![]() Underlying all such observations seems to be a belief that the army had failed to learn as much as it could or should from its 19th-century counterinsurgency experience. Scott’s problems, wrote Bauer, were “as complex and difficult as any faced by modern American soldiers who think the problem unique to mainland Asia.” I concluded my own book, Schoolbooks and Krags, with the observation that a study of the army’s Philippine campaign might provide insight into the solution of similar problems in the 2Oth century. Jack Bauer, in his study of the Mexican War, implied much the same thing in a reference to General Scott’s operation to secure his line of supply from attack by Mexican guerrillas. Utley, a distinguished historian of the Indian-fighting army, drew attention to the “parallels with frontier warfare” in the so-called “limited wars” of the nuclear age. ![]() In his 1976 Harmon Memorial lecture, Robert M. The “sermon” at the end highlights my growing concern with the blatant inhumanity of many 20th century aspects of irregular warfare and my belief that historians should address ethical as well as more pragmatic questions.īoth during the Vietnam War and after, students of 19th-century American military history frequently claimed to see important similarities between whatever campaign they happened to be surveying and the conflict in Indochina. Finding an effective military response to enemies engaged in irregular warfare has often been difficult, but far more difficult has been the avoidance of responses that are illegal and/or immoral. Michael Walzer’s excellent article, “Two Kinds of Military Responsibility,” alerted me to the presence of the less easily discerned, but no less important problem touched upon in the conclusion of the paper. Tactically, for example, many officers rcognized that active saturation patrolling to keep constant pressure on the enemy worked well against both Indians and other irregulars, but such lessons were usually learned anew in subsequent conflicts. In the absence of doctrine, however, officers often discerned and implemented the techniques needed to triumph over opponents engaged in irregular operations. The creation of an institutional memory and the codification of lessons learned into doctrine is difficult in any circumstances, and the discontinuity of the army’s 19th century pacification efforts, their diversity, and the army’s focus on more traditional military matters combined to inhibit the development of doctrine. ![]() Surprisingly, all of that experience in irregular warfare fostered virtually no doctrinal development and produced no doctrine of pacification. Army had considerable historical experience with irregular warfare in the 19th century, fighting against Indians from Florida to the Pacific coast, confronting guerrillas associated in one way or another with more regular forces in Mexico and in the Civil War, and at the century’s end fighting a frustrating colonial war against Filipino revolutionaries. The paper focuses initially on an interesting problem in the history of United States military doctrine. Army Military History Institute at Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania. The 1983 article reprinted here was written in 1982 as a lecture in the “Voluntary Program in Military History” sponsored by the U. ![]()
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