US Election 2004

Based upon a recommendation on HBL, I have starting reading General Patton’s War As I Knew It, a memoir of his actions in WWII.  So far, I have found several interesting statements which relate to our current War against Terrorism.

Regarding the invasion of Sicily, Patton wrote:

Since the initial successful assault on the beaches before daylight on the tenth, we have continued to push along several days ahead of our assumed schedule.  This has been due to the fact that having once got the enemy started, we have not let him stop, but have, so to speak, kept on his heels.

It is also due to the fact that the Italians and Germans spent tremendous effort in time, labor, and money, building defensive positions.  I am sure that, just as in the case of the Walls of Troy and the Roman walls across Europe, the fact that they trusted to defensive positions reduced their power to fight.  Had they spent one-third as much effort in fighting as they did in building, we never could have taken the positions.  [G.S. Patton, Jr., War As I Knew It (NY: Bantam Books, 1980), p. 56].

From his observations in a battle 60 years ago, there are two relevant observations: (1) pressing offensive actions denies the enemy the ability to regroup and resist, and (2) the futility of focusing significant investments in defensive measures.

We have seen the opposite of the first point repeatedly in Iraq with al-Sadr being the most recent incarnation.  While our troops have perform magnificently whenever given the order to attack, President Bush has failed to assert the needed civilian leadership to command that all resistance in Iraq be destroyed without mercy, and without regard to allied sensitivities.  Frankly, without a major change in his moral standards or another major attack on American soil, such a virtuous policy is beyond him.

On the second point, we find the President conceding to the Democrats that Homeland Security was the most important front in the war.  Significant resources have been misallocated from attacking state sponsors of terrorism toward reorganizing a federal bureaucracy.  Further, too much political energy in the Congress has been directed toward internal security when they should be debating war resolutions against Iran, North Korea, Syria, Sudan, and Cuba.  

As a complimentary observation regarding defensive measures, after landing in France, Patton observes:

While there I took occasion to examine the German defenses around Cherbourg both from the ground and from the air.  I also had the Army Engineer, Colonel Conklin, make drawings of them, as I felt that the Germans, being a methodical people, would probably use the same form of defenses wherever we should meet them.  In my opinion, these defenses were not too formidable and the results proved me correct. [Ibid., pp. 91-92].

Patton’s methodology of assessing German defenses sounds chillingly similar to the scouting tactics of al-Qaeda.  As applied to improving reasonable defensive security measures, Patton’s observations provide two useful insights: (1) when defensive measures fail be prepared to change them or they will continue to fail, and (2) bureaucratic centralized processes can create a weakness in its uniformity of applications. 

On the first point, we have new paradigms for handling hijacked airplanes including the possibility of a shoot down and reinforced cockpit doors.  However, we are in no better condition regarding the arming of airline pilots.

On the second point, we have potentially weakened ourselves with the nationalization of airport security.  However, we have added variability to our security efforts through staged threat level responses.  At this point, it is unclear as to whether we have added sufficient random events into our processes to frustrate terrorist reconnaissance and execution.

Regarding the target of attack in France, Patton wrote:

When I was at Peover Hall, the initial Headquarters of the Third Unites States Army in England, in March, April, and May, 1944, it became evident that the Third Army would land either on the Cherbourg Peninsula or in the vicinity of Calais.  Personally, I favored the latter place, because while the landings would have been expensive, the subsequent price would probably have been less.  In amphibious operations we should land as near the objective as possible.  Calais was nearer [the heart of Germany and the destruction of the Reich] than was Cherbourg … The whole northern tip of the Cherbourg Peninsula was covered with launching sites for V-1 bombs [Ibid, pp. 88-89,91].

Although knocking out the V-1 sites in Cherbourg would politically urgent, it was not militarily important relative to the ultimate goal.  Similarly, breaking the al-Qaeda network is politically urgent in the War against Terrorism, but it is not the ultimate goal which is ending international terrorism.  Metaphorically, critics who claim to be pro-War against Terrorism and anti-War against Iraq would have us take out the V-1 sites but leave the Nazi’s in control of Europe.  To end international terrorism, all state sponsors of terrorism must either surrender or be defeated.

UPDATE 8/29/2004: Steve Brockerman has commentary regarding Patton's book in Capitalism Magazine [HERE].

General George S. Patton, Jr.

Image Source: Fort Hood, U.S. Army

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