The Bugle's
Ageless Call1
US Army Transformation Process Has Precedent 100 Years Ago
by COL Richard J. McCallum, USA
It is the dawn of a new century and the clarion call for Army transformation echoes through the halls of Capitol Hill. America's elected officials are somewhat divided over the developing details for an appropriate national military strategy. As the White House leadership articulates a foreign policy anchored on the guiding principles of international peace and regional stability, some members of Congress continue to question the validity of international responsibilities that most believe accompany the mantle of global leadership. The US Army, aware of its serious deficiencies as revealed during a recent conflict, has publicly established a goal to become more strategically relevant and responsive as an instrument of national power. Social, political, and economic currents, both at home and abroad, have significantly altered many of the Army's established organizational norms. Within the defense community, senior military leaders debate the degree and magnitude of required change that will be necessary as the Army seeks to modernize, train, and execute its newly assigned expeditionary missions around the world.
Though the events characterized above sound current, they actually unfolded in 1899, when the shifting tides of foreign and domestic politics converged with a powerful wave of technological innovation. The resulting turbulence profoundly altered the ends, ways and means of America's 20th century national security strategy. And, like today, the leaders of America's Army sought to transform the Service's capabilities and doctrine in response to emerging security requirements.
During President McKinley's years in office, the icy cold pillars of isolationism began to melt as America looked beyond its continental borders towards neighbors in the Pacific and Caribbean. After McKinley's assassination in 1901, his successor, Theodore Roosevelt, launched an invigorated global engagement policy. His first annual message to Congress outlined his perception of America's international rights and duties within the Western Hemisphere. The new President demonstrated an early willingness to use the Army as a signal to the world that the US was no longer a provincial nation on the sidelines of global affairs.
Soon, the Army Corps of Engineers was building the Panama Canal as a cardinal demonstration of the United States' vital national interests in Central and Latin America. Roosevelt promoted a foreign policy of engagement that also required the construction of new Army and Navy Bases outside the borders of America's homeland. The Secretary of War, Elihu Root, actively supported Roosevelt's foreign policy vision and outlined a rationale for significant Army reform. There are significant parallels between Root's initiatives and the transformation upon which today's Army has embarked.
There is a natural tendency to think that the Army today is walking a new path or blazing a new trail. But if its forefathers from the early 20th century were alive, they most certainly would relate to today's changing world and the existing security challenges that spark the need for an Army transformation. Then, as now, America's Army answered the bugle's call for change.
CHANGING ARMY ROLE
After 35 years of conflict, 12 major campaigns, and more than 900 actions against the Indians, the Army's decentralized, fast-moving, light-marching fighting doctrine was firmly entrenched within the hearts and minds of American soldiers. A new security era, however, was beginning. As elected civilian leaders sought to use land power as a durable signal of America's commitment to become engaged in world affairs, many of the US Army's established Indian War policies and procedures had to change. But in 1902, most of the soldiers garrisoned in forts across the central and southwestern continental plains found the transformation ideas from the New York City lawyer, Root, abstract and inconceivable.
Root agressively discussed the need to address changing security requirements. He recognized the existing mismatch between American strategy and military capabilities, and introduced transformation plans for the reorganization, re-equipping, and massing of troops for a more efficient deployment. Two years into his tenure as Secretary of War, he also appointed an ad hoc War College Board to function as the first long-range war plans office.
As America's military missions transitioned from continental defense to overseas presence and forward deployment, the War Department was charged with the development of a plan that would station troops in overseas garrisons as a strong signal of America's commitment to defend Panama, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Alaska, and the Philippines. By 1911, the Army had established 22 new camps and forts in the Philippines alone.
TECHNOLOGY'S
PRIMAL INFLUENCE
Today, it is difficult for most of us to imagine a previous
time when technological advancements moved at the same breakneck pace we now
experience. Yet the historical archives clearly record a virtual explosion of
new technologies almost 100 years ago as the industrial age, fueled by scientific
innovation, refashioned national economics as well as the means of warfare.
The collaboration from this economic and technological
watershed introduced the first modern precision age in warfare and subsequently
imposed two major challenges for the US Army.
Specifically, the dynamics of technology during the early years of the 20th century significantly amended the established balance between firepower and maneuver. Improved magazine-loaded rifles, automatic machine guns, and enhanced field artillery now commanded a geometrically expanded deadly zone that was also more lethal. Remarkable defensive advantages, furthermore, were gained through the combined effects of battlefield entrenchments, barbed wire, and newly invented field explosives. Consequently, offensive forces, regardless of their élan, no longer possessed the speed and mobility required to effectively overcome a well-emplaced defender. This important shift in battle rhythm was documented in the lessons learned during the 1904-05 Russo-Japanese War.
The study of military history reveals an important principle:
as technological change progresses and actual experience in war recedes, established
military theory becomes less realistic unless military organizations sustain
their quest for vitality, innovation, and experimentation. During the early
turn-of the-century years, senior military leaders realized that the Army's
40-year-old, Civil War-Indian War fighting methods and weapons were becoming
increasingly less relevant with each passing month.
Secretary Root's leadership spearheaded Army
reform, modernization, and experimentation efforts. In 1902, based upon Root's
guidance, the Army conducted the first of several experimental division-level
field maneuvers at Camp Root, Kansas. The first Field Service Regulations, in
1905, outlined doctrine for modern warfare. The next year, Army Engineers built
a prototype Russo-Japanese War-style Redoubt at Ft. Riley, Kansas for testing
and experimentation. This Field Work was an engineer marvel for its time and
was subjected to a series of firepower bombardments in order to better understand
the nature of modern defenses. The Army also began a series of combined-arms
exercises that tested the ability of infantry, cavalry, and artillery units
to synchronize their battlefield efforts.
The industrial age continued to mature during the first
decade of the new century, and technology's relentless march fostered a second
major challenge for Army planners. The War Department's modernization plan and
budget were unable to keep pace with scientific discoveries as battlefield innovation
continued to cascade new or improved weapons and ammunition. Between 1898 and
1916, for example, procurement appropriations for machine guns barely provided
four weapons within each regiment. Finally, in 1916, Congress passed a major
authorization to increase the number of machine guns within the inventory.
Within the world's developed countries, scientific innovation
abounded as social and political traditions shifted. The winds of change, however,
were not making an impact everywhere. Some resisted the integration of both
new gizmos and new ideas. For instance, many European military thinkers
remained traditional in their approach and continued
to build their theories on the recorded experiences of the 1870-1871 Franco-Prussian
War. Rather than integrating the startling new evidence from current events,
these analysts chose to regard the British experience in South Africa as irrelevant
guerrilla warfare and they perceived the Japanese victory over a traditional
Eurasian power as a triumph for Moltke's approach to war.
This tunnel vision failed to recognize the importance
of all the data points along the continuum of recent conflict. Consequently,
most military leaders did not discern the overall impact of innovative technology
upon established theory and fighting doctrine. The offensive force, using the
traditional Napoleonic-style frontal assault, no longer had the battlefield
advantage. In less than a decade,Western Europe would experience the power of
this techno-influence during the First World War as the apogee of the defense
unfolded and, combatants locked themselves in a war of attrition using old theories,
outdated fighting doctrines and new, industrial age weapons.
WALK
IN HIS SHOES
There is a tendency to think that many professional challenges
within today's transforming Army are unique. Or, perhaps, the next decade will
bring an unprecedented requirement for flexible leaders with great mental agility.
The following snapshot of changing times, as perceived through the eyes of one
very adaptable soldier, illustrates a number of historical benchmarks that are
still relevant today.
Late in 1899, an energetic 39-year-old, Army
Capt. John Joseph Pershing, was changing his mental paradigms as he sailed for
his new assignment in the Philippines. After graduating from West Point in 1886,
Pershing was prepared to follow the path of his superior officers and spend
his career stationed in the central and western plains fighting Indians. As
a commissioned cavalry officer, his formative years as a young lieutenant were
spent enduring endless months of constabulary duty in two different New Mexico
forts as conflict with the Indians receded and a new security era was unfolding.
In less than seven years, Pershing was thrust from a small New Mexico outpost
to the national stage in 1898 when he became part of the American fighting force
in Santiago, Cuba.
After the Spanish-American War, Pershing soon
witnessed a total transformation of the Army's organizational and cultural norms,
as they had existed during his service as a young lieutenant. Virtually every
weapon that was in the Army inventory when he was commissioned changed as technology
introduced new means in the methods of warfare. In less than 15 years, the Army
transitioned from its first smokeless powder magazine rifle, the M1892 Krag-Jorgensen,
to the improved M1903 Springfield. Testing and experimentation at the Riley
Redoubt helped refine the requirement for a new generation of field artillery.
The internal combustion engine prompted the Army to begin using motor vehicles
and fixed-wing aircraft. Even the old standard rod bayonet was deemed too flimsy
and the Army started using a new, one-pound, knife-like bayonet. During this
same time period, the old post-Civil War Gatling gun was replaced with a new
generation of machine gun as the progressive
march of Army modernization tried to keep pace
with technological innovation.
Without question, the transformation plan touched
the professional careers of almost every turn-of-the
century soldier. Root's proposals for a new Army altered not only the macro
norms of structure and culture but also the micro
fibers of how and where
the Army would deploy and fight. Maturing leaders
such as Pershing found their career paths significantly altered with new educational
hurdles to conquer, new ways and means of warfare to understand, and new assignment
rotations to endure that not only increased in frequency but also shifted from
a continental to overseas focus.
GHOST
OF TRANSFORMATION-PAST
There are periods in history when the
currents of change are moving at a moderate rate
and incremental, evolutionary adjustments are sufficient. History also records
times, however, when the combined synergies from two or three pervading forces
alter established planning assumptions and warrant a revolutionary, leap-ahead
change. The dawn of the 20th century
was such a time. The jet streams of geopolitics
were shifting; domestic expectations regarding security priorities were in flux;
and the winds of technological change altered the line entries on almost every
page of a commander's property book. The turbulent synergy from these three
primal forces, by 1917, had modified when, where, and how the
US Army would serve
and fight.
Today these same transformation forces have been unleashed
as the microchip pulls the developing
world away from its
industrial age roots. In the US, the proverbial
genie of change has touched many of the defense community's established, 50-year-old
planning assumptions. Shifting foreign and domestic security priorities, in
concert with technological innovation, have
closed the door on the Cold War era. Once again
there is a mismatch between security requirements and military capabilities.
Using the advantage of retrospect, senior leaders are fortunate to have a rich
historical record of parallel, turn-of-the-century experiences that can help
chart the road ahead. Then, as now, America's Army
responded to the bugle's call with resolve
and an enduring commitment to excellence.
1 This article was originally published
in the March 2001 issue of Armed Forces Journal International, and is
reproduced here on the CMH Website with the publisher's kind permission.
Col McCallum is the Director of Outreach in the Strategic Studies Institute
at the Army War College, Carlisle, PA. He served previously as the Chairman
of the Strategy and Planning Department at the War College.