The US Military and “Wehrmacht penis envy”
Alternet has reposted an article from TomDispatch about the US military’s “surprising fascination with failed German war thinking” and the US military’s “Wehrmacht penis envy”. The article was written by William Astore, a retried Air Force Lt. Col who is a frequent critic of the US military in his writings on TomDispatch. In this particular article, Astore argues that the United States military has embraced flawed German military strategy and implies that many US military officers are closet Nazis. Alternet added their own introduction which was pretty much made the same the point. They even added this lovely picture:
C’mon Alternet, I know its easy to play the Nazi card and it gets you guys web traffic from the anti-military left, but could you at least try to be original for once? Just for me? Please? PLEASE? (I said please)
Aside from the fact that this is just a blatant attempt to bash the US military, Astore is factually inaccurate and displays a very shallow understanding of modern US military doctrine.
First, Astore and Alternet attempt to compare conventional warfare campaigns like Desert Storm and the invasion of Iraq to counterinsurgency operations in Afghanistan and Iraq is like comparing apples to oranges. Conventional warfare doctrines like manuever warfare and the counterinsurgency doctrine we have applied in Iraq and Afghanistan are separate strategies that are applied to different types of operations. They are not one and the same.
Secondly, some of the doctrine that Astore discusses only has a limited or no basis at all in German military thinking. In fact, a lot of doctrine that Astore discusses was developed by Air Force Colonel John Boyd and championed by his civilian allies in the Pentagon. Astore does not mention Boyd at all, even when discussing OODA loop was one of Boyd’s most famous theories. It does not surprise that a retired Air Force lieutant colonel like Astore doesn’t discuss Boyd, however. The Air Force never truly embraced a lot of Boyd’s theories, which were more embraced by the Marine Corps and Army. In fact, more Marines showed up at Boyd’s funeral than airmen.
Lastly, the concept of Blitzkrieg was not a wholly German creation. There were many other military officers like Patton and Marshall Zhukov of the USSR who had embraced the concept of “lightning war” long before German tanks rolled across Poland, France, and the Soviet Union. Even President Roosevelt and his war department embraced this thinking, when they made the decision to put more resources into developing tanks, aircraft carriers, bombers, and fighter aircraft instead of massive infantry formations and dozens of antiquated battleships.
Astore was not trying to make a serious critique of US military doctrine, however. He was bashing the US military in the easiest way possible: by playing the Nazi card.
Category: Antiwar crowd
The Air Force (forgive me for saying) has, for all it’s apparent advancement, a lot of closet-socialist luddites who live in an ivory tower. They didn’t like Boyd or let him make general and, in a great show of projection, you can see what Astore’s favorite sexual fantasy is. Chairborne!
Methinks the man has been watching a wee bit much of the Bill Maher.
I don’t remember the Nazi’s being real concerned about collateral damage either. If we wanted to be like the Wehrmacht we could just surround a place like Marja and send in the Buffs full of 250lb dumb bombs mixed with white phospherous.
Seems to me that this AF fellow forgets what his AF forebears did to Hamburg, Dresden, Tokyo and other enemy cities. They didn’t give a rat’s ass about collateral damage.
This assmaggot simply has an agenda to further, and his writing reflects that.
Astore’s “theory” is the babbling of someone who knows little if anything about Army doctrine and even less of the leaders charged with executing it. He is wrong on the evolution of Blitzkrieg, blithely ignoring its roots in WWI and the contributions of officers such as Liddel Hart and Truscott. He is unable to describe the continuim of war or the differences between the tactical, operational, and strategic levels of war. He totally ignores the development of our counterinsurgency doctrine and the impact that technology has had on the leaders ability to see the battlefield. These changes are reflected in the new QDR which shifts focus away from the 2 simultaneous conventional conflict.
He should go back to painting models…obviously his understanding of military operations never advanced beyond that of a cadet.
You hit it out of the park, sir. Your average buck Sgt knows more about war than this moron.
Old Trooper…you got that right. Today’s soldiers are scary smart.
The author of that article on the other hand… gives ignorance a bad name. It would be funny except that most of our politicians probably think he’s a genius.
Actually, Rommel’s best work was “Attacks” which recounted his experience as a leg infantryman on the Italian front.
If you put conventional military strategy into the perspective of its evolution, it’s easier to recognize the components that proved themselves successful in conflict and that were retained by newer strategies.
This is to say there are tactical principles one can first attribute to blitzkrieg but that are part of modern military thinking – including that of the U.S. Army today. However:
A) The ‘German war thinking’ has not failed; it stopped working when the Soviets closed the tactical gap (at Kursk), having learned the hard way and adapted. It is the campaigns that failed.
B) A modern military not paying attention to the ‘German war thinking’ and that of many others is akin to a physicist ignoring Newton’s apple. But hey, you can always learn the hard way – the Soviets did and have many war memorials to tell you at what cost.
C) Shock and Awe is not blitzkrieg and OIF was, in fact, not truly Shock and Awe.
What is the value of the article?
Well, Klaus, that’s a great question. As the LTC pointed out, the author of the article doesn’t know what he’s talking about, but the article wasn’t meant for the consumption of those that have studied and applied warfighting principles and strategies. It was meant for the clueless political and leftist types and with the author using his military credentials as cover for the article, it gives it an aire of legitimacy. Purely for purposes of a political nature.
I don’t mind the leftists. I don’t mind the right wingers. That’s about opinion. Everybody should have one.
I do mind stupidity, ignorance, and most of all I mind when somebody doesn’t even know how dumb and ignorant he is. (And publishes pointless articles as though he knew what we was talking about.)
If you author an article without ‘kicking the tires’ by asking for each statement you make ‘based on what?’ then you ought to have the decency to keep your opinion to yourself and to those around you who tolerate you.
Does anyone here remember it was an Air force LTC who was the “Whistleblower” on the Brad? he was a darling of 60 Minutes of Marxism and some HBO special wirh the sympathetic Judge Reinhold as his character. Wrong once again, colonel .
Nothing new.
Klaus, I agree with you and the reason I pointed out “leftists” is because he is using it for political purposes. If his facts and analysis were remotely close, then he would have something, but to use this tripe for political sparring is what annoys me the most. Those that will run with this are not interested in truth, only political gain.
It shouldn’t have to be political, when examining strategies, etc., but he is making it that way on purpose.