On 29-30 November, the Marine Corps Association was pleased to host a series of professional military education (PME) related events featuring renowned author and military historian, Max Boot.
Aiming to reach the widest audience at “the crossroads of the Corps”, MCA organized book signings at the MCA Quantico Book Store, a brown bag luncheon presentation and subsequent evening reception at the Marine Corps University, a breakfast PME, and an address to Lieutenants at the Basic School. As an event conversation starter, Mr. Boot provided a brief summary of his latest book, War Made New: Technology, Warfare and The Course of History, 1500 to Today and then fielded wide ranging questions from his audiences.
A journalist, editor, military historian and author, Mr. Boot is widely known as a columnist for well known main stream journals such as the New York and Los Angeles Times, the Weekly Standard and the Financial Times. Always thought provoking and frequently controversial, his articles are widely linked and endlessly dissected on many of the more popular Weblogs (BLOGS) on the Internet. A historian by training and inclination, his expertise on military affairs and technology, national security, U.S. strategy and defense policy earned him appointment as a Senior Fellow on the influential Council on Foreign Relations. A serious student of the histories of peacekeeping, nation building and guerrilla warfare, this interest eventually led to writing a book that endeared him to many Marines. His book, The Savage Wars of Peace is a history of American involvement in these endeavors, prominently features the Marine Corps and was awarded the Wallace M. Greene Award for best non-fiction treatment of the Marine Corps in 2003.
During his PME presentations, the author summarized his latest book, War Made New before responding to audience questions. Beginning his address with “The key to success is the educated warrior” he struck a responsive chord with the Marine students and various faculty members in attendance.
In writing the book he stated his intent to provide a historical overview of the series of epochal military transformations that developed over the last 500 years leading to significant alterations in the course of history. As an impetus for writing the book, he pointed to the considerable volume of previous work on the subject of military transformation but stated that much of this literature appealed primarily to the military community and did not loom large in the public mind. His new book seeks to make this important subject both interesting and comprehensible to the general public.
While other military historians pose multiple sets and more complicated transformational models, Boot suggests four easy to understand categories that well define the history of military transformation over the last 500 years. Boot unfolds the four transformations and their significance by means of detailing illustrative battles from each period. Throughout his narrative he describes the technological developments as well as supporting ideological changes characterizing the period while he unravels lessons important today, to the military as well as to the public.
The first of the transformational changes, the gunpowder revolution, begins in the west around 1500. The ultimate rise of the nation state flowing from this change transforms the face of Europe. As European nations build the organizational structures and military theories best suited for exploiting the gunpowder weapons of the time, their ascendancy grows and western nation states become colonial powers.
Widespread harnessing of machines, steam power and means of mass production in the industrial revolution produces the second major transformation. From about 1800-1850, Western nations prove adept at harnessing a series of essentially civilian inventions to improve their martial ascendancy and spread their colonial empires.
A second industrial revolution arises with the development of innovations such as the automobile, airplane, radios and tanks. Expanded use of civilian inspired technology leads to greater efficiency in military operations and a revolution in military thought and organization leads to greater effectiveness in the operational art.
A final transformation, that of the information revolution arises during the 1960’s with the development of the microchip which leads to precision guided weapons, enhanced communications capabilities and, through use of the computer, the ability to process and deal with unprecedented volumes of information. Particularly interesting in this era is the increase in media scrutiny of military operations enabled by enhanced communications. In a particularly notable example, he pointed out that the widely viewed first Gulf war led to vastly increased reverence for the military and expectations for quick victories in all future enterprises. That expectation is particularly vexing to leaders currently dealing with counter insurgency operations where technological exploitation is not the final arbiter of the struggle.
After outlining the 4 transformations, Boot posed some key questions which his presentations and his new book attempt to answer. Asking, “How do you become dominant?” he points out that dominance and military superiority flows from organizations, social structures and management systems best suited to exploit the best technology and ideas available. Creativity is uncontrollable and the best technology used by military forces tends to originate in civilian domains. The key to success is to have organizations better able to harness and support the developments effectively.
His concluding remarks were rich with insight. Stating that while centralized organization and long term bureaucracies enabled support and employment of key technologies, that there are significant limitations on technology in war. The current trend in warfare seems to be in the direction of decentralization. In a witty remark illustrating his point, he said Al Qaida was the E-Bay of warfare and did not need to go through bureaucratic layers to get a set of travel orders. Indicating the need for even more transformation to stay competitive and secure in this increasingly lethal, decentralized world, he said we need structural changes throughout the military as well as throughout the government.
The Marine Corps Association encourages all it’s members to read War Made New and thanks Max Boot for his visit and dynamic views.
 |
 |
|
 |
 |
|
 |
 |
