The Postmodern Military: Armed Forces After the Cold War
Edited by Charles C. Moskos, John Allen Williams, and David R. Segal. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. 304 pp. Notes. Bib. Index. $29.95 ($26.95).
Reviewed by Captain Larry Seaquist, U.S. Navy (Retired)
Finally, a book by authors with something on their minds other than technology, analysts with a horizon that stretches beyond the Pentagon. It is a pleasure to turn to thinkers—18 of them in this case—able to delve into the ways in which military professionals and their institutions are changing, in different ways in different countries.
For years now, our post-Cold War reading diet has been confined to high-fat servings from the technology group. The shelf of recent military books overflows with breathless tales of a new, high-tech military (U.S. of course) engorged with "dominance": information dominance, maneuver dominance, and, certainly, ego dominance. Retired Admiral Bill Owens's recent effort, Lifting the Fog of War (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2000) stands out as a singularly disappointing example of this "revolution in military affairs" (RMA) puffery.
As originally envisioned by Andrew W. Marshall, the Pentagon parent of the RMA, the profound changes afoot in late 20th-century armed forces—changes that he expected to appear everywhere—would be most evident in altered military institutions and in changed professional thinking. However dazzling, the new information technologies would be mere enablers, not the revolution itself. Helpfully, The Postmodern Military lays a path toward these more fruitful investigations.
On this topic Charles Moskos, John Allen Williams, and David Segal definitely are the "go-to guys." The three of them lead the Inter-University Seminar on Armed Forces and Society. With its loose organization and eclectic interests, this is itself a postmodern structure: an international gathering of scholars and practitioners who pivot off a central interest in military sociology. (Full disclosure: I am a member.) The three coeditors have tapped their colleagues for chapters in this survey of trends in 12 different countries.
Moskos supplies the book's conceptual toolkit. His analysis of how the U.S. armed forces have changed across three eras is the framework for each of the other national surveys: a pre-Cold War/modern period stretching from 1900 to the end of World War 11; a Cold War/late-modern phase; and the current postmodern stage, which began in 1990. U.S. force structure, for example, evolved from the mass army of conscripts used in World War II through the large, professional all-volunteer army of the Cold War to the smaller professional army of today.
The dominant U.S. military professional, Moskos asserts, shifted from the "combat leader" of World War II to a Cold War "manager-technician" and on to a current "soldier-statesman/soldier-scholar" model. Here we discover one value of the book: it furnishes rocks we can toss at each other's ideas. Let me throw just one for practice. As much as I would like to see Moskos's forecast come true, there is little evidence of increasing political and academic sophistication among our senior officers. If anything, one can claim the opposite trend. Technical curricula dominate the Navy's Postgraduate School, and innocence about security strategy and the political calculus for the use of force seem almost a prerequisite for high command. The book's strength is that it lets us compare those issues with the dynamics in other armed forces.
Next door in Canada, we learn, the retreat from a homogenized uniservice back to separate land, air, and naval forces has been followed in our postmodern times with top-management "layering." A mostly military operational layer works under a corporate layer in Ottawa, where civilian and military officials infuse a business-planning climate. The Canadian trend toward a military that increasingly incorporates civilian norms is not unique. The book's international authors report new civil-military blends in many countries.
The book's most prominent thread is the search for a military raison d'etre in the absence of a big foreign threat. Some armies have adopted peacekeeping and stability operations as their core competencies. All seem to struggle with the attendant political and professional adjustments. The Dutch and the Canadians have undergone especially wrenching experiences in the aftermath of professional failures on peacekeeping missions in the Balkans and Somalia. In South Africa the profound changes after apartheid are yet in their early stages. In Israel, we learn, the army has shed some of its earlier, postmodern character as a citizen's military. This force, which we see on television these days more than any other, is by some measures becoming more of a traditional, warrior- and threat-centered institution of professionals, in contrast to the changes in many other countries.
In his thoughtful closing essay, Professor Williams urges us to study these other cases closely. "Decision makers in the U.S.," he admonishes, "make a grave mistake if they assume that experiences of other militaries are irrelevant." We may hope that military professionals and the new political leaders in Washington will take that advice as they plan the next stage in U.S. military history.
Morals Under the Gun: The Cardinal Virtues, Military Ethics, and American Society
James H. Toner. Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 2000. 215 pp. Notes. Bib. Index. $29.95 ($26.95).
Reviewed by Lieutenant Colonel Gary D. Solis, U.S. Marine Corps (Retired)
This is a provocative and interesting, but flawed, book written by an erudite and humane individual. Dr. James Toner, an award-winning professor of military ethics at the U.S. Air War College, presents compelling arguments for a higher moral state not only in military service but also in society generally. His arguments are that "moral life in America is `out of order"' and "we have abandoned our moral compass." His solution is adherence to four "cardinal virtues." One reads in vain for the source of these virtues, finally realizing that they are selected by Toner himself, albeit with guidance from the teachings of philosophic greats and biblical sources. They hardly are questionable—who can argue with wisdom, courage, temperance, and justice? Well, perhaps some would question temperance.
Toner notes society's loss of shame for that which was, not long ago, despicable behavior, our redefinition of deviancy to accept the unacceptable, and our rampant sexual promiscuity. While his effort to tie these ills to military service is weak, his point is well taken.
Even if one has sympathy for Toner's objectives, one may find this text difficult to accept, either as a philosophic vade mecum or as a guide to enlightenment and education. An impediment for some will be his constant references to the Bible. Proud to display his religion, he inveighs against, for example, abortion ("infanticide," "unwarranted homitide") while citing "God's eternal law," "traditional Christian morality," and "the supreme good, God Himself." Toner writes, "Although. . . my own views are shaped by my Christian moral inheritance ... I have always respected the diverse perspectives of my students." But could he be proof of his own later comment that "the danger of close-mindedness always lurks in the corridors of academe"? Some readers may not wish a specific religion urged upon them in the guise of military ethics.
Toner notes that military standards often are higher than those of civilian society, wisely warning that it still is not the military's place to proselytize the civilian community. Military officers simply must insist on the highest moral standards. He finds no difficulty in defining what constitutes a "moral course," but he spends pages debating the difficulties of disobeying illegal orders, and what a person "of ordinary sense and understanding" might be. But Toner understands both concepts very well. His example, My Lai, clarifies the meaning of illegal orders, and also that any soldier of ordinary sense and understanding must recognize the wrongfulness of killing unarmed, unresisting civilians.
Toner asks if it is moral to lie to Nazis seeking hidden Jews, deciding that it is. He briefly raises other fascinating and more difficult issues. Is a homicide under duress excusable? Might torture be acceptable in a "supreme emergency"? A driver, pinned in a flaming wreck, begs to be shot to escape burning. Should you do so? Can a submariner sink an enemy ship knowing there are innocent children on board? When does collateral damage become morally unacceptable? Could valorous pilots serving the Nazi cause be morally courageous men? "Dueling duties" and "double effect" are more than academic constructs, as illustrated in the book's several interesting case studies. Indeed, one wishes for greater depth in the discussion of these and other fascinating moral conundrums posed.
No doubt Toner is a good and righteous individual, but in this book he makes little distinction between morals and moralizing. Self-righteousness quickly wears thin. While it is easy to agree with virtually everything he advocates, less proselytizing would be preferable. Many readers would prefer to find their religion in church and their ethics in a more straightforward form. Robert Coles's recent book, Lives of Moral Leadership (New York: Random House, 2000), covers much of the same ground in a less judgmental manner. Here, Toner writes, "no one should be coerced by importunate religious people intent upon spreading the word." Doctor, heal thyself.
Encyclopedia of the Sea
Richard Ellis. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2000. 380 pp. Illustrations. Index. $35.00 ($31.50).
Reviewed by Don Walsh
Everyone knows that encyclopedias are reference books. That is what you do with them, refer. Heavy, ponderous, and information-packed, they are hardly something you would read as a leisure pursuit. These are books seemingly written by cloistered monks using an especially dense syntax. Very much needed when you need information, they do not go on the table next to your bed with your other nighttime reading.
Richard Ellis's Encyclopedia of the Sea is different. He is not a stuffy academician, but a well-known artist, author of ten previous books, and lecturer on sea subjects. A measure of Ellis's talent is that he did every one of the 450 illustrations in the encyclopedia, including 13 color paintings. There are approximately 1,900 entries here, from "Abalone" to "Zooxanthellae." But with 20,000 species of fish, 70 of whales, and 350 of sharks, there are a few you will not meet in this book.
Writing an encyclopedia for the first time must be a daunting task. Where do you start? What do you choose to include? Where does the author find authoritative information? Then there is the art of condensing complex things into a relatively few clear words, while ensuring that you have it right. Yet Ellis has done this; each entry is a gem of concise, accurate writing. His voice in the encyclopedia is that of the kindly old mariner telling sea stories. So a caution: while you might just be looking for some bit of information, you might get hooked. Then sometime later you will surface, trying to remember why you picked up the book in the first place.
Ellis's previous books have been mostly on things living in the sea, so it is not a surprise that the center of gravity of this one is oriented toward things biological. But there is more than just "critters"; there is a wealth of information here on ocean history, places, biographies, and other topics. And Ellis does go to sea. His voyages have taken him all over the world as writer, artist, and lecturer. I was fortunate to be with him on an Antarctic expedition in February 2000.
Whether you are a collector of books about the sea or simply are interested in the ocean, this book belongs on your essentials bookshelf. Even if you have no reference needs, you will enjoy reading through it in small bits. Get this one; you will be happy I recommended it to you.