If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. You can get posts sent to you by email or in a reader. Thanks for visiting!
- Image via Wikipedia
In the introduction to Blankets of Fire, Kenneth P. Werrell’s study of WWII U.S. strategic bombing campaigns in Japan, Werrell makes a startling comment about the lack of academic study in military history. Noting that analyses of military history are either memoirs – with their own biases and agendas, however well-intentioned – or politicized and sensationalized reports by journalists, Werrell suggests that more academic study of specific aspects of military history – like strategic bombing – would both fill an intellectual void and possibly contribute to less loss of life in the future.
I found that a compelling argument, and in general, believe that all of the apprenticeship disciplines – such as foreign policy, strategic security, military strategy, and counterterrorism – could benefit greatly from having the lens of science turned upon their historic review. By “science” here, I am referring to the value that rigorous and methodical study brings to all social sciences. Setting aside the fact that academia today is largely biased at an individual and personal level – and thus also at the institutional level – against the “military ethos” and the “study of war” (quoting Werrell here), the tools of academia and its strengths would bridge an intellectual gap that has been long neglected.
Neglected: how so, you ask?
For good reason, many of the tradecraft arts mentioned above (politics, diplomacy, military strategy) have a long learning curve, an implicit period of apprenticeship (the diplomatic corps still uses the term “junior” officers in an even more explicit sense that the military does), and an emphasis on the art of leadership and decision-making. I agree with all of those practices.
At the same time, and also for good reason, many of the activities and methods of these tradecraft arts are classified, making access to information and thorough study difficult in the present day.
However, I do still think, as Werrell argues, that there is room to look analytically at various decisions in military and diplomatic history and examine – in as apolitical a manner as possible – those decisions empirically. At the very least, such an effort would add more impartial and dispassionate voices to the largely emotional ones that currently dominate this field.
