Argumentative Essay
Military innovation contributes to the success of states in war. However, it has been shown in the literature that the U.S. and Britain failed to significantly innovate or revolutionize their military in the interwar period. This paper argues that this failure is primarily rooted in two major factors: anti-militarism attitudes, and a military culture that disregards the usefulness of past military experiences to future wars. During the interwar period, few refuted the importance of mechanized, powered means of transportation and tanks. The debate revolved around whether this technology could be integrated into traditional processes or strategies or whether more radical adjustments or reforms were required. Those promoting more profound changes confronted the difficult task of validating that the new technologies, accompanied by unclear, questionable new mechanisms and strategies, presented drastic enhancements in system effectiveness.
Two major interwar military powers-- Britain and the United States readily used the tank while keeping fundamental military procedures and strategies unchanged. Only briefly, the U.S. and British military displayed innovativeness in their trial-and-error examinations of new warfare technologies. American and British chief commandants mostly decline or misinterpreted the findings of their experimental studies, particularly any findings suggesting the value of a strengthened self-governing armored unit.
The U.S. and Britain were eager to use mechanized transport for warfare, yet they were completely only interested in using them to enhance current logistical, cavalry, and infantry strategies and procedures to some extent. Unexpectedly, this resolve continued unrelentingly into the Second World War, particularly in the British military. As stated by Murray and Millett, “From 1920 until early 1939 the British Army existed in an antimilitary milieu, one in which all the democratic parties rejected the experience of World War I”.Specifically, the failure to plan on a motorized, highly solid armored warfare actually demonstrated the fundamental premise of 'limited liability'. As explained by Hart, limited liability is the “traditional British way of war”, through which Britain managed to prevent a large number of fatalities during the continental war. This strategy used a small armed forces and a naval power for peripheral attacks.
Even though British military officials had applauded the advantages of the limited liability approach, 'de-armament' was extremely intolerable. Ultimately, the main concern of Chamberlain, which was defending the home isles, required the ability to protect the Channel harbors in the Low Countries from Germany. France also pursued this goal but relied on Britain, which turned down involvement in the continental war in 1937. Simply put, Chamberlain had stretched a gaping capacity weakness and left the military with no ways to resolve it. The truth was majority of the British officials shared the dislike of the British people to a preparation for a subsequent continental war. Indeed, the entire unfortunate narrative of the interwar years shows that the British military, as well as the British public, exerted considerable effort to ignore and avoid the realities of World War I and to neglect the important learnings from that battle.
Contrary to the unfortunate outcome that Britain suffered, the U.S. naval aviators finally triumphed in driving back the attempts to consolidate U.S. air military under a separate, autonomous unit. Nevertheless, the American navy was less triumphant in averting the effects of naval arms race. From the 1920s onward, Senator William E. Borah started promoting arms restrictions to weaken what he believed was a rapidly expanding naval arms race among powerful states; he thought that restricting naval development would lessen conflicts between these major powers. The U.S. and Britain had a remarkable legacy of amphibious operations prior to the First World War but did not make significant attempts to expand and strengthen amphibious operations as consolidated armed-naval forces or under naval control. During World War I the U.S. and British naval army had shown on some instances the same fundamental notion for effective landing-- landing must only be carried out when ground forces are not opposed to it. The whole history of the British empire during the 19th century revealed the naval weakness of Britain's strategy.
Military culture, as well as political and organizational limitations, also weakened the capability to innovate during the interwar period. As explained by Howard, “the evidence is strong that the army was still as firmly geared to the pace and perspective of regimental soldiering as it had been before 1914; that too many of its members looked on soldiering as an agreeable and honorable occupation rather than a serious profession demanding no less intellectual dedication than that of the doctor, the lawyer, or the engineer”.Experience demonstrates that the esprit de corps of the individual soldier in combat stems mainly from his/her allegiance to his/her regiment. However, this military culture undermined the intellectual side of warfare. There were proofs that indicate a significant contempt for study within the military culture.
These perspectives were prevalent in the armed forces, primarily as an outcome of a military culture that is rooted in the intolerance and one-sidedness of the regimental model. It created a system of soldiering that condemned intellectual pursuit and hindered a broader knowledge of military operations. Furthermore, the education system for professional military personnel in Britain failed to broaden the knowledge of officials beyond the system of regimental soldiering. This education system seldom enriched students' understanding or pushed them to explore the tactical and operational learnings of the latest warfare or technological advancements.
Several military cultures, like that of the U.S. and Britain, view the past as irrelevant to the future of warfare. Particularly, the American air forces have been largely focused on the assumption that the study of past military experiences is not that useful in the preparation of a grand, technology-motivated warfare. These military cultures encounter difficulties in making valuable innovations in times of peace and an especially difficult time adjusting to the actual circumstances of war. One example is the unsuccessful attempt of the U.S. Eighth Air Force to develop long-range auxiliary combatants, in spite of massive damages to its bombers in 1943.This illustrates the clear damaging impact of military culture.
Bibliography
Douhet, Giulio. “Aerial Warfare.” In The Command of the Air, 49-61. USAF Warrior Studies, Office of Air Force History. Washington, DC, 1983.
Kuehn, John T. “Perspectives from Great Britain, Japan, and Germany.” Excerpt from The Influence of Naval Arms Limitation on U.S. Naval Innovation During the Interwar Period, 1921-1937, ch. 8, 263-88. PhD diss., Kansas State University, 2007.
Murray, Williamson and Allan Millett. Military Innovation in the Interwar Period. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
