Maggie's Farm

Peacetime Generals: Too Fearful of Losing to Risk Winning

Peacetime generals have never been able to fight wars.  President Abraham Lincoln’s peacetime general was George Brinton McClellan.  According to Wikipedia,

 “Although he understood that the Confederacy had to be defeated, McClellan, a member of the Democrat Party, advocated military conduct under “the highest principles known to Christian civilization” and was generally conservative on slavery. Hence, he was never in favor with Radical Republicans, who demanded the immediate abolition of slavery and regarded McClellan as “soft” on military measures. McClellan's supposed moderation became a central issue when he ran for president in 1864. Although he strongly advocated continuing the war until victory was achieved, some historians have suggested that if McClellan had defeated the Republican Lincoln, the peace faction within the Democratic Party would have insisted that the war effort be suspended, and the Confederacy would thereby have achieved independence.”

The Reader's Companion to American History adds:

“A month into the Civil War McClellan was appointed major general in the Regular Army and commander of the Department of the Ohio. After efficiently managing a campaign in western Virginia, he was summoned to Washington late in July 1861, following the Bull Run debacle, to take command of the main Union army in the East. Over the next eight months he trained and organized the Army of the Potomac, serving for four of those months as general-in-chief of all the Union armies.

“In April 1862 McClellan took the field to direct the largest campaign of the war, an advance against Richmond via the Virginia peninsula. For three months he inched his way cautiously toward the Confederate capital, but in the Seven Days' Battles (June 25-July 1) he was driven into retreat by Robert E. Lee's smaller Army of Northern Virginia. Ordered to evacuate the peninsula in August, McClellan was slow to send reinforcements to the embattled Union forces at Second Bull Run, and Lee was again victorious. When the Confederate army invaded Maryland early in September, President Abraham Lincoln reluctantly turned once again to McClellan, a general stained by defeat but the only general capable of restoring shattered Union morale. On September 17, along Antietam Creek near Sharpsburg, McClellan finally brought Lee to battle. Despite his greatly superior force, McClellan's cautious generalship gained only a draw in the bloodiest single day's fighting of the war. He refused to pursue Lee back into Virginia and was reluctant to renew the campaign in the weeks that followed. On November 5, 1862, Lincoln ordered him relieved of command. . . . He was a general afflicted with "the slows" (as Lincoln put it), too fearful of losing to risk winning.”

 Every president since Lincoln has had serious problems with peacetime generals in the opening years of a war.  It is not hard to understand.  The peacetime military is civil service with dazzling uniforms, and the skill-set needed and used to get that all-important promotion from Colonel to General, or Captain to Admiral, is the antithesis of the skill-set needed to win battles.  The warfighter must be a risk-taker, an innovator, and a swift decision-maker.  The “Perfumed Pentagon Prince” to succeed in the Pentagon must be compliant, doctrinaire, and collaborative. Generals Colin Powell, the media Saint, and Norman Schwarzkopf in the first Iraq war were pushed by SECDEF Cheney to listen to Colonel John Boyd (see “BOYD, The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War”) who devised the famous “Left Hook” that cut off and isolated the Republican Guard.  Generals Powell and Schwarzkopf wanted to follow the “Powell Doctrine” which called for a deliberate massive push “up the center” with overwhelming force, the tactic developed for opposing Soviet tanks in Eastern Europe, but they were overruled by Cheney, and Stormin’ Norman was gracefully given credit for the wildly successful “Hail Mary” attack.

President Clinton had similar problems.  Pentagon brass refused to attack Al Qaeda on the grounds that it was not a “country” and they couldn’t attack private individuals. Former White House counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke in his book “Against All Enemies: Inside America’s War on Terror”, quotes Mike Sheehan, a State Department official, saying in frustration, “What’s it going to take, Dick? Who the shit do they think attacked the [USS] Cole, fuckin’ Martians? The Pentagon brass won’t let Delta go get bin Laden. Hell they won’t even let the Air Force carpet bomb the place. Does al Qaeda have to attack the Pentagon to get their attention?”  We know they did, and it did, but that came later.  Further, according to Dana Priest's book “The Mission”, the Clinton White House wanted U.S. pilots in the no-fly zone to provoke the Iraqis into attacking American planes. The then-CENTCOM commander, General Anthony Zinni, believed that this could lead to war with Iraq and insisted that the White House issue him a direct order to undertake such an action. Faced with leaving a paper trail, the White House changed its mind.