Fort Apache or Executive Suite? The US Army Enters the 1980's
Abstract
By 1980, we see a disturbing melange of trends both internal to the Army and with reference to the Army's relationship to the parent society. Internally, there will be a narrowing of the definition of professionalism to the pseudo-Clausewitzian management of violence. Concurrently, there will be a loss of higher-order military skills resulting in the following: (1) the surrender of any military contribution to national strategy; and (2) dependency on the "miraculous" development of higher management skills, since the service school system will not train officers for the demands that the system is placing on them. The Army will, by pandering to popular misconceptions of human conflict, become more introverted and more concerned with institutional preservation than with its own utility as an instrument of policy. On the social level, the modified value system needed for a "calling" to produce Plato's protectors will not be tolerated. The mere existence of an Army is a constant reminder that we have been unable to perfect man. Society can hardly be expected to continue to devote resources and "quality" people for the maintenance of an embarrassing monument to its own failure. The effects of shrinking resources (human and material) and ever more limited uses will feed on each other, making the Army smaller and more destructive, hence less utilitarian, as the years progress.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 01, 1978
- Accession Number
- ADA512227
Entities
People
- Donald B. Vought
- John C. Binkley
Organizations
- United States Army War College