Paris Revisited: Preparing for the Uncertain Future of Warfare

“The man who is prepared has his battle half fought.” – Cervantes, Don Quixote

In 1925, B.H. Liddell Hart published a relatively small, though highly critical, work titled Paris or the Future of Warfare. Drawing on his personal experiences from World War I, the British military theorist condemned the general staffs of the world’s military powers for being “obsessed with the Napoleonic legend.”1 In their fervid quest for decisive battle, Liddell Hart argues, the generals of World War I had butchered a generation of youth by misapplying the Clausewitzean principle of “absolute war.”2 In the stalemate of trench warfare, destroying the enemy’s armed forces became an end unto itself, not a means of achieving political objectives. Alternatively, Paris prescribes a more indirect approach to warfare by relying on technological innovations such as the tank and airplane. The key is to “discover and exploit the Achilles’ heel of the enemy nation; to strike not against its strongest bulwark but against its most vulnerable spot.”3 If Liddell Hart is correct regarding the impact of technology on future warfare, his prescience is a rare trait among students of war. In many significant instances throughout history, both military theorists and professionals have had difficulty predicting what the next conflict will look like. Such a task seems all the more formidable in today’s murky global environment. The end of the Cold War left us with no certain conventional enemy, while our current war on terrorism may lead us into missions heretofore unimag-ined in either doctrine or practical experience. In such a climate, how does one prepare for the uncertain future of warfare. More to the point, how do you develop a leader that is, as Major General R. Steven Whitcomb notes, “inventive, adaptive, [and] future-oriented…”?4 The Future Past Soldiers have historically attempted to use lessons from the past to develop theories and ideas concerning the future. Because individual experience in managing violence is often limited, those in the profession of arms have the unenviable task of preparing “themselves for waging war without the benefit of much practice.”5 While realistic training is an integral part of preparing for combat, learning vicariously from others’ experiences has invariably been deemed one of the best supplements to practical education. Yet despite all good intentions, the value of historical inquiry has oftentimes been of a dubious nature. As author Michael Howard contends, history, because of its subjective nature, is no guarantor of teaching proper lessons for either the present or the future: “The past is infinitely various, an inexhaustible storehouse of events from which we can prove anything or its contrary.”6 If such is the case, why then study history at all? Perhaps the best reason is that it offers an intellectual foundation for critical thinking. History offers perspective. Professional soldiers should therefore not be looking to the past for exact lessons of what leads to battlefield success or failure. Instead, they should search for links or trends that will allow them to anticipate things to come. As one military historian notes: “The value of history is that it can provide fresh insight into the past and hence a better understanding of the present.”7 Unfortunately, in their search for applicability, soldiers have all too often misread or even discounted important historical trends. Expectations are generally based on personal knowledge and experiences, and the conceptual framework for what does or does not work is frequently formed early in one’s career. Additionally, the longer one matures in a given profession the more difficult it is to be open-minded about incorporating fresh ideas. As an example, American military leaders who were critical of French strategy in Indochina doubted that any value could come from studying their experiences. One general officer in Vietnam quipped: “The French haven’t won a war since Napoleon. What can we learn from them?”8 Thus, by undervaluing critical analyses of the past, profes- 10 ARMOR — July-August 2002 History provides insight into the past and perhaps a better understanding of the future.

sional warriors can miss indications of what they may face in combat. Appreciation for change is all the more difficult when transformations in warfare occur on the periphery of global affairs. The Crimean War, begun in 1854 and fought on the outskirts of the Russian Empire, was one such conflict in which both participants and foreign observers largely overlooked new developments in warfare. Though French and British troops aided the Turkish effort against the Russians, few tangible military reforms (besides sanitation and medical services) came out of the fighting. Despite the first widespread use of the new Minié rifle, which greatly enhanced an infantryman’s range and accuracy, commentators seemed more absorbed by the celebrated Charge of the Light Brigade than by the effects that the rifle was having on battlefield tactics. Even the American Delafield Commission, tasked to report on the war and including Major George B. McClellan, focused almost exclusively on siege operations around Sevastopol.9 The repercussions of misjudging the impact of the Minié rifle would be felt a decade later during the American Civil War. Inculcated with the Napoleonic approach to warfare based on their West Point instruction under Dennis Hart Mahan, numerous Civil War leaders failed to appreciate the ascendancy of the tactical defense. And while tactical doctrine and theory called for entrenching whenever one assumed a defensive posture, professionals like Robert E. Lee failed to do so until late into the war. Instead, soldiers remained wedded to their offensive beliefs despite the terrible costs inflicted by rifled weapons.10 If a feature of the rifle was the growing inadequacy of frontal assaults, its use on the American battlefields had relatively little impact overseas. As writer Jay Luvaas contends, “there never was a time when the Civil War exerted any direct influence upon military doctrine in Europe.”11 The increasing emptiness of the battlefield was highlighted even further in 1904 during the Russo-Japanese War. Though the conflict saw the first widespread use of hand grenades, barbed wire, machine guns, and rapid-firing artillery, military observers once again failed to realize that technological advances were necessitating doctrinal changes. If the Russo-Japanese War was indeed “the world’s first genuinely modern war,” few seemed to comprehend its military consequences.12 That is not to say the conflict was ignored or discounted. The British published a three-volume official history on the war, while the French also studied it as an example of contemporary warfare. But as with the Crimean War, the war in Manchuria produced few, if any, doctrinal changes. The French continued to put their faith in a spirited infantry attack by following the prescriptions of Ferdinand Foch who, writing before World War I, declares: “Today as in the past, the attacking mass cannot succeed unless it possesses the firm will to reach its objective.”13 The British likewise focused on the moral aspect of warfare and the continuing efficacy of the infantry assault. The Official History downplayed the significance of artillery in the conflict while maintaining that as “it has always been … success or failure depends mostly on the spirit shown by either side.”14 Less than 10 years after the end of the Russo-Japanese War, that offensive spirit would consume a generation of youth on such western European battlefields as Neuve Chapelle, the Somme, and Passchendaele. It was this failed strategy of the Western Front on which Liddell Hart focuses his condemnation. While Paris forecast a return to mobility in future war, an indication of that theoretical aspiration could be found in the Spanish Civil War from 1936 to 1939. In a protracted struggle between Nationalists and Republicans, the war in Spain provided a testing ground for the German, Italian, and Soviet forces that intervened on behalf of the combatants. But as with earlier peripheral conflicts, many observers and participants drew the wrong conclusions from the fighting. The Russians concluded that tanks could not be used in independent formations, while the French judged that the antitank gun had diminished the effectiveness of mechanized armor.15 Commentators from the United States were equally misguided. U.S. Army attaché reports on the fighting in Spain concluded that tanks were incapable of deep, independent operations and were still best suited to supporting infantry in the close fight.16 Only the Germans, who were applying the theories advanced by such officers as Colonel Heinz Guderian, used both armor and airplanes in a combined arms team focused on deep offensive operations. The American and French lessons from the Spanish Civil War underscore the importance of effective analysis when interpreting trends on the battlefield. But understanding, as in the case of the 1920s and 1930s, that the expanding role of mechanization required changes in doctrine is a difficult task at best. As Liddell Hart notes in Why Don’t We Learn from History, such detached, perceptive thinking does not come naturally: “It is strange,” he remarks, “how people assume that no training is needed in the pursuit of truth.”17 The Future Present The pursuit of truth in today’s strategically uncertain environment is arguably more difficult than ever. While the war on terrorism is providing near-term focus for U.S. Armed Forces, a true conceptualization of what the future will look like still eludes us. Of course, even with clearly identifiable enemies, forecasting how battles will be fought is often nothing more than a speculative process. Writing in 1956 during the height of the Cold War, Walter Millis commented: “Nowhere does there exist a clear and convincing concept of the future in our world society. The ablest students of the subject are either in complete contradiction or in a state of frank bewilderment.”18 Nearly 50 years later, Millis’ observations are as relevant as ever. To deal with this strategic incertitude, military planning, according to the 2001 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), is shifting from threat-based planning to capabilities-based planning. The idea is to focus on how an enemy might fight as opposed to identifying whom that enemy might be and where we might fight him. This new approach to threat assessment is one of the driving factors in transformation and is a major departure from our traditional doctrinal approach to warfare. As writer Robert A. Doughty notes, “Even though all of America’s conflicts since World War II have been outside of Europe, the Army and the nation have invariably refocused their concerns after these conflicts upon the defense of Western Europe. And doctrine for the postwar Army has centered upon a European-type battlefield.”19 Doctrine was thus consistently tied to a specific threat, that of the Soviet Union, for the last half of the 20th century. Emerging trends would seem to indicate that threats from weak and failing

ARMOR — July-August 2002 11 states or even nonstate actors will replace those posed by conventional military powers, thus offering no situational templates that fit neatly into our own operational doctrine. In this sense, Operation Desert Storm may very well have been more of an anomaly than a precursor of future conflict. Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld commented in the 2001 QDR on how current trends were affecting U.S. defense strategy: “We cannot and will not know precisely where and when America’s interests will be threatened, when America will come under attack, or when Americans might die as a result of aggression…. Adapting to surprise — adapting quickly and decisively — must therefore be a condition of planning.”20 Current U.S. Army doctrine appears to be equally cognizant of the changing nature of warfare. In a chapter titled “The Way Ahead,” the new Army Field Manual (FM) 1, The Army, discusses how nontraditional challenges will require the Army to be used in various contexts, conducting operations other than war while concurrently preparing for war itself. It goes on to note that, “Combat in the future will likely be multidimensional, noncontiguous, precise, and simultaneous.”21 FM 3-0, Operations, continues to refine this line of reasoning by describing how potential enemies will adapt to the American approach to war: “Adversaries will… seek to shape conditions to their advantage. They will try and change the nature of the conflict or use capabilities that they believe difficult for U.S. forces to counter.”22 With a goal of eroding our national will, future enemies will attempt to use terrain to their advantage, inflict an unacceptable number of casualties on U.S. troops, and avoid decisive battle to control the tempo of ground operations. Such an approach to warfare is obviously nothing new. Throughout the Cold War, only the former Soviet Union could compete with the United States conventionally; even so, it was this military competition that eventually bankrupted their economy and entire political system. During that same time, the limited wars in which the United States fought saw an enemy much less dependent on technological means. They simply could not compete with the primacy of U.S. firepower. Instead, they adapted, avoiding losses and gaining time in hopes that America’s willpower would eventually erode. In both Korea and Vietnam, the enemy established precedence on patience and flexibility. According to author Robert

H. Scales: “Given the gift of time, a dedicated enemy with the will to endure and absorb punishment by fire eventually learned to maneuver at will without the benefit of a firepower advantage.”23 Without a doubt, we should expect to see the same tactic in future conflict. This asymmetrical approach to combating a greater power’s strengths by avoiding them has deep historical roots. While Western military theorists such as Carl von Clausewitz emphasized the importance of decisive battle — an underpinning of the American way of war — Eastern theorists have often focused on a more indirect approach to victory. The writings of Mao Tse-tung are among the most notable examples of such a methodology. Mao’s 16- character formula became the foundation for conducting successful guerrilla warfare operations and was used with skill in the revolutionary wars against the Chinese Nationalists, as well as against U.S. forces during Vietnam. Following the earlier prescriptions of Sun Tzu, Mao advocates: “The enemy advances, we retreat; the enemy camps, we harass; the enemy tires, we attack; the enemy retreats, we pursue.”24 Patience and adaptability were cornerstones of Mao’s approach to conflict and, having been successfully applied in the past, they will likely be used in the future. Unfortunately, such aspects of warfare are not among the strongest traits of the American military. Our historical dedication to the decisive battle is ingrained in initial training, while the specific mission of the armor force is to close with and destroy the enemy. Those in the mounted force are expected to be bold and decisive, not patient and cautious. Yet while we advocate flexibility and audacity in operations, we often train along the lines of the traditional set-piece battle. Phase lines, boundaries, and checkpoints reinforce the concepts of linear fighting where forces move and set along well-delineated coordination measures. To effectively combat an adversary committed to asymmetric warfare, we must transform not only the vehicles that will take us into battle but the whole way in which we think about combat. Developing a vision for transformation is one thing; executing that vision in an often largely conservative military is another. In the end, the U.S. Army in general, and the armor force in particular, will have to make changes not only in equipment but, more importantly, in culture. In all likelihood, it is our heavy culture that will hinder our transition away from the Legacy Force. Just as cavalrymen in the 1920s and 1930s adapted to changes in warfare brought about by motorization, so too will our generation be charged with adjusting to a new framework for how wars are fought. This can be a daunting task, as evidenced by the horse soldiers of the interwar years. Their entire professional ethos were centered on their mounts, and many officers who felt that their careers were being threatened sharply criticized the role that mechanized armor would have in future wars. As late as 1938, Major General John K. Herr, Chief of Cavalry, proclaimed: “We must not be misled to our own detriment to assume that the untried machine can displace the proved and tried horse.”25 Today’s armor officers must not fall into the same cultural and intellectual stagnation. Transitioning from threat-based to capabilities-based planning will require a new approach to warfare, especially on a nonlinear battlefield. In the future, armor forces will still be required to mass effects of firepower, but may not be able to mass forces conventionally. Clearly, identifiable divisions between deep, close, and rear operations may be blurred as traditional setpiece battles become obsolete. Fire support coordination lines, easily linked into parallel phase lines, would ostensibly be more difficult to synchronize in a less structured battlefield environment. Peacekeeping operations may not detract from future readiness, but instead become an integral part of our new approach to combat preparation. With fewer wars and more conflicts being a feasible scenario for the future, one significant question arises: Are we transforming for the right battle? More to the point, what if, in all our haste to change our force structure, we are left more vulnerable to potential adversaries? Certainly those were General Herr’s concerns in the late 1930s. Conceivably the best answer falls within the overall realm of preparedness. But as author John Shy maintains: “Preparedness has never been reckoned the strong suit of U.S. military capacity. More or less invariably, the outbreak of war has meant frantic improvisation, not least in raising, arming, training, and deploying ground forces adequate to the conflict.”26

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The Future Uncertain With no certain roadmap for the future, preparing soldiers for combat will be a challenge. Leaders will have to make assumptions about future warfare, not in terms of a specific threat but pertaining to a full spectrum of enemy capabilities. Achieving dominance across this full spectrum is easier said than done. As FM 1 acknowledges, the ever-changing strategic environment will provide us a few hints to facilitate readiness. Because “…nontraditional challenges will likely come from unexpected sources at unanticipated times and places,” leaders will have to place a premium on flexibility at all levels of command.27 For the mounted force to remain viable on the modern battlefield, preparing for future uncertainty must be at the forefront of our daily routines. It would be hubris to assume that 21st-century armor officers have the ability to forecast the future any better than those of the past. As such, we must deliberately and candidly assess preparedness within the larger framework of full-spectrum dominance. The following are recommendations to assist in readying soldiers and leaders for a clouded horizon. Train to be reactive. While such a statement may appear as leadership heresy on first read, being reactive can be invaluable in today’s environment. If current doctrine admits that we are unsure of our adversaries or when and where they may attack, is it even possible to correctly anticipate for future conflict? Certainly, at the strategic and operational levels of warfare, we must be proactive in terms of intelligence gathering and confronting potential threats. But at the tactical level, if platoons and companies are to truly prepare for a wide range of enemy capabilities, they must learn how to react quickly, lethally, and in a coordinated fashion. While being reactive is often considered a negative leadership characteristic, there are positive attributes in such an approach to training. Part of being reactive is also being flexible and adaptive, two indispensable qualities on a fluid battlefield. One does not necessarily have to relinquish the initiative to achieve such flexibility. In fact, during World War II, Field Marshal Erwin Rommel praised U.S. forces for adjusting their tactics to meet the demands of mechanized battle: “What was astonishing was the speed with which the Americans adapted themselves to modern warfare. In this they were assisted by their extraordinary sense for the practical and material and by their complete lack of regard for tradition and worthless theories.”28 A capabilities-based force will be compelled to react against a wide array of enemy weapon systems and tactics. To focus training on mounted warfare at the exclusion of all other types of combat will ill prepare the armor force for future demands. Commanders must challenge their units with training scenarios that are unanticipated by their soldiers, forcing them to react, analyze, and adapt within tightly compressed time cycles. Flexibility will be essential in preparing for an uncertain future. Focus on the basics. One of the characteristics of modern conflict continues to be the merging levels of warfare. With instantaneous media information bombarding both politicians and the public at large, events that happen at the company level can have a tremendous strategic impact. Describing events in Kosovo during Operation Allied Force, General Wesley Clark notes: “Sometimes even insignificant tactical events packed a huge political wallop.”29 There is little doubt that current armor leaders will be judged to a higher standard than their predecessors because of this media association. As such, we must focus on the fundamentals of our trade — accurate gunnery, basic soldier skills, and maneuver at the platoon and company level. While “move-shoot-communicate” may seem like a worn-out aphorism, mastering the basics will continue to be one of the essential keys to battlefield success. In today’s environment, command of the fundamental principles of warfare may be even more important than in the past. If soldiers can do the small things well, then applying those basics to new situations will permit them to be more flexible when encountering the unexpected. A dilemma confronting present leaders is finding time to concentrate on the fundamentals. Units too often prepare for a training center rotation that includes battalion-level maneuvers and gunnery and then immediately deploying to a peacekeeping operation. These two distinct missions require diverse unit-level competencies that can hamper a commander’s ability to gain any fashion of training momentum and continuity. Yet if leaders can emphasize those basic skills that are common in all environments — skills such as communicating, maintaining, and tactical maneuvering — they will make great strides in building a solid foundation upon which they can later expand. Study military history. Personal experience cannot cover the full spectrum of future possibilities. As much as leaders may conduct a rigorous analysis of their environment, chances are they will be confronted with situations that fall outside of their individual training. Studying the art and science of war complements shortcomings and provides a basis for creativity and resourcefulness. If war is indeed cyclical, then leaders can use history to gain perspective. As two historians assert, such professional study can have tangible benefits on the field of battle: “A thorough knowledge of war demonstrably and dramatically increases the competence — and thus self-confidence — of the military leader.”30 Studying history should not be an end unto itself. Instead, history should be used as a means to draw lines from the past to the present and the future. One of the best examples of gaining perspective from history was the professional reading program of General George S. Patton, Jr. While Patton was an advocate of cavalry during the interwar years, he was able to quickly adapt to armored warfare in the 1940s because he studied its history. Author Steve Dietrich notes, as early as his cadet days at the U.S. Military Academy, Patton believed that “to become a great soldier one must be familiar with so many military possibilities that he will always have one ready for any situation.”31 In today’s environment, history can be an invaluable tool in preparing for future asymmetric warfare. Mao Tse-tung’s On Guerrilla Warfare provides a theoretical examination of avoiding an enemy’s strengths while Donn A. Starry’s Armored Combat in Vietnam illustrates how mounted units applied maneuver and firepower in a fundamentally nonconventional theater of war. Studying the works of authors, such as Timothy L. Thomas, can offer a tremendous perspective on the difficulties that Russian armor experienced in the urban setting of Grozny.32 As noted earlier, the study of history should not be a search for specific lessons, but rather developing a foundation of professional knowledge from which to draw on. Simply put, there is no template for the future that can be found in the past.

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Significant technological advances have historically driven revolutions in military affairs. Developments in gunpowder, internal combustion engines, and airpower have all had a dramatic effect on how armies approach and conduct warfare. Arguments abound today that we are in the midst of another revolution, spurred by new information technologies that allow us to collect data at an unheralded rate. But technologies alone do not inevitably create revolutions in military affairs. Doctrinal innovation and organizational adaptation are also vital if military leaders are to effectively use new capabilities bestowed on them. It is this innovation and adaptation that will be essential if we are to truly prepare for future war. Gathering information will not be as important as synchronizing it with shock and firepower against an enemy unwilling to confront us directly. Nonlinear battlefields will thus require us to change our doctrine, as well as our tactics, techniques, and procedures. It will also require a change in our heavy culture. What we must seek to avoid is the cultural and intellectual conservatism that made military leaders who studied the wars in Crimea, Manchuria, and Spain hesitant to appreciate the value of change on the modern battlefield. In the end, what will enable leaders of today to become more future-oriented will be their ability to think and analyze open-mindedly. By reacting quickly and decisively and applying the fundamentals of their trade in unexpected situations, the mounted force can successfully meet the challenges of an uncertain future. Supplemented with a disciplined study of history, armor leaders can indeed be prepared for what lies ahead if they are committed to honing their skills as professional warfighters. As Liddell Hart aptly noted nearly a century ago: “Not ‘how large’ but ‘how good’ will be the standard of tomorrow.”33

The author would like to thank Dr. Kevin C. Holzimmer, Air Command and Staff College, and Major Bill Pinter, USAF, for reviewing this article and making invaluable recommendations.

Notes 1B.H. Liddell Hart, Paris or the Future of War, E.P. Dutton, New York, 1925; reprint, Garland Publishing, New York & London, 1972, pp. 8, 10. 2Ibid. 3Ibid., 21. 4Major General R. Steven Whitcomb, “Steady in the Saddle,” ARMOR, November-December 2001, p. 5. 5Thomas E. Greiss, “A Perspective on Military History,” in A Guide to the Study and Use of Military History, ed. John E. Jessup, Jr. and Robert W. Coakley, Center of Military History, Washington, D.C., 1988, p. 32. 6Michael Howard, The Lessons of History, Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 1991, p. 11. 7Jay Luvaas, “Military History: An Academic Historian’s Point of View,” in New Dimensions in Military History: An Anthology, ed. Russell F. Weigley, Presidio Press, San Rafael, Calif., 1975, p. 24. 8W. Scott Thompson and Donaldson D. Frizzell, ed., The Lessons of Vietnam, Crane, Russak & Company, New York, 1977, p. 22. No further citation noted. On the role of personal experiences, see Ardant Du Picq, Battle Studies: Ancient and Modern Battle, trans. John N. Greely and Robert C. Cotton, The Military Service Publishing Company, Harrisburg, Pa., 1946, p. 8. 9Trevor Royle, Crimea: The Great Crimean War, 1854-1856, St. Martin’s Press, New York, 2000, pp. 506-507. 10Edward Hagerman, The American Civil War and the Origins of Modern Warfare: Ideas, Organization, and Field Command, Indiana University Press, Bloomington and Indianapolis, 1988, pp. 116, 122-123. 11Jay Luvaas, The Military Legacy of the Civil War: The European Inheritance, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1959, p. 226. 12David T. Zabecki, “Liao-Yang: Dawn of Modern Warfare,” Military History 16, No. 5, December 1999, p. 55. 13Ferdinand Foch, The Principles of War, trans. Hilaire Belloc, Chapman & Hall, London, 1918, p. 348. The original Des Principes de la Guerre appeared in 1903. See also Howard, The Lessons of History, pp. 99, 107-108. 14Historical Section of the Committee of Imperial Defence, Official History (Naval and Military) of the Russo-Japanese War, Vol. 3, San-dePu, Mukden, The Sea of Japan, H.M. Stationery Office, London, 1920, p. 80. 15Hugh Thomas, The Spanish Civil War, Harper & Brothers, New York, 1961, p. 615. 16George F. Hofmann, “The Tactical and Strategic Use of Attaché Intelligence: The Spanish Civil War and the U.S. Army’s Misguided Quest for a Modern Tank Doctrine,” The Journal of Military History 62, January 1998, pp. 107, 131. Influenced by the attaché reports coming out of Spain, the 1938 War Department “Policies governing mechanization and the tactical employment of mechanized units” stated that the role of armor “is solely that of [infantry] accompanying tanks,” p. 124. 17B.H. Liddell Hart, Why Don’t We Learn from History, George Allen & Unwin Ltd., London, 1944, p. 64. 18Walter Millis, Arms and Men: A Study in American Military History, G.P. Putnam’s Sons, New York, 1956, p. 345. 19Robert A. Doughty, The Evolution of U.S. Army Tactical Doctrine, 1946-1976, Combat Studies Institute, Fort Leavenworth, Kan., 1979, p. 46. 20U.S. Department of Defense, Quadrennial Defense Review Report, 30 September 2001, iii. 21Field Manual No. 1, The Army, Department of the Army, Washington, D.C., June 2001, pp. 36, 37. 22Field Manual No. 3-0, Operations, Department of the Army, Washington, D.C., June 2001, p. 1-9. 23Robert H. Scales, Future Warfare Anthology, rev. ed., U.S. Army War College, Carlisle Barracks, Pa., 2001, p. 4. 24Mao Tse-tung, Selected Military Writings of Mao Tse-tung, Foreign Languages Press, Peking, 1966, p. 111. 25Mary Lee Stubbs and Stanley Russell Connor, Armor-Cavalry, Part I: Regular Army and Reserve, Center of Military History, Washington, D.C., 1984, p. 54. 26John Shy, “First Battles in Retrospect,” in America’s First Battles, 1776-1965, ed. Charles

E. Heller and William A. Stofft , University Press of Kansas, Lawrence, 1986, p. 339. 27Field Manual No. 1, p. 37. 28B.H. Liddell Hart, ed., The Rommel Papers, trans. Paul Findlay, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, New York, 1953; Da Capo Press, New York, 1982, p. 521. 29Wesley K. Clark, Waging Modern War: Bosnia, Kosovo, and the Future of Combat, Public Affairs, New York, 2001, p. 11. 30Heller and Stofft, America’s First Battles, xii. 31Steve E. Dietrich, “The Professional Reading of General George S. Patton, Jr.,” The Journal of Military History 53, October 1989, p. 392. 32As an example, see Timothy L. Thomas, “The Battle of Grozny: Deadly Classroom for Urban Combat,” Parameters, 29, Summer 1999, p. 87- 102. 33Liddell Hart, Paris, p. 82.

MAJ Gregory A. Daddis graduated from the U.S. Military Academy in

1989. He has served in the 3d Armored Cavalry Regiment and in the 2d and 3d Infantry Divisions’ cavalry squadrons. He holds a master’s degree in history from Villanova University and is the author of the upcoming book, Fighting in the Great Crusade, to be published by LSU Press. Currently, he is attending the Air Command and Staff College.

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