re: "National Debate on the Legions"

Dr. Jerry Pournelle at Chaos Manor ("The Original Blog") frames the discussion.

Money quote(s):

"It is time for a national debate on the military: how big do we need it? What are our military objectives and goals? Do we go abroad seeking monsters to slay, or are we the friends of liberty everywhere but guardians only of our own? If guardians of our own, what are the treats we must guard against? Who are our potential enemies and how stable are they? Where abroad do our national interests lie?

These are not trivial questions. They are not politically easy, either, since the needs of the services are different. It is much easier to build a large Army from cadre than greatly to expand a professional Navy. (The Caine Mutiny had some revelations about that.) The Air Force has to decide just what its role is now that SAC no longer exists, and we are not faced with 26,000 launchable nuclear warheads. The Army can’t be reduced simply to cadre. What is the proper size and role of the Marine Corps? These are not just political questions although they will be answered by politicians.

One problem is that we don’t have many who can debate these questions. As Kagan said long ago in his comments on the Peloponnesian War, if you seek peace you must keep that peace. Or as Appius Claudius put it, if you would have peace, be thou then prepared for war. Of course most of those who will be debating these matters will not have heard of Appius Claudius, or Plutarch, or Thucydides, and if they vaguely remember that people with those names existed they will not have read about them, much less have read them."

There's little I can add to Dr. Pournelle's remarks. These decisions will be made by politicians, in and out of uniform, and be made for political reasons, when what the Republic needs are statesmen.

"We expected our Senators to be familiar with keeping the peace, and what a Pyrrhic victory was. Indeed we expected anyone who put himself up as a candidate for Congress to have some familiarity with the basic documents and ideas in the development of Western Civilization. Now – well, not so much"

It would be much easier, if it were possible at all, to come up with a list of politicians who do have that kind of basic familiarity. The list of those who do not is much, much longer, and includes some whose professional training would have caused you to suppose quite the opposite, at least in a less-imperfect world.

"We can’t afford to take a meat axe to the Legions, either. If we are to remain a Republic we must discuss these issues, which means that the debates must start, and those who do know some history will have to spoon feed it to the many who don’t – and worse, to those who have been persuaded that they know things they do not know. We have far too many who seem to have majored in self-esteem while in fact learning little that is estimable."

Not too long ago, CAA had the opportunity to share some classroom time with junior military folks in an environment where they were being exposed to some of the Western military history one would once have expected them to have learned long ago in their schoolroom days. They were, frankly, lapping it up, eager and wondering aloud why they'd never been taught any of this stuff before.