

The use and frequent abuse of analogy is commonplace in public political life. After all, there is little that 

is authentically novel in our politics. Times and their 

particular issues certainly alter, but all human emotions and the pertinent moral, immoral, and amoral 

urges that move people to and away from particular 

behaviors persist. They do not seem to have changed 

much for centuries, probably millennia. Love and 

hatred, loyalty and treachery, honesty and dishonesty, 

design and accident and so forth, are prominent in the 

list of large binaries. These pairings comprise a formidable short list of the values and sentiments that we 

believe demarcate us from the rest of the animal world.

One can contrast the idea of the historical parallel with that of the historical analogy. Readers are 

advised, perhaps alerted, and warned that this author 

is not in favor of the use of what are claimed to be historical analogies. In many years of scholarship, I have 

found the idea of the historical parallel far more useful. 

The two standards under discussion here, analogy and 

parallel, are closely related, but there is a critically 

individualizing distinction that renders the concept 

of a parallel far safer to use than that of analogy. Specifically, the concept of a parallel is much looser than 
16

is that of analogy. Although both ideas claim to rest 

upon notable similarities between subjects, the claim 

on behalf of alleged parallelism is considerably weaker 

than is that required to support a credible claim for 

analogy. This is not to suggest formally that proof of 

common identity is required on behalf of the argument favoring analogy. When historians make claims 

to understand similar seeming societies, they should 

appreciate that the evidence advanced is likely to be 

regarded with heavy suspicion. It may be vulnerable 

even to evidence of single-point nonconformity. It is 

commonplace for authors who want to argue boldly 

on the authority of asserted analogy; really, they mean 

to claim only that most or many, rather than strictly all 

cases are what they have in mind.

For the same reason that most, if not quite all, 

claims for paradox should be more accurately understood as ones for irony, so nearly all claims for the 

virtue in analogy would be composed more accurately 

were they confined to arguments on behalf of parallelism. The idea of the historical parallel captures the 

principal aspect of the idea of analogy, while avoiding the need for strict similarity or even identity. A 

leading reason why the assertions of analogy should 

be resisted is that its claims are—and indeed should 

be—assumed to cover cases that really are like-forlike. The trouble with this rigorous, but fair requirement to demand of claims for historical analogy, is that 

it is incompatible with the rich variety of human life 

and experience. Of course, there are significant seeming similarities between individuals, institutions, and 

experiences, including many that are centuries, even 

millennia, apart. However, possibly without exception, the individual historical context will prove on 

close examination to contain particular individual 
17

human, societal-cultural, and institutional detail that 

is sufficiently unique for us to be uneasy as scholars, 

should we seek to homogenize disparate people and 

their circumstances too rigorously.

An advantage of parallels over analogies is that 

the former require only the plausible evidence of there 

being strong similarities between the cases in point; 

historical exactitude is not required. Since everyone 

understands that no two historical events can ever truly 

be exactly the same, the purveyor of historical explanation who claims support from their apparent similarities should have, by far, the easier job in persuasion. It 

is one thing to argue for there being apparently more 

or less similarity between or among historical events, 

it is quite another to claim that two or more sequences 

of events are all but identical in key features (e.g., plot, 

victims, aggressors, strategy, tactics, and weapons). 

Experience and some reflection tell us that claims for 

strict analogy are rarely appropriate or necessary. The 

difficult challenge in claiming a precisely common 

identity between events is so heavy that the temptation 

and the endeavor are usually best resisted.

An advantage in the use of alleged historical parallels is that if they are employed only occasionally 

and carefully as to evidence developed in their support, they can prove seriously persuasive. Because the 

claims for discovery of similarity are so much weaker 

for the parallel than the allegedly analogous, they are 

much easier to meet; also, of course, they are near certain not to cover detail that may be vital to the purpose 

of the argument. The 20th century was richly populated 

with sequences of like events that had great potential 

to mislead those most responsible for peace and war 

in Europe and Asia. Expert familiarity with diplomatic 

maneuvering in international politics has some ability 
18

to mislead the supposedly proficient manipulators 

for advantage and disadvantage. However, there are 

limitations even upon the scope of detail guessable by 

statesmen. What is usually quite beyond the capability of discovery are the possibly vital details of choice 

that stem from individual personalities and the stimuli 

they find in a particular context.

Although historical analogies frequently carry 

an irresistible appeal, readers need to be warned 

that there are serious perils in analogy. Because they 

depend upon the plausibility of alleged likeness across 

many centuries in time and continents in geography, 

there is often pressure on the author to be generous in 

his or her interpretation of the events at issue. When 

an author sets out to write his interpretation of events 

and their probable meaning over time, it is not to the 

advantage of the reader for him to act as an advocate 

on possibly live matters for political argument. Illustration of argument by means of claimed analogy or 

parallelism can be an effective way to reach an audience who would rather be following their favorite soap 

operas. It is prudent, however, to remember that the 

same standard of accuracy does not hold for popular 

television programs as for scholarly monographs. The 

main story line and supporting evidence may well be 

much lighter in the former case, but a historical narrative should not be permitted to tell, or even imply seriously, that events were other than they were known 

to be, even in popular entertainment. The full story, or 

some approximation to the truth, may well need to be 

simplified, but it should not be rewritten for a better 

cultural fit with the preferences or prejudices of the 

audience.16

The phenomena of claimed historical parallels and 

analogies are especially at a severe risk of (political) 
19

misuse. It is in the nature of these linguistic phenomena 

to attempt to score political points by being economical with the truth. The reason for using these tricks 

of speech is to enable the speaker or reader to reach 

an audience emotionally and typically only to suggest 

some association between the object of the exercise and 

potential critics. A few signature jokes may enable a 

controversial speaker to avoid explaining himself to an 

audience. Argument by analogy or historical parallel is 

as unavoidable in a democracy as sometimes it can be 

extraordinarily effective.

The late and great Harvard professor Samul P. 

Huntington argued that the United States should 

behave in a manner that fits its size and importance in 

the world. He suggested that the country, being extraordinarily large and powerful, should conduct itself in a 

manner that reflects its potent size and character.

My basic message is that American strategy and the 

process by which it is made must reflect the nature of 

American society. Earlier I criticized those who urged us 

to adopt a strategy that was at variance with the inherent 

character of American society.17

This could mean that U.S. policy and strategy 

would tend not so much to rely upon extraordinary 

skill and finesse, but rather upon superior quantities 

of material. Huntington did have an important major 

point to impart. Specifically, a distinguishing feature of 

the United States is its size and potential as well as its 

realized strength. This size, and the diversity within it, 

is a source of some limitations. For example, the country has developed and constructed what is probably 

the world’s finest nuclear arsenal and set of complementary delivery systems. However, this impressive 

deployment carries the highly unusual caveat that 
20

nuclear weapons only have a deterrent function. That 

characterization is not completely accurate, but it is 

true enough to cover all cases except any that involve 

either nuclear threats or which menace vital American (including many Allied) interests. While there has 

been a constant nuclear military backstop to American statecraft for nearly 70 years, a history of the contribution of nuclear armament to global security and 

stability will need to look hard to find apparent evidence of the nuclear contribution. This lack of nuclear 

prominence in our conduct of relations that bear the 

balance of power may continue indefinitely. Long may 

it remain so! However, there is an uncertainty about 

nuclear weapons that should stimulate some modest 

anxiety. Successful deterrence leaves scant evidence.

Specifically, neither analogy nor parallel offers a 

helpful way into understanding the perils of a world 

in which the stability of the global political system 

depends upon the prudence that should be one of, or 

possibly the only, guiding quality of statesmen. I am 

uneasy giving voice to so extreme sounding a point of 

view, but there is no avoiding the necessity for it in 

this monograph. There is no historical precedent for a 

nuclear war. Individual cities have been wiped off the 

face of the Earth, but a catastrophe without identifiably predictable limits in its destructiveness and longer-term widespread lethal consequences is not a part 

of human history. Now, this is a possibility. Historical 

research should be able to help us order our thoughts, 

including priorities. However, the 72 years since Hiroshima have yielded no obvious source of a nuclear 

negation that appears to enjoy an extraordinarily high 

promise of success.

What should the U.S. military learn from the last 

7 decades of history about the country’s national 
21

security? If the first, and potentially overriding, rule in 

statecraft is prudence, it must follow unavoidably that 

what the United States has to avoid, almost at all costs, 

must be any variant of nuclear adventurism. A trouble 

is that it is the very awesomeness and sheer terror of 

nuclear war that carries the most telling punch in statecraft.18 The more acute of the superpower international 

crises in the era of stable balance, since the mid-1950s, 

have not yielded a particularly rich haul of nuclear 

relevant details. Two episodes in particular carried 

serious danger: Cuba in October 1963 and, for reason 

of an intelligence failure, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in November 1983.19 The Cuban Missile 

Crisis soon became famous for common sense, while 

the Soviet crisis 2 decades later passed undetected in 

the United States at the time. It is likely that very occasional brief periods of acute technical and operational 

anxiety have troubled both superpowers. The problem 

is that we do not know. Because of our ignorance, we 

have not been able to step back safely from a condition 

of mutual nuclear deterrence, in order to study recent 

nuclear near-events calmly. What we think we know 

is that there is no way in which we could withdraw 

from our nuclear relationship with Russia. Because of 

geography and politics, the United States could not 

prudently leave its NATO commitments. Since there 

appears to be no technological answer to the threat of 

nuclear weapons, we are obliged to pursue national 

security by the political and psychological routes.

The experience of mutual nuclear deterrence can 

rest for our analysis and understanding only upon the 

evidence from 60 years or less, which is a distressingly 

brief period to employ as the basis for the theory and 

practice of global security. Those of us who have ventured into the locker room of nuclear practice and theory 
22

have been periodically worried, perhaps alarmed, by a 

better appreciation of the awesomely dreadful possibilities. An error in policy, strategy, or tactics by either 

of the primary protagonists, acting independently or 

interactively in combination, could have unwelcome 

consequences almost too grim to consider.

It is extremely difficult to know how best we should 

prepare for a politically triggered nuclear event that 

would be far beyond all human experience to date. On 

war itself, in general, we should feel abundantly well 

informed, if not misinformed; but bilateral nuclear war 

of any dimension is completely beyond human experience. The study of history is useful, indeed essential, but when there is no useful data of note, we are 

compelled to attempt to swim in the dark. It would be 

somewhat reassuring were we likely to be capable of 

improving on our performance as a nuclear warfare 

participant by a consequence of our learning from 

experience what appears to be successful, politically 

and strategically, and what does not. However, for 

better or worse, and unfortunately almost certainly the 

latter, it appears unlikely that the U.S. Army would 

be seriously interested in the later phases of a nuclear 

war, so horrible would any early round almost certainly prove to be. There is an excellent reason why 

the Army should understand what it can about nuclear 

warfare, but this is one of those fortunately very rare 

subjects that does not clarify usably as a consequence 

of more intense study. There are subjects that appear 

reluctant to surrender secrets even to the careful military scholar. Possibly, it is fortunate that nuclear conflict with an opponent armed in a manner similar to 

the United States is not a topic that has attracted much 

attention of recent years. Probably it is true to claim 

that an important reason why nuclear warfighting 
23

does not attract professional attention more heavily 

is because of the principles of national security that 

insist upon the primacy of politics over strategy, and 

of strategy over tactics. The actual conduct of nuclear 

warfare would most likely be a near wholly political, 

and not seriously a military-strategic, exercise. Even if 

this thought and logic is found less than fully persuasive, in prospect it certainly should have the effect of 

discouraging strategic imagination.

It is well worth my mentioning as a near certain 

likelihood the extreme difficulty that would impede 

analytical or theoretical effort to make strategic sense 

of nuclear warfare. This is one of those rare cases of an 

obvious need for strategy where it would not be likely 

to meet with a strategically sensible response; it would 

be terra incognita for the U.S. Government and Army.

Of course, the preferred answer to the scenario just 

mentioned has to be a continuation without discernible end of the now longstanding condition of mutual 

nuclear deterrence. However, a problem with this condition is that it may be vulnerable even to a single failure in the pertinent human, mechanical, and electronic 

details. In short, our current system of mutual nuclear 

deterrence could fail catastrophically because of only a 

very limited breakdown in the supporting human, or 

the mechanical and electronic systems. The robustness 

of mutual deterrence should not be doubted. However, the scale of the potential catastrophe is so great 

that it is only responsible of us to work for a political 

and military system of international security that has 

more safety catches than at present.
24

WHAT CHANGES AND WHAT DOES NOT?

There is a fundamental question lying behind this 

monograph with which not all of us agree. This is yet 

another example of the possible potency of assumptions. It is not self-evident that we understand much 

about military matters that were unknown to Greeks 

and Romans. Of course, a myriad of detail distinguishes now from then, but it is not obvious that much 

of deep significance has changed. It is entirely possible 

that the fundamental premise upon which this monograph is built is unsound. It is possible, and might 

just be probable, that there is little, if anything, to be 

learned from the past—distant or near—because we 

humans are not obviously a species capable of learning 

from past mistakes.

Many people, perhaps most, seem to believe that 

change, great and small, is desirable. Often unfortunately, it is welcomed seemingly for its own sake. 

Because it has become central to the economy of our 

way of life, the notion of constant change has been 

allowed to take unsound root. Change, however, is 

not in itself either prudent or foolish; rather, it must 

depend on the context. The Armed Forces can appear 

to believe that a perfectibility of arms is possible. This 

may be a healthy attitude, even if it always proves to 

be an ambitious desire too far to reach. The sad truth 

is that an international arms competition needs to be 

regarded as a permanent feature of global life, since it 

can be arrested only by the political force responsible 

for its creation and growth. So noisy is the clamor from 

commercial interests and the regular episodic political extravaganzas by means of which we elect political leaders, that it is scarcely surprising to find scant 

appreciation of our contemporary dependence upon 
25

past wisdom and sound practice. A vitally important 

reason we are able to cast our minds back in confident expectation of discovering examples of prudent 

behavior, is because quite often we have knowledge 

of probable historical consequences. When seeking 

some possible education for the future from the past, 

we need never to forget that our contemporary ignorance of future consequences has to be regarded as a 

permanent limitation of any study of the future. The 

future cannot be studied, in terms either of the largely 

known past, or of anything else. Zero data is an uncorrectable problem. Zero is still zero, no matter how 

ingenious social scientific analysis may appear to be. 

This is disappointing and possibly even discouraging 

to over-ambitious scientists, but there it is. However, 

for a notable source of possible assistance, there is the 

subject of this monograph. It is necessary to be basic, 

even humble, and enquire of our scholars what they 

think they know about the future that could be really 

useful.

Those scholars need to accept an elementary triadic 

categorization of events of all kinds.

First, there is the past, sometimes as processed 

selectively by scholars whom we call historians. As the 

past fades into, and then beyond memory, it is greatly 

honored with the title of history.20

Second, there is the recent passage of time and its 

abundance of what is known as current affairs. As time 

passes, first-hand, living knowledge literally expires 

physically.

Third, there is what commonly is called history. 

This enormous potential source of knowledge stretches 

from the outer limit of widespread public first-hand 

experience and knowledge, all the way back as far as 

we can reach with our largely archeological findings.
26

There is certain to be considerable disdain toward 

troops who proved able to display examples of behavior 

incompatible with the requirements of a combat ready 

organization. The U.S. Army, like all others, discovered 

ancient truths about its soldiers in North Africa and 

Italy in 1942-43. When the U.S. Army met the German 

Army in the Mediterranean theater in 1943, the results 

generally were not flattering to American military 

self-esteem. The military disadvantage in the comparison made here extended to the very topmost level of 

command. The overall U.S. military commander, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, had no first-hand combat 

experience and had never commanded troops in battle 

prior to his experience in North Africa. Given that his 

adversaries were German military stars, Albert Kesselring and Erwin Rommel, this imbalance in the quality 

of leadership was much to the Allied disadvantage. 

American soldiers needed to learn how to survive and 

win in combat; being American conveyed no special 

immunity to harm. In war after war, American soldiers have had to learn to give the enemy of the day 

the respect they often deserved.21

It can be difficult for American soldiers to come 

to terms with an enemy who needs to be treated with 

respect, but not by a disabling anxiety or even fear. 

While American soldiers have been fortunate not to 

have been compelled by national policy choice to face 

a truly first-class enemy in the earliest phases of what 

would become World Wars, it did mean that when the 

United States eventually became committed to battle it 

was initially at a severe disadvantage owing to its relative inexperience. American soldiers in 1942 meeting 

their German adversaries had last met this enemy in 

the fall of 1918. In addition, the Japanese foe encountered on the Solomon Island of Guadalcanal in 1942 
27

had been fighting already for many preceding years. 

Moving forward in time, the Viet Cong and North 

Vietnamese soldiers had many years’ experience of 

battle, before the U.S. Army entered South Vietnam in 

large numbers in 1965.

There is an assertion of historical change that is no 

better than a plausible fallacy. Change in conditions, 

tools, and beliefs have been a fact beyond doubt. That 

fact, however, cannot just be assumed to have great 

significance. It does not usually require much historical scholarship to enable us to appreciate the difference 

between major and minor causes of change. Furthermore, the number of the latter is easy to exaggerate. 

While cultural, including moral, change is relatively 

rare and indeed tends to be negated and reversed as 

a consequence of its negative results, material change 

can be rapid and difficult to assimilate and, if necessary, adopt. Ideational change typically is more of a 

challenge to master and overcome than is material 

change. Whereas material discovery, technological 

innovation, and novel practices can be routinized by 

a scientifically advanced society, cultural change at 

the level of revolution tends to be far more difficult for 

people to comprehend and then practice.

Soldiers in the U.S. Army reading this monograph 

may notice that the nonmaterial difference between 

today and ancient times are easily exaggerated. The 

essence of strategy applied as directly and consequentially for Greeks, Romans, and Persians, as it does for 

us today and, we can predict confidently, will do so 

tomorrow. The unforgiving core logic of strategy has 

not altered over time. Indeed, changes in weaponry 

and logistical provision scarcely signify for mention 

when they are contrasted with the major causes of 

strategic strife that have scarcely changed at all over 
28

millennia. The risks and rewards in soldiers’ lives 

assuredly have been cumulatively altered quite a bit 

over the centuries, but the enduring and fundamental 

logic of strategy always applies, notwithstanding the 

wide range in the detail of historical variation.

For conceptual clarification, sound understanding of military behavior in any period should flow 

from a view of history in terms of the relations among 

just four master concepts—ends, ways, means, and 

assumptions. Historical actors in any and every period 

have been obliged by contextual necessity to endeavor 

to cope with the relations among the imperative logic 

of these four key ideas. The four concepts are strictly 

architectural in their logic; they can explain historical failure as well as success. The great changes that 

undoubtedly have occurred emphatically have not 

weakened the basic logical sense in the necessary 

cooperative connections that should unify ends, ways, 

means, and assumptions.

The principal benefit of the formula of ends, ways, 

means, and assumptions naturally does not lie in any 

particular mastery of historical narrative. Instead, it 

equips the soldier as a warrior scholar, or simply as an 

interested general reader, adequately for understanding how and why military power can, and perhaps 

should, work.22 Whoever the enemy, whatever the 

terrain, and regardless of the detail of political intention, there is need for: clarity in political purpose; a 

requirement for sufficiently effective ways to threaten 

and apply force; and a need to be matched by adequate 

means to achieve the necessary application.

For the purpose of this monograph, it is necessary 

for the reader to accept as a possible, I believe certain, 

fact a quite startling contrast. On the one hand, a world 

expressing and reflecting minor and major change in 
29

many features and circumstances. On the other hand, 

in contrast, there is the plain evidence of a near steady 

state in the values that have much deeper meaning and 

reflect lasting worth. Unsurprisingly, the more senior 

the level of command, the more readily comparable 

have been the possible and probable lessons of history. It would be more accurate to follow Sir Michael 

Howard when he draws a distinction between history 

simply as the past, and history meaning the past as 

massaged and interpreted by historians.23

Looking back, even over a very long time, some 

immediate tentative conclusions press for consideration. For example, if we consider Roman military 

experience we discover that the experience at different 

ranks of contrasting responsibilities bear strong similarities between then and now. At the topmost level, 

the tools employed have changed hugely, indeed 

beyond recognition, but the challenges have not 

altered greatly. The general officer still acts on behalf 

of the state, and is held responsible if policy is shown 

by field experience not to have been chosen wisely. In 

addition, the military leader will find today that he 

needs to be able to lead as well as command, and that 

not all of his most senior subordinate officers are fully 

competent. In some cases, this will pose a serious difficulty when the senior commanders in question have 

politically heavy hitting potential support. This difficult case arises when at (our) home or when they are 

appointed to satisfy strong domestic interests or meet 

a strong foreign interest.

Of course, the soldiers willing to learn from their 

country’s history may discover that there is, or could 

be, a path to political authority, paved by the natural 

popularity of military success. Whether fully merited or not, truly outstanding military leaders in the 
30

United States do have a history of post-war democratic 

political success. George Washington, Zachary Taylor, 

Ulysses S. Grant, Dwight Eisenhower, and even possibly David Petraeus spring to mind as the outstanding exemplars of this phenomenon, even though a 

yearning for political power was not a life-long defining characteristic of all of them. What is required here 

above all else is education in the theory and practice of 

connections among the increasingly elevated levels of 

conflict. Soldiers need to understand, even if occasionally only resentfully, that all of the combat in warfare, 

and all the logistical effort involved, can only be justified in terms of its net achievement. It can have no 

justification, even meaning, if it is not firmly connected 

to higher purposes. Whenever and wherever one looks 

in historical records, all military activity, in times of 

peace or of war, has to serve a purpose of a nature 

different from its own. The American military person 

should realize that he or she represents but the latest 

human example of a great historical truth. Specifically, 

military power of all kinds has some political meaning. That is not a matter for policy choice. The military 

institution is, and has to be, about politics, even though 

it is not itself political in its nature.

Some historical perspective frequently is asked and 

even expected of our political leaders, though often, 

indeed usually, people forget about the genuine limitations on our knowledge. Recognition of such limitations should be an important step on the path of 

improvement in historical utility. For example, there 

is no way in which either acute crisis or the outbreak 

of war can be predicted by the harder or the softer sciences. There is no miracle formula that can unravel the 

relevant mysteries of the future. However, careful analysis of past crises and political-military competitions 
31

enable us to identify conditions of unusual peril. 

Because of our eternal ignorance of what will happen 

later today, let alone tomorrow and thereafter, we 

need strictly to follow a rule of prudence in international security affairs. Knowledge of the past cannot 

serve a reliable predictive purpose, but it should alert 

us to understanding what can happen. Since we must 

assume that there is great continuity in human history, we are obliged to assume that what has occurred 

may be repeated, albeit in rather more modern forms. 

Bearing in mind the awesome dangers of nuclear holocaust, and the grossly incomplete success achieved to 

date with regard to the alleviation of interstate armed 

conflict, it is only prudent for us to seek such assistance 

as may be sought from history.

WHAT CAN THE U.S. ARMY LEARN FROM 

HISTORY?

An attempt such as this, to identify ideas and 

behavior from history may be, certainly may appear 

to be, wildly overambitious. I have chosen to identify 

and explain just eight conclusions that I have reached 

as a consequence of my more than 50 years of scholarship, much of it on matters that bear closely upon 

the national security of the United States. The question 

in the title to the topic of this monograph could prove 

impracticably large, almost beyond discipline. As a 

consequence of the boundary resistant concept of history I have been obliged to exercise ruthless judgment 

with respect to inclusion and exclusion of subjects. 

What follows is a relatively brief discussion of a modest 

number of answers to the large question set by the U.S. 

Army War College (USAWC) and the Strategic Studies 

Institute (SSI). I have decided not to attempt to provide 
32

a descending order of relative significance, because an 

effort to do this could mislead the reader by encouraging him or her to think in terms of fairly orderly 

categories. However, the past, present, and future is 

not like that. Events of all kinds often just occur when 

they do. Real life in all ages often surprises participants; the past truly is disorderly, despite the energetic 

efforts of some people and institutions, everywhere 

and always, to plan and enable orderly and purposeful progress. When we are advised to try to make sense 

of history, what is meant is the sense already discovered. My argument is that even the most planned and 

controlled of human endeavors will have a tendency, 

assuredly a potential, to go off the rails and descend 

into a variant of chaos. I am not talking mainly about 

willful mischief, but rather about our human capability to make mistakes, become confused, or simply be 

individualistic in a world that has expectations and a 

requirement for us to obey rules that are orders. Military institutions, in particular, understand well and 

appropriately that they live and perform almost literally on the edge of chaos. The history of all countries, 

especially when they engage in armed conflict—in any 

period in the past—usually is a story both of struggle 

against an identified enemy, but also against error and 

confusion in their own ranks. This tendency toward, 

indeed some need to tolerate, disorder was almost a 

quality required of the U.S. Army in the 20th century, 

as twice it needed to grow exponentially in order to 

do battle with first Imperial, then Nazi, Germany. On 

both occasions, in 1917-18 and 1942-43, the U.S. Army 

had the best of reasons to be grateful that Allied armies 

already, if ironically, had been well trained by their 

common German enemy.
33

The analysis and choice of evidence employed 

in this section of this monograph has been carefully 

selected to minimize the possibility of bias in the 

text. The frequency with which British and American 

cases are cited reflects nothing more sinister than the 

author’s professional foci over half a century of study. 

It is worth mentioning that I believe nearly all the arguments and major points registered in the following section are quite general truths that apply to the national 

security systems of many countries.

1. Interpreting the Past, a Basic Question of Context 

and Authority

The past is owned by nobody; history, in sharpest contrast, bears many claims to ownership. These 

claims appear mainly in the writings of professional 

historians; these scholars may tell the truth about the 

past that they know. However, that truth is certain to 

depend upon a limited and particular empirical base 

of evidence and also upon the authors’ preferences 

that reflect various motivations. The historian writing 

history is not a scholar faithfully transcribing words 

that bear a divine authority. Instead, they reflect a 

selection of knowledge the historian has allowed himself to see and consider, as well as the facts to which 

he, or she, did not have reliable access. Truth about the 

past may have rotted away in the course of time, been 

heedlessly damaged or destroyed, or hidden by accident or design by people many years ago. All works 

of what commonly is called history lack authority to 

a greater or lesser degree. Unavoidably, they will not 

and cannot know the truth as it was understood in the 

past by historical figures. This is not to criticize historians; their problem, as well as possible advantage, 
34

is one of perspective and that derives critically from 

particular context.

As Professor Sir Michael Howard argued:

history, whatever its value in educating the judgement, 

teaches no ‘lessons,’ and the professional historians 

will be as skeptical of those who claim that it does as 

professional doctors are of their colleagues who peddle 

medicines guaranteeing instant cures.24

A universal fact so obvious that it usually escapes 

notice and attention is in need of recognition. Everyone, in all periods, enjoys or endures what is known 

as context. This potent concept captures in meaning all 

that is known and understood by a person including 

those forces and influences that shape circumstances, 

whether or not they are recognized at the time. Context 

shares much in common with the idea of assumptions. 

Both concepts are incredibly powerful, yet attract little 

explicit scholarly or popular attention. The concepts of 

context and assumptions are of great significance for 

this study, because in mutually dependent ways they 

both have profound meaning for many, indeed most, 

claims concerning the motives of historical actors. 

Many of life’s decisions rest upon assumptions that 

we do not feel any need to challenge, sometimes even 

when we would be at liberty to do so.

It would be a non-trivial challenge to ask of an 

American soldier today that he or she should attempt 

to think as soldiers in times possibly long past. Probably it would be a greater challenge to ask of American 

soldiers that they ought to try to recognize and learn 

from the experience of other soldiers, possibly foreign 

and long dead. No matter how surprising it may be to 

many of today’s soldiers, relatively little about military 

planning, combat itself, logistics, and communications 
35

is a revelation revealed only by the awesomely awful 

global military history of the past century. Nonetheless, of course the tactical and technical details of 

change matter profoundly at the sharpest end of military life and sometimes death. However, much of what 

has been, and remains, of great strategic significance 

has scarcely altered at all in its essentials over the centuries. This is an important reason why we can still 

read Greek and Roman authors with sympathy and 

even gratitude.

2. The Human Race Has Not Learned Sufficiently 

from Its History—Yet!

It is both a prudent and a sad truth about this 

assertion that it does not inspire any particular kind of 

behavior by the military student. A trouble with history, in the sense of an ever-arguable narrative, is that 

it is prudently safe because by definition it is about the 

past. This is neither to forget nor deny that the past 

already may have been mortgaged for the future. However, its substance, even if seriously regretted by some 

today, is done and gone for better or worse. However, 

since past behavior cannot be recalled and returned in 

hope of our achieving an improved outcome, we are 

obliged by the laws of physics only to perform a single 

journey into the future. Therefore, acting as two complementary inhibitors, knowledge and understanding 

of the future is hampered severely by an inability to 

predict the future reliably in detail. Certainly, we are 

able to, and do, predict; but ambitious predictions are 

hardly ever beyond risk of serious error. Leaving aside 

the large issue of the readiness of historical knowledge 

for useful raiding by scholars in need of assistance, 

there is usually considerable room for disagreement 
36

over the wisdom of important choices in the past. It is 

one thing to assert that a particular choice in our history had researchable, identifiable consequences; it is 

quite another to argue there were some unwelcome 

alternatives that were not tried.

The second point about learning from history tends 

not to be made by cameras with a width of lens at all 

suitable to the subject. “The paths not taken” is likely 

to provide material for extensive study. This logic 

inclines us to be more tolerant of theoretical alternative courses of action than soldiers often are able to 

be, prudently. When a decision for action or inaction 

is needed this day, possibly this hour or even this 

minute, understanding possible alternatives is more 

likely to paralyze than to assist. Moving up the ladder 

of likely consequences, from tactical through operational, to strategic and eventually political choice, 

many strategic decisions have literally unknowable 

and certainly unpredictable results. In addition, just 

as few, if any, major strategic decisions will be free of 

greater or lesser risk, so ambitious governments must 

be able to tolerate bad military and political news.

All countries “cherry pick” particular items from 

the whole library of preferred national history. Everyone—all cultures—can find examples of national heroism against the odds. All countries have a tale or two 

of struggles against adversity; for example, defeat that 

is really a moral victory, as with the Alamo in 1836, or 

Wake Island, and Bataan in 1942. There has been ample 

genuine heroism in the global human story. There is 

no need to mention the fact that grim tales of extraordinary military effort for survival exist in all countries’ 

histories, legends, and mythologies. History textbooks 

are not weighed around the world in order to ascertain 

the probable truth they seek to convey to the young. 
37

Anyway, who or which institution could be trusted to 

tell the truth, if—that is—the truth is a valid ambition. 

All countries have a vested interest in telling their history largely from the biased perspective of themselves. 

The historical education of the young everywhere is, 

in varying degree, tribal. This is readily understandable and indeed inevitable and unavoidable, though it 

is hardly praiseworthy.

3. Bad Times Always Return

History does not repeat itself, but one cannot avoid 

noticing that there would appear to be a repetitive, if 

somewhat irregular, pattern to conditions of peace and 

war. Especially noticeable is the repetition of threat on 

a major scale to the integrity of the United States for 

much of the country’s relatively brief existence. Eras 

of peace and tranquility have not often been the lot of 

Americans; whether our security concerns were more 

or less confined to North America, which was the case 

in the 18th and 19th centuries. Addressing problems 

of national security in a global context, the American 

experience since 1900 has been exciting and dangerous. 

A condition literally of extreme peril has now become 

the situation normal for Americans in an era of nuclear 

weapons. This reality of life in the shadow of nuclear 

danger, seemingly, has all but lost the power to shock, 

so habituated are we to the danger.

A careful reading of history leads unavoidably to 

the conclusion that bad times always return. This is a 

fact based on ample evidence from all periods in the 

past of our species. The soldier reading works of history will be at risk of misunderstanding much that is 

controversial, even essentially unknowable with total 

confidence, but that should not much matter. What 
38

should matter for the soldier is to appreciate those 

conditions of instability and insecurity most likely to 

continue long into the future. There has been no philosophy, religion, or political ideology proved able 

to unite all of mankind. It has not happened, period! 

Given what we think we know and understand about 

past millennia, alas, it is a completely safe bet that the 

human race will not improve. All we can do is be vigilant on our watch.

4. In the Hierarchy of Professional Concern to 

Soldiers, Policy and its Politics are More Important 

than Strategy, Operations, and Tactics

As a student of strategy for more than 50 years, 

I find this rather a challenge to write. It should be a 

standard truth that professional soldiers do not question legitimate orders issued by their political superiors that were transmitted through the proper chain of 

command. That said, it is plausible to argue that inappropriate political choices are the principal culprits in 

many cases. Sometimes, fortunately rarely, there is a 

cause for war so serious that the country has little discretion in its choice of response, or even initiative. Most 

polities occasionally confront the necessity for making 

an unwelcome choice. It is important to remember that 

even a country as uniquely powerful as the United 

States can find itself in a strategic and therefore also 

a political situation that appears to admit of no alternative answers to the politically existential question 

posed: Do we fight? This was the grim prospect in 

South Korea in June 1950, while much more arguably 

it had been the case also in 1917 and 1940-41.
39

The argument of greatest relative significance here 

is that political choices typically, even many untypically, can have a weight in consequences that more 

narrow ones cannot reach. Though often only with 

much embarrassment, and certainly a great deal of 

pain, there are no decisions at the rare level of national 

policy, with its politics, that could not change sharply 

the course taken by the nation. The simple seeming 

staff college model of ends, ways, and means (with 

appropriate assumptions), really in its profound 

meaning says it all! The political goals that are policy 

ends, the strategic ways to achieve them, and the various (including military) means to behave as may be 

required should not confuse the student. The military 

institutions of the state ought to be able to advise and, 

if necessary, warn political authorities about the likely 

consequences of their policy choices. However, it is 

only exceptional for a major political choice leading to 

large-scale warfare to be challenged, even retroactively 

in such popular democracies as the United States and 

the United Kingdom. The British Chilcot Enquiry into 

the Iraq War, which took 8 years to conduct and complete, was a notable exception to the usual rule that 

efforts are not made to seek out and apportion responsibility, and therefore blame, for policy choices that 

subsequent developments show to have been a mistake. By far the most important conclusion we should 

draw from the enquiry led by Lord Chilcot was about 

the significance of political choice, not so much about 

British military competence in Iraq, which undoubtedly was less than stellar. Soldiers may well make the 

best of a job that ought to have been deemed too difficult for them to attempt. High tactical and even operational competence will not suffice to compensate for 

fatally poor political choices in policy. Even excellence 
40

in policy offers no guarantee of advantage; it cannot 

compensate adequately for basic errors in policy choice. 

There may be local and temporary benefit to be gained 

through tactical and even operational superiority, but 

that is unlikely to lead to an enduring advantage; for 

that to be the case one must look to politics.

5. Predictions and Assumptions About War Should 

Never Be Trusted Uncritically

By definition, predictions and assumptions are 

made even though there is a lack of empirical evidence in their support. Because of our incapability 

to see over the time horizon to the future, we need to 

make many decisions that can rest only on preparation, not real-time experience. The individual soldier 

knows how high the personal risk can be in warfare, 

but he or she does not know, and fortunately cannot 

predict, how severe the danger will prove to be. What 

the soldier will not know is how great a strategic, and 

therefore political, risk the country is taking in a decision for war. What the soldier, conscript, or volunteer 

is unlikely to know, or possibly even understand, is 

the abundantly evidenced worldwide truth that war is 

always a gamble. So many and intense are the calculations and emotions that go into a war that a really confident prediction about results, let alone consequences, 

should always be treated with suspicion. The course 

and outcome of war often turn out to be surprising to 

the belligerents. Actions for and within war assuredly 

can be planned and much should be predictable, but 

the live, real-time dynamics of warfare invariably are a 

mystery ahead of time. The fundamental reason for this 

is the existence of a self-willed enemy. Neat and effective plans that largely ignore the will and capability 
41

of the enemy are dangerous. Strategic intentions that 

simply assume away any inconvenient competence 

on the part of the enemy are all too familiar. We can 

recall the French folly concerning the assumption that 

the Viet-Minh would lack the ability to mount a serious artillery threat to the garrison of Dien Bien Phu 

in 1954.25 A decade earlier, there was the convenient 

assumption by General Mark Clark that German General Albert Kesselring’s Luftwaffe posed no serious 

threat from the air to the Allied amphibious operation 

at Salerno south of Rome.26 We do not want to discourage American soldiers from taking risks, but we need 

to teach or remind them that decisions for war, great 

or small, are always a gamble; they will be a move 

beyond empirical evidence.

6. Of Course Battles Matter, but Typically Wars are 

Won or Lost Strategically and Politically

Single, allegedly decisive battles are a rarity in 

the entire narrative of history.27 They do occur, but 

it is more common for a great clash of arms in battle 

to be only a bloody episode in the entire narrative of 

a conflict. Popular fiction and movies thrive on little 

nourishment from a fairly thin list of battles that were 

probably more terrifying events for the participants 

than they were strategically meaningful. Readers 

may recall that this monograph insisted much earlier 

that strategy essentially is about the consequences of 

action. In modern times—say since the founding of 

the American Republic in 1776—it has been rare for 

a belligerent to roll the dice in battle in a decisively 

concluding move. The reasons are not hard to identify; 

two such are technology and ideology. The range and 

therefore reach of national military power, thinking 
42

of air, missile, and also of nuclear weapons, has rendered war a potentially history-ending experience. 

This menace poses insoluble difficulties for states. It is 

quite a challenge to be in a condition of war-readiness, 

indeed of an approximate hair-trigger alertness for a 

long period, when the war we threaten to inflict would 

not be survivable. This last claim may not be reliably 

true. Obviously, evidence is missing, but we would be 

suitably prudent to assume it is true. If we seek strategic advantage for political gain, as probably we should 

very rarely, there can be no forgetting the nuclear peril 

that could conclude the American experience.

7. History is not a Morality Tale

Many factors enhance the prospect of national 

success, but a moral advantage is not credibly among 

them. When a government or political elite commits 

crimes against all of humanity today, it may pay a 

heavy price in terms of political support denied. A 

modern electorate will be capable of punishing unsuccessful candidates by excluding them from positions 

of political power. The moral audit of thought and 

behavior typically does not carry sanctions more painful than exclusion from high office. However, soldiers 

seeking to learn from history will discover that democracy with a universal adult franchise has not been the 

norm in the past. They learn also that in most countries 

for long periods it was physically dangerous to lead 

politically. In particular periods, the 3rd century A.D. 

for example, it was unusual for a Roman emperor to 

die peacefully.

A concept as non-specific as the past plainly can 

accommodate virtually every claimed exception to 

whatever otherwise is claimed to have been a familiar 
43

informal rule governing human political and moral 

behavior and misbehavior. Governments do not like 

to be caught out by journalists, let alone by a court of 

international law, for having committed undoubtable 

wrongdoing when they are ethically regarded. However, even less do they favor an undeniable failure of 

policy. A problem is that the standard of right (enough) 

conduct has varied over the centuries, as has the freedom of action of political leaders. There is little room 

for doubt that the difference between success and failure is as clear today as it was in antiquity. The actual 

content of the two contrasting ideas has varied richly 

over time and in different circumstances, but still the 

two usually are distinguishable.

It is plausible to claim that right conduct by contemporary standards has hardly ever been allowed a 

dominant role in political decision-making. Nonetheless, few political leaders have been genuinely and 

repeatedly indifferent to moral condemnation. Readers 

of history soon notice, however, that nearly all major 

policy decisions in most countries in every period of 

history have been both praised and condemned. Inevitably, this means that even when there appear to have 

been plain cases of immoral behavior, there were, 

almost certainly, some mighty arguments that could 

be advanced in justification. Overall, one is obliged by 

the empirical evidence to conclude that political leaders tend overwhelmingly to follow a pragmatic rule of 

contemporary expediency.

8. Great Powers Can Make Great Mistakes

As in individual interpersonal relations, governments are capable of making mistakes. Obviously, the greater the state in question, the larger and 
44

consequentially more deleterious the mistakes in policy 

choice are likely to be. The reason is that nearly all of 

the larger choices in public policy could be argued in 

different ways. Often it is quite a challenge for the historian to be sufficiently emotionally detached from the 

historical circumstances under examination. They need 

to retain the necessary distance for adequate objectivity. Historians often become surrogate participants in 

policy controversies of the past, sometimes even the 

long past. An obvious and unavoidable problem with 

a historian as a kind of participant advocate for one 

side or another is that they are both blessed and cursed 

with possession of the priceless pearl of foreknowledge about yesterday’s future. While there can be high 

value in determining the probable consequences of 

actions taken at a certain date, it can be fiendishly difficult for us to avoid using our knowledge from the 

future improperly.

The larger the country, the larger major errors 

in policy are likely to be, and the deeper and longer 

lasting the likely consequences of ill-chosen policy. 

The three most recent examples of well-intentioned 

American policy that deserved to succeed—Vietnam, 

Afghanistan, and Iraq—unsurprisingly perhaps, generated warfare of a character that was locally all but 

uniformly unfortunate. In all three historic cases just 

cited, the fundamental problem for the United States 

was of the same kind: weakness in the understanding of local politics and culture. From time to time, an 

expeditionary intervention led by the United States 

may be timely and advisable. However, such extreme 

action should not be taken largely in the vague hope 

that things will turn out acceptably. The United States 

should only commit to military action when it understands what it is doing, why it is doing it, and how 

policy objectives are to be secured. Some mistakes are 
45

inevitable, but many in the recent past were foreseeable, and therefore should have been avoidable.

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR THE U.S. ARMY

1. Behave Prudently

Prudent behavior is that which is conducted with 

careful regard for the future. Strategy is all about consequences. The past is already done and gone, poorly 

or well and usually some of both. The constant need to 

insist that soldiers today act with appreciation of the 

high relevance of prudence in thought and action aims 

at the very heart of strategy. Many people, including 

scholars, need reminding that military action has no 

positive value in and of itself. The very idea of consequences can often appear irrelevant, because the 

challenge today is so demanding that military commanders find no time, or spare energy, to devote to 

possible happenings in the future. It is understandable 

if they feel so fully employed trying to meet current 

demands that they lack the spare personal capacity 

needed for worry about tomorrow. Of course, it is not 

always obvious which is the most prudent course of 

action to adopt, especially given that an undue determination to behave prudently risks having to meet 

with the charge of being unduly cautious. That said, 

as it needs to be, there is a general need for prudence, 

meaning the holding to a serious concern about the 

consequences of a chosen action.
46

2. Remember the Concept of the Great Stream of 

Time

It is healthy for personal humility, even if, indeed 

perhaps particularly if, they are senior generals, not 

to forget that they and their behavior has meaning 

in, and consequences for, the great stream of time for 

the human past, or history.28 There can be high utility in understanding clearly that there is little done 

today that could not be repudiated, overturned, or 

even reversed tomorrow. More than casual acknowledgement of that possible fact should encourage some 

respect for the taking of a longer view of history than 

otherwise might be the case. It is important, even critically so, not to forget that only a nuclear military event 

offers the highly plausible prospect of, quite literally, 

an end to history of any interest to us today. Almost 

anything and everything else can be accommodated 

for consequential historical meaning. The concept of 

the great stream of time has room for both good and 

bad news. It has been said many times that there is a 

great deal of ruin in a nation; meaning in this instance 

that the United States has a national government that 

makes both good and less good decisions. Although 

a particular national administration will make regrettable decisions that have unfortunate consequences 

that were not foreseen, presidencies come and go on 

the 4-year cycle. At least, happily, this is the American 

way in politics and governance.

3. War Is Always a Policy Gamble

So many and so unpredictable are the factors that 

operate in war, that high confidence prior to hostilities 

is likely to prove ill founded. It is a problem for the 
47

United States that its own status and capabilities are 

so high. It can prove almost impossibly challenging for 

Americans to understand just how much, or how little, 

military effort to exert in order to bring a local conflict to 

a successful conclusion. Since 1945, the U.S. Army has 

drawn one conflict in Korea, undoubtedly lost another 

in Vietnam, and at best has not obviously succeeded 

in two others in Afghanistan and Iraq. In the negative 

cases just cited, the core of the Army’s problem set was 

the same; it was committed to combat in a country that 

was culturally too alien for it to be able to convert its tactical prowess into meaningful strategic gain for political purpose. The political purpose is what the exercise 

of American military power has to be about. In war 

after war, from the 1960s to the 2000s, the U.S. Army 

was partially engaged in countries whose cultures and 

even politics were substantially mysterious to America’s political leaders and most American voters. This 

extensive and intensive asymmetry contributed hugely 

to U.S. military and political failure in South-East Asia 

and the Middle East. Strange to say, perhaps, but 

war—any war—is always a political gamble. This is as 

true for a superpower as for states much smaller than 

the United States. The general strength of this point is 

probably less than—let alone fully—well understood, 

even in the U.S. Army. The extensive and genuine military virtue of this Army ironically may hinder comprehension of its relative weakness when it strives to 

counter hostilities significantly foreign to Americans. 

Policy decisions to commit the U.S. Army to a war are 

always going to be highly risky, because of the large 

number and character of uncertainties.
48

4. War Should Only Be Waged with Strategic Sense.

It is a vitally important definitional truth that war 

ought only and always to be waged with what some 

insightful historians have termed “strategic sense.”29

There should be no misunderstanding of the relative 

importance and significance of this recommendation 

to the Army. Tactics and even operations will be the 

regular actuality of military behavior of the U.S. Army 

in a zone of conflict, but we must never lose sight of the 

whole political point of the death, destruction, and disturbance that we cause and promote. In an army such 

as the American where politics is eschewed, as well as 

unprofessional, it can prove difficult for the military 

strategy to remain apolitical. This strategy should cap 

and exploit tactics and operations, but not leak or stray 

into the realm of policy with its ineradicable politics. 

Despite the legal and professional cultural inhibitions 

that always will work overtime to be difficult, there can 

be no prudent way in which to seek to escape the necessity for the U.S. Army only to be wielded as a sharp 

military instrument in execution or support of a clear 

political purpose. The separation of the military from 

the world of politics is a deep and important value in 

American public culture. Nonetheless, the separation 

cannot be permitted to license, if not actually encourage, a foolish distancing of our Army’s actions from 

our society’s high political and moral intentions.

ENDNOTES

1. L. P. Hartley, The Go-Between, Harmondsworth, UK: 

Penguin Books, 1953, p. 7.

2. Michael Howard, The Lessons of History, New Haven, CT: 

Yale University Press, 1991, p. 11; see also John Vincent, History, 

New York: Continuum, 1995.
49

3. The first book in Rick Atkinson’s Liberation Trilogy tells a 

story of an over expanded U.S. Army that was no match for the 

Wehrmacht in North Africa, but was fortunate to be opposed primarily by Italians in the earliest campaigns in the Mediterranean 

theater. See Rick Atkinson, An Army at Dawn: The War in North 

Africa, 1942–1943, New York: Henry Holt, 2002. It is only fair 

to comment that the British 8th Army, which had been fighting 

Rommel all the way from Egypt, was not dramatically more effective in opposing the Germans than were the Americans, notwithstanding the success at El Alamein. German military leadership 

was in a class unmatched by the Allies. It was fortunate that the 

lion’s share of the German Army was more than fully engaged in 

Russia.

4. Amidst a large number of useful books, see W. V. Harris, 

Roman Power: A Thousand Years of Empire, Cambridge, UK: 

Cambridge University Press, 2016.

5. Thucydides, The Landmark Thucydides: A Comprehensive 

Guide to the Peloponnesian War, Robert B. Strassler, ed. and rev. 

trans., Richard Crawley (1876), New York: The Free Press, 1996.

6. Paul A. Rahe, “Thucydides as Educator,” in Williamson 

Murray and Richard Hart Sinnreich, eds., The Past as Prologue: 

The Importance of History to the Military Profession, Cambridge, UK: 

Cambridge University Press, 2006, pp. 99–100.

7. Norman H. Gibbs, “Clausewitz and the Moral Forces in 

War,” Naval War College Review, Vol. VII, No. 4, January/February 

1975, pp. 15-22.

8. See the important short article by T. X. Hammes, “Assumptions—A Fatal Oversight,” Infinity Journal, Vol. 1, Winter 2010, 

pp. 4-6.

9. The virtues of prudence for the guidance of statecraft are 

propounded in Raymond Aron, Peace and War: A Theory of International Relations, New York: Doubleday, 1966, p. 285.

10. See Linda Robinson, Paul D. Miller, John Gordon IV, Jeffrey Decker, Michael Schwille, and Raphael S. Cohen, Improving 

Strategic Competence: Lessons from 13 Years of War, Santa Monica, 

CA: RAND Corporation, 2014. The RAND authors did not sugar 
50

the pill they offered: “Lesson 1: The making of national security 

strategy has suffered from a lack of understanding and application of strategic art,” p. xii.

11. Carl von Clausewitz, On War, Michael Howard and 

Peter Paret, eds. and trans., Princeton, NJ: Princeton University 

Press, 1976, pp. 80-81, is helpfully uncompromising in its treatment of the “political object” in war. Also, see Donald Stoker, The 

Grand Design: Strategy and the U.S. Civil War, New York: Oxford 

University Press, 2010.

12. Robinson et al., p. 33.

13. Two books by Bernard Brodie made especially significant impact on the understanding of the strategic meaning of the 

nuclear revolution: Bernard Brodie, Strategy in the Missile Age, 

Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1959; and Bernard 

Brodie, War and Politics, New York, Macmillan, 1973. A notable 

work from a different part of the strategy and policy spectrum is 

Robert Jervis, The Meaning of the Nuclear Revolution: Statecraft and 

the Prospect of Armageddon, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 

1989.

14. See Stoker. The final sentence in this book deserves a 

wide audience (p. 418):

The Union triumphed in the end because it managed to 

develop strategic responses that addressed the nature of this 

particular war and the character of this particular enemy 

and then set about implementing them for as long as it took 

to achieve their political objectives. The Confederacy never 

did—and perished.

15. See H. W. Fowler, A Dictionary of Modern English Usage, 

Hertfordshire, UK: Wordsworth Editions Limited, 1994, pp. 20-22, 

295-296.

16. On the public uses and particularly the abuses of history, 

see Jeremy Black, The Curse of History, London, UK: The Social 

Affairs Unit, 2008.

17. Samuel P. Huntington, “American Military Strategy,” 

Policy Papers in International Affairs, No. 28, Berkeley, CA: Institute 

of International Studies, University of California, Berkeley, 1986.
51

18. See Herman Kahn, On Thermonuclear War, Princeton, NJ: 

Princeton University Press, 1960.

19. See the excellent Cold War history written by an author 

who was an insider in British Intelligence, Gordon S. Barrass, The 

Great Cold War: A Journey Through the Hall of Mirrors, Stanford, CA: 

Stanford University Press, 2009, ch. 28.

20. The most enlightening treatment of the role and status of 

the professional historian remains Howard, ch. 1.

21. For three variations on a theme see Colin S. Gray, The 

Strategy Bridge: Theory for Practice, Oxford, UK: Oxford University 

Press, 2010; Beatrice Heuser, The Evolution of Strategy: Thinking 

War from Antiquity to the Present, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2010; and Lawrence Freedman, Strategy: A History, 

Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2013.

22. See Clausewitz, pp. 133-147; and Harry R. Yarger, Strategy and the National Security Professional: Strategic Thinking and 

Strategy Formulation in the 21st Century, Westport, CT: Praeger 

Security International, 2008.

23. Howard, espec., pp. 11-13.

24. Ibid., p. 11.

25. Martin Windrow, The Last Valley: Dien Bien Phu and the 

French Defeat in Vietnam, London, UK: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 

2004.

26. See Rick Atkinson, The Day of Battle: The War in Sicily and 

Italy, 1943–1944, New York: Henry Holt, 2007, p. 217.

27. See Colin S. Gray, Defining and Achieving Decisive Victory, 

Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, 

April 2002.

28. For a superior guide to this major, indeed rather intimidating concept, see Richard E. Neustadt and Ernest R. May, Thinking in Time: The Uses of History for Decision-Makers, New York: The 

Free Press, 1986.
29. Robert Lyman, The Generals: From Defeat to Victory, Leadership in Asia 1941–45, London, UK: Constable, 2008, p. 341.

52
U.S. ARMY WAR COLLEGE

Major General William E. Rapp

Commandant

∗∗∗∗∗

STRATEGIC STUDIES INSTITUTE

AND

U.S. ARMY WAR COLLEGE PRESS

Director

Professor Douglas C. Lovelace, Jr.

Director of Research

Dr. Steven K. Metz

Author

Dr. Colin S. Gray

Editor for Production

Dr. James G. Pierce

Publications Assistant

Ms. Denise J. Kersting

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Mrs. Jennifer E. Nevil

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