The U.S. Army, Counterinsurgency, and the Lessons of History

May/June 2008 Historically Speaking 9 fred Rosenberg, National-Socialist cultural policy would not be as restrictive as had first been assumed. Butwhatbeganas animportantsuccess forHindemidi enraged his enemies. Although Hider thought highly ofFurtwänglerasaleadingrepresentativeofGerman music,hewouldnotsupporthischampioningof Hindemith , whom he continued to regard as aJewish or Jewish-influenced spoiler of German art. Efforts to have Hindemith meet Hider to reassure him of the German character of his music failed. If the Führer was notyetreadyto decide theinter-partyconflictbetween Goebbels and Rosenberg over control of the country's culturalpolicies, he had nointerestin favoringHindemidi . InNovember 1934Furtwängler tried to break the deadlock by publishing an article, "The Hindemith Case," in a national newspaper, in which he defended die composer againstideological attacks and praised him as a major force in German music. This caused Goebbels and Rosenberg to close ranks temporarily, Furtwänglerwas disciplined, and further performances of Hindemith's work were forbidden. Even then, and despite his pardy Jewish wife, Hindemith was unwillingto believe diat he had no future in the Third Reich, and it was not until 1938, when MathisderMaler wasgivenitspremiereinSwitzerland, thathe emigrated.' Both the opera and the symphonic suite on its themes document the fate of modernist music in the Third Reich. Avital, productiveperiodinmusicalhistory declined into arid reworking of old patterns, punctuated bygrandiose fanfares of victory, until die old,familiarstrains of Gò'tterdàmmerungtooktheirplace. Because the regime prohibited the performance of Hindemith'sworks,MathisderMaler wasatleastspared the fate of being used to demonstrate that German culture continued unhindered under National Socialism , a message that performances, publications, and exhibitions of other works sent to people inside and beyond Germany through the following decade of peace andwar. Butthe mannerinwhich artists and art are treated as extensions of "the people" inMathisder Maler'also indicates the proximity to National Socialism of important themes in works of German modernism .Withtheirpartialaccord, theseworks opened diemselvestoideologicalexploitation. Oneresultwas to help persuade many Germans to acceptHider, and to continue to be accepting of the regime for longer than they might otherwise have been. For those who admire the achievements of 19th-century German culture, thatproximity—more than anironyofworld history—is tragic. Works of the creative imagination always document aspects of the time inwhich theyoriginate. The ultimatevalueoíMathisderMaler certainlydoesnotlie in its documentation of die years in which National Socialism conquered Germany. Inspired by Grunewalds paintings, Hindemidi's opera addresses important ideas through the complex double narrative of words andmusic. Thatdie music also stands on its own, Hindemithrevealedbygivingit furtherlife in his symphonic suite. PeterParetisprofessoremeritusattheInstituteforAdvancedStudy . ThisfallhewillgivetheLeesKnowlesLecturesatCambridge University. Heiscurrentlypreparing an exhibition, to openin thePrinceton UniversityArt MuseuminJanuary2009, of the Germansculptor ErnstBarlach, subjectof his2003 monographAn ArtistagainsttheThirdReich (Cambridge UniversityPress ). ' Even his name remained uncertain for centuries. It is now known tohave been Mathis GothartNithart;in arthistoryhe continues to be referred to as Matthias Grünewald. 2Agood mulüdisciplinaryanalysis of theworkis Andrée Hayum, TheIsenheimAltarpiece: God'sMedianeandthePainter's Vision (Princeton UniversityPress,1989). ' Hindemith drewon Franz Magnus Bohme's collectionof ancient songs,AJtdeutschesUederbuch.The originalwords and melodies and his adaptations are discussedin detailin Franz Wöhlke,Mathisder Maler vonPaulHindemith, (ZimmermannMusikverlag, 1965). *MathisderMaler, Act 1, Scene 1. Translations arc the author's. s Paul Hindemith, "ZurEinführung," Programmheft, Zurich,May 28,1938. 6 MathisderMaler, Act3,Stxne3. 7 Ibid., Act 1, Scene 2. 1 In the excellentchapteron Hindemithin Michael H. Kater's ComposersoftheNa ^tEra:EightPortraits(OxfordUniversityPress, 2000), 32. ' That Hindemithwas prepared to govery far to assure the party of his loyaltyis amply documented. See, forinstance, the documentationassembled under the heading "Die Akte Hindemith,"in AlbrechtDümling, ed., Das VerdächtigteSaxophon:EntarteteMusik imNS-Staat, 4th rev. ed. (Neuss, 2007), 107-123. The U.S. Army, Counterinsurgency, and the Lessons of History Brian McAllister Linn Counterinsurgencyisperhaps thehottesttopic within the American armed forces, and certainlywithin the U.S. Army. As one officer at the elite School of Advanced Military Studies acknowledged , the army thatwent to war in 2003 was "ill prepared to wage an effective counter-insurgencycampaigninIraq ."' Inassessing blame for this shortcoming, somepointtothe service's "cultural bias towards fightingthelarge conventional battles" that failed to address the problems of occupation, pacification, and nation building.2 As a result, officers are seeking new paradigms and concepts to replace the discredited Cold War models. Although they face enemies who have proved adept at exploiting modern technology, much of the...