Re-learning
Military History
By Dr Ahmad Faruqui
Dansville, CA
In his most recent book, Air
Marshal Asghar Khan provides a magisterial survey
of Pakistan’s political and military history.
He concludes ruefully that Pakistanis never learn
from history. The evidence I recounted last week
from the military history of the Pakistan army
bears him out.
Will any good come from re-telling history yet
one more time? I am hopeful, because, as the historian
Polybius of ancient Greece wisely observed, “There
are only two sources from which any benefit can
be derived; our own misfortunes and those that
happened to others.”
The legislators in Islamabad should debate the
army’s performance and bring in the generals
for questioning, as legislators routinely do in
parliaments worldwide. Since the generals are
well versed in the lingo of warfare, the debate
could be one-sided. Thus, this column is written
as a tutorial about the generally accepted principles
of warfare, to ensure that a balanced debate takes
place between those in and out of uniform.
These first appeared in Maj-Gen Carl Von Clausewitz’s
magnum opus, Vom Kriege, in which he famously
wrote, “War is a continuation of policy
by other means.” Early in his career, Clausewitz
fought in the Napoleonic wars and had the misfortune
of being taken prisoner at Jena in 1806. But captivity
gave him time to reflect on why some armies lost
wars while others won them. Later in life, he
fought against Napoleon at Waterloo and was subsequently
appointed commandant of the Prussian Military
Academy. That is where he became a philosopher
of war and deduced the nine principles of warfare.
The first principle is: every military operation
should be directed toward a clearly defined, decisive,
and attainable objective. A survey of US generals
in Vietnam in 1974 found that 70 percent had no
idea of why they were fighting the war. Israel’s
objectives in the Six Day War of 1967 exemplify
successful objective setting.
The second principle is offense: seize, retain,
and exploit the initiative. This does not mean
that frontal attacks should be carried out. Captain
Liddell Hart’s analysis of 280 military
campaigns across 25 centuries finds that only
in six of the campaigns did victory flow from
a direct assault. The Iranians in the spring of
1985 carried out a frontal attack on entrenched
Iraqi forces in the marshes of Basra and failed.
Alexander the Great was a great exponent of indirect
attack. Outnumbered, he defeated Rajah Porus at
Jhelum in 326 BC by throwing his elephant-equipped
host off balance with an attack from the rear.
Another successful example of the indirect approach
is a penetration attack, epitomized by Gen. Heinz
Guderian’s Panzer Blitzkrieg in 1940 against
France. Guerilla attacks are a third example and
are exemplified by Mao Zedong’s war against
the Japanese and the Nationalist Chinese between
1927-49. Summing up his approach, Mao wrote, “The
enemy advances, we retreat. The enemy camps, we
harass. The enemy tires, we attack. The enemy
retreats, we pursue.”
The third principle is mass: concentrate combat
power at the decisive place and time. Frederick
the Great and Napoleon Bonaparte succeeded in
battle because they had the resolution to keep
their forces concentrated in an overpowering pass.
Gen. Niazi’s decision to disperse Pakistani
forces along the perimeter of East Pakistan was
a classic violation of this principle.
The fourth principle is economy of force: allocate
minimum combat power to secondary efforts. Without
economy of force, one cannot achieve superior
mass at the critical point. Thus, the third and
fourth principles are complements. Perhaps Niazi
had not read Napoleon, who forbade his marshals
from dispersing le Grande Armee along the perimeter
of the empire, saying that was the surest way
of losing France.
The fifth principle is maneuver: placing the enemy
in a position of disadvantage through the flexible
application of combat power. The Japanese conquest
of the fortress of Singapore in the Second World
War was a classic application of this principle,
as was Lawrence of Arabia’s conquest of
the port of Aqaba. In both cases, victory was
achieved by attacking from the rear and rendering
the heavy naval guns useless. German General Helmet
von Moltke wrote about the desirability of luring
the enemy into attacking one’s strong point,
so that he would be weakened to the point of exhaustion.
Then the offensive would be unleashed upon him.
In his words, “Our strategy must be offensive,
our tactics defensive.”
The sixth principle is unity of command: there
must be a single commander for every military
operation. Sensing that there was disunity among
the Allies, the Germans attacked them in force
through the Ardennes, throwing the enemy off balance
and buying time for themselves in the Battle of
the Bulge in 1944.
The seventh principle is security: never permit
the enemy to acquire an unexpected advantage.
Violations of this principle are legion in history,
beginning with the Trojan War and continuing on
to the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor.
The eighth principle is surprise: strike the enemy
at a time, place and in a manner for which he
is unprepared. This is the reciprocal of the security
principle. It is often difficult to achieve at
a strategic level but can be done at a tactical
level. Sun Tzu, the master Chinese strategist,
writes, “All warfare is based on deception.
Hence, when able to attack, we must seem unable;
when using our forces, we must seem inactive;
when we are near, we must make the enemy believe
that we are far away; when far away, we must make
him believe we are near. Hold our baits to entice
the enemy. Feign disorder and crush him.”
Examples of surprise attacks include Hannibal’s
attack on Rome at Cannae in 216 BC and Napoleon’s
rout of the Austrians and Russians at Austerlitz
in 1805.
The ninth principle is simplicity: keep all plans
simple, because even the simplest of plans is
difficult to execute. The 1982 British campaign
to liberate the Falklands from the Argentineans
exemplifies this principle.
In a nutshell, the principles sum up the necessary
conditions of winning in war. Their knowledge
does not guarantee victory in war, since execution
is equally important. However, their ignorance
invariably condemns one to defeat. There is, of
course, more to war than winning battles, since
the best wars are won before any of the battles
have been fought. And one can still win a war
while losing all the battles, as the Vietnamese
proved. All in all, war fighting is a serious
business and requires a professional army, not
one diverted by civilian duties. It also requires
a full-time army chief, not one playing a dual
role.
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