|
> I once read an article that argued in the absence of war, it's impossible to tell if a doctrine or commander is good or not. I think that's correct. And I have 2 examples, one that proves it, and one that disproves it. The first example is the Royal Navy in the 19th and early 20th century. The master of the seas. In the absence of any real competitor, how was it supposed to stay in shape? Well, it was hard, it was little by little metamorphosing into a paper tiger. Admiral George Tryon [1] tried to reshape it again into a Nelsonian navy, but he died in the sinking of HMS Victoria in 1893 [2], one of the most consequential events in the history of the world. And one of the most unknown. With Tryon dead, the Royal Navy promoted people like John Jellicoe or David Beatty, one a perfectly competent officer with all the right technical knowledge, but with roughly zero fighting spirit, and the other a raging lion of a man, but too good to bother with the details of how to actually command a fleet. But how would the Royal Navy create an organization where the right people would get promoted, if there was noone to "keep them honest" ? My second example, or counterexample is the pair that was the exact opposite of Jellicoe/Beatty. It was King/Nimitz. I would argue that this was the most fortunate pair of boss/subordinate in the history of naval warfare. King was as aggressive as Beatty, or more. The ultimate no-nonsense guy, hated by many because he was so frank and intolerant to fools. We owe King the decision to follow Midway with Guadalcanal, and then to keep Japan on the ropes from that point on until the end of the war. But of course, nobody remembers Ernest King today, because one thing is to have the idea, another one is to execute. And Nimitz was the one who executed flawlessly. In my book, Midway is well ahead of Trafalgar or Tsushima. At both Trafalgar and Tsushima you had a better fleet obliterating the worse one. But at Midway, it was the underdog that won. And won because Nimitz put all the pieces of the puzzle in the right place ahead of time. Replace Nimitz with Nelson, or Togo, or Yamamoto, and the US loses at Midway. But Nimitz did it, and with it basically won the war in the Pacific. My puzzle is this: how was it possible for a nation at peace to create an organization like the US Navy that promoted Ernest King and Chester Nimitz (and Spruance, and Halsey)? I don't have an answer. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Tryon [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinking_of_HMS_Victoria |
- US flew quite a number of sorties that weren’t directly effective, at high casualties, to delay and “stuff up” the Japanese fleet
- US use of kamikaze attack rattled the Japanese command
- Miles Browning wrote a paper about exactly the tactic used at Midway against the Japanese [1]
You can (and the US did) shuffle commanders as needed — but you can’t suddenly create enlisted to do the dirty work or experts with the right ideas. Those require existing culture. Similarly, with a robust industrial base, you can pivot your manufacturing efforts (eg, battleships to carriers) — but you can’t build entirely new factories of skilled workers very quickly (eg, US struggles to build shells for Ukraine).
Perhaps this is a simplistic view, but I don’t think you can have the right military at the start of a conflict; you can only develop a robust, rapidly adaptable military base. That is, you can only make the military anti-fragile.
My advice would be to ignore the admirals (since you can always get new ones), and instead focus on quality NCOs, junior officers, and economics: they’re the backbone/framework of any future victory.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miles_Browning