Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!mailrus!ames!amdcad!military From: adrian%cs.heriot-watt.ac.uk@NSFnet-Relay.AC.UK (Adrian Hurt) Newsgroups: sci.military Subject: Re: Learning in War Message-ID: <27442@amdcad.AMD.COM> Date: 23 Sep 89 18:44:50 GMT References: <27388@amdcad.AMD.COM> Sender: cdr@amdcad.AMD.COM Organization: Computer Science, Heriot-Watt U., Scotland Lines: 48 Approved: military@amdcad.amd.com From: Adrian Hurt In article <27388@amdcad.AMD.COM> cew@venera.isi.edu (Craig E. Ward) writes: >It has often been said that armies do not reform until after they've been >beaten. This leads to a more interesting question: How can a military >establishment unlearn the lessons of past victories? I don't know about "unlearn". As for learning the lessons of past actions, the future aggressor has the advantage, in that he can see what happened last time, and make up new attack theories to account for it. The defender can only respond to a new type of attack after he's been attacked, and probably beaten. >The French experience of WWI was so horrible that they resolved to never let >it happen again. As a result, they were much better prepared for a 1914 war >in 1939 when WW2 began. Unfortunately for the French, they found themselves >ready to fight the wrong war. That's an example of what I mean. The Germans formulated a whole new theory of war (blitzkrieg). The French (and everyone else, for that matter) couldn't make up defence plans against blitzkrieg until someone had shown them what it was. Actually, the French were quite well prepared for a 1918 war, in that they had a lot of tanks (better than some of the German ones), and a lot of aircraft (at least on a par with the German aircraft at the start of WW2). What they didn't have was much idea of what Germany would do with its tanks and aircraft. A counter-example is the various wars between Israel and Arab states. Israel had learnt one lesson from blitzkrieg - clobber the other guy's air force on the ground, and you can walk (or fly) all over him. Which is why the Six Day War only took six days. The Arabs learnt too, and next time they had lots of SAM's waiting for the Israelis to try it again. >What does this mean for the military establishments of today, not just for >the US and NATO, but also for the SU and the Warsaw Pact? Are they ready for >the next war or the last? There's a bit of a difference here, in that each side has its practise exercises in which it can try out its latest ideas, and the other side watches and can make up new ideas of its own. "Keyboard? How quaint!" - M. Scott Adrian Hurt | JANET: adrian@uk.ac.hw.cs UUCP: ..!ukc!cs.hw.ac.uk!adrian | ARPA: adrian@cs.hw.ac.uk