Ways of War

Question 1

What is John Grenier’s basic argument in The First Way of War?

Answer 1

That frontier warfare between 1607 and 1814 taught Americans to embrace a way of war that legitimized warfare against non-combatants and their resources

Question 2

Early Americans embraced the tactics and techniques of what style of warfare to engage in violent battles for conquest.

Answer 2

Petit Guerre.

Question 3

According to Grenier, what two styles of war did Americans forge together over centuries of conflict on the frontier?

Answer 3

Unlimited warfare and irregular warfare.

Question 4

Which historian does Grenier challenge most directly?

Answer 4

Russel Weigley

Question 5

How does Grenier challenge Weigley’s thesis about an American Way of War?

Answer 5

Grenier argues that war was focused on non-combatants, even as it embraced limited war - which Weigley argues was the first way of fighting before we gained the resources for unlimited war.

Question 6

What other two unresolved issues does Grenier hope to address with his book?

Answer 6

To explain violence of American-Indian conficts, and to argue that violence led to racism, not the other way around. He also wants to argue that this first way of war, not limited, became the preferred tool of conquest in later Indian conflicts.

Question 7

What is Russel Weigley’s argument in The American Way of War?

Answer 7

Once the US had enough wealth and set unlimited gains in war, it embarked on wars of anihhilation.

Question 8

What is the strategy of annihilation?

Answer 8

It seeks the destruction and overthrow of the enemy’s armed forces through battle and is pursued only when the nation involved has the means to do so (i.e. the economic, political, materiel, manpower, and technological base necessary).

Question 9

On which two thinkers does Wiegley rely?

Answer 9

Clausewitz and Delbruck.

Question 10

How does Weigley utilize Clausewitz?

Answer 10

Most heavily relies on his distinction between limited and unlimited war. Argues Sherman’s march to the sea epitomized American embrace of unlimited war.

Question 11

How does Weigley utilize Delbruck?

Answer 11

Delbruck argues for wars of anihhilation (erase an enemy’s military power) and attrition (erode an enemy’s power).

Question 12

What is Weigley’s line of demarcation between limited and unlimited warfare?

Answer 12

The Mexican-American War.

Question 13

What was Clausewitz’ role in interwar planning, per Weigley?

Answer 13

American soldiers and planners tried to use Clausewitz to make war more scientific, but overgeneralized his principles of the objective and the offensive, and so took the wrong lesson.

Question 14

What does Weigley have to say regarding small wars?

Answer 14

Nearly nothing, which is a major deficit of his work.

Question 15

What is Hans Van Wees’ main challenge to historians’ interpretation and use of hoplites and hoplite warfare?

Answer 15

Argues that the “pure citizen militia” never existed, whether in the classical or archaic age.

Question 16

How would Van Wees characterize those who fought wars in Ancient Greece?

Answer 16

Extremely mixed group: In Sparta it included helots, ex-helots, and allies. In Athens, it included slaves and resident aliens, and the hoplites were often either the leisured class or the working class.

Question 17

How does Van Wees question the ‘heroic-ness’ of Greek combat.

Answer 17

Argues often characterized, at least in the Iliad, as hit and run attacks, not giving warning, mockery, and corpse mutilation.

Question 18

What is Victor Davis Hanson’s basic argument in Carnage and Culture?

Answer 18

That there is a Western Way of War and through the modern day, it is the heir and descendant of Greek (and to an extent Roman) ways of fighting, especially the hoplite army. The Western Way of War, he thinks, will only become more effective and lethal.

Question 19

What does Hanson see as the characteristics of Greek warfare, and where did they come from?

Answer 19

Superior discipline and weapons, camaraderie of equals, individual initiative, tactical adaptation and flexibility, preference to use heavy infantry for shock tactics.

Question 20

According to Hanson, what has this way of waging war given the West?

Answer 20

Military superiority - namely, the ability to largely triumph over non-Western foes and to not suffer significant fatalities.

Question 21

What were the key factors of Western society that, per VDH, gave rise to this style of fighting?

Answer 21

Consensual government, equality among the middle classes, civilian audit of the military, and secularism.

Question 22

Does Hanson think cultural memory or institutional memory was lost during the Middle Ages?

Answer 22

Nope.

Question 23

What are Ralston’s main conclusions regarding the importation of European military tech and organization by non-Western powers?

Answer 23

That importation of a more European military entailed broader westernization, as the importing powers had to raise more funds, challenge vested military interests, that bureaucratic centralization often challenged local elites, militarization often prompted pushes for education. Ultimately, he argues, military reformers often became proponents of westernization.

Question 24

How does Ralston’s thesis challenge/expand previous arguments about European military power and westernization?

Answer 24

Ralston isn’t saying that westernization came about at gunpoint, as a result of European use for force, but rather attempts at implementation by the indigenous ruling elite.