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3 American Military Art A Misleading Analogy Strictly speaking, war is neither an art nor a science, and using such concepts as points of departure . . . results in a host of misleading analogies. Carl von Clausewitz, On War, 1832 Military art, the sum of strategic and operational practice, is clearly central to any way of war. However, the term “art” itself is misleading. As Clausewitz noted, war is neither an art nor a science. To think of it as either is to obscure its violent and dialectical aspects. Unlike painting or sculpture, war is a clash of opposing wills that “react” when force is directed against them.1 Today the word strategy (from strategía) may still mean what it did in ancient Greece: the art of the general (strategós).2 Yet the success of generalship has always owed at least as much to the methods of science as it does to the skills of the individual. Even the most celebrated displays of American operational art—Winfield Scott’s campaign against Mexico City in 1847, the invasion of Normandy in June 1944, and the landings at Inchon in September 1950— could not have succeeded without the groundwork, the operational science, provided by diligent staff officers. The functions of military staffs—mission analysis, intelligence gathering, course-of-action development, coordination and contingency planning, execution and adjustment, and after-action reviews —are the fundamentals of operational science. They also parallel the basic steps of the scientific method: analysis of the problem, development of hypotheses, experimentation, observation, and assessment.3 It would be wrong to think of military science merely as the knowledge of military hardware and its capabilities; for science, whatever its brand, is but the scientific method followed to its logical conclusion.4 Nor is military science the search for formulas or recipes for victory.5 These have more in common with the fashions of art than they do with the methods of science. 48 Preludes Military practitioners, even including Clausewitz, have long preferred the phrase “art of war” to “science of war.” Through the first decade of the twenty-first century, American operational doctrine highlighted the element of art, claiming that operational art was foremost “the application of creative imagination by commanders and staffs.”6 The rationale has been that, even if victory requires some knowledge of military science, the application of that knowledge requires skill, and skill belongs more to the realm of art than to science. Only art, it seemed, could account for a commander’s genius and its role in penetrating the fog of war in planning and executing military operations .7 And only art could appreciate the influence of other intangibles such as morale and courage, as well as arational factors such as chance. Yet what this rationale overlooks is that when commanders apply their skills in war, they do so with the disciplined judgment of practitioners, rather than the unfettered imagination of artists. Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s “find, fix, finish, exploit, and analyze” is a contemporary example of such skill applied in iterative cycles.8 Like lawyers and doctors, military practitioners solve problems replete with risk, and their collective status as professionals depends on the public’s trust in their ability to solve those problems. It is a status artists do not enjoy. Nor do artists have a corpus of professional knowledge, or doctrine , to guide their practice. Clausewitz’s On War was based on a variant of the scientific method, and it is largely because of that method that we have a base of knowledge regarding war’s intangibles.9 The aforementioned fundamentals of operational science are the reason innovation and adaptation can occur at all in war. The former should be thought of as any measure taken to gain a competitive edge, while the latter is any measure taken to adjust to an environment.10 Contrary to conventional wisdom, therefore, art is not essential for military success—only for military glory. Nevertheless, Americans will likely continue to celebrate their operational artists, and well they should. The wartime exploits of Winfield Scott, George S. Patton Jr., and Douglas MacArthur offer some timeless insights for military professionals. Scott, for instance, carried out a successful campaign against Mexico City in 1847, one that allowed military and political pressure to be exerted gradually. He may also have been among the first true American strategists, as exemplified by the integrated nature of his muchderided but ultimately effective Anaconda Plan for defeating the South in the Civil War. Among...

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