Air University Review, July-August 1985
The intellectual is engagé––he is pledged, committed, enlisted. What everyone is willing to admit, namely that ideas and abstractions are of signal importance in human life, he imperatively feels.
Richard Hofstadter, Anti-Intellectualism
in American Life, p. 28.
FROM the time of Sun Tzu to our own days, students of war have emphasized the importance of intangible factors in war. The most significant of these to my way of thinking is an intellectually superior officer corps, and for the past thirty months, this view has guided my efforts as editor of the Review.
The importance of intellectual superiority derives from the fundamental role of ideas in warfare. Before a weapon is a piece of hardware, it is first an idea in a man's mind; before a weapon can be effectively used, someone has to develop a concept to guide its application . The tank began as an idea in the mind of Lieutenant Colonel E. D. Swinton, whose creative insight first brought together the Holt caterpillar tractor, armor, and guns. Only with J. F. C. Fuller's Plan 1919 did military professionals begin to find the ideas that would integrate the tank effectively into military operations. These ideas would eventually form the basis of Germany's blitzkreig warfare, which riveted world attention on Poland, France, and then Russia in the opening days of World War II.
Although ideas are crucial to success in war, they are like fragile flowers. They must have the proper environment if they are to develop and flourish. Such an environment must include several essential ingredients.
For one thing, there must be a critical mass of officers who are intensely interested in ideas and who stay abreast of defense debates by reading professional books and journals regularly. A natural extension of their interest is a desire to contribute their own views to the formal discussion of issues by writing articles and book reviews and by commenting on the ideas of others. Members of this critical mass will know one another and maintain contact through an informal network, exchanging ideas and bringing important new books and articles to the attention of others in the network.
The development and survival of this critical mass are radically dependent on the encouragement that its members receive from top leadership. All too often, this support is missing in the American military. This lack of support is symbolized by Rear Admiral F. M. Ramsay's famous endorsement on an unfavorable fitness report on Alfred Thayer Mahan: "It is not the business of a Naval officer to write books." (Robert Heinl, Dictionary of Military and Naval Quotations, p. 178)
An important part of this encouragement by senior leaders is ensuring that officers are free to publish their views, unhampered by an overly restrictive security and policy review system. No responsible officer would argue with a reasonable review to see that a manuscript does not contain classified information, but a manuscript should not be denied clearance just because an anonymous staff officer decides that its content is "contrary to policy," inaccurate, "misleading," or incompatible with his own views.
How does the Air Force rate with regard to its intellectual environment? In my opinion the number of intellectually active officers in the Air Force is below what is needed to achieve critical mass. Ask yourself this: Who are the leading thinkers in today's Air Force? Name an Air Force officer with a national reputation based on published works. Can you think of an officer who has established an Air Force-wide reputation as an air power theorist?
A major reason for the shortage of intellectually oriented officers is that the climate within the Air Force is not conducive to the free and open investigation of ideas. Several years ago, an editor of Air Force Magazine described our situation by saying that the Air Force is the most thin-skinned of all the services. Today, we see this extreme sensitivity to criticism reflected in the Air Force policy that requires virtually every article intended for publication to pass through a review process that checks for conformance to policy as well as to ensure that manuscripts intended for publication contain no classified information. Too frequently, I have seen articles that have critical things to say about some situation or policy denied clearance because an anonymous staff officer decided that the article did not conform to Air Force policy or presented a position the reviewing officer considered contrary to fact, a judgment based as much on the reviewing officer's personal perceptions as on some set of objective criteria.
Manuscripts "revised" through the policy and security review process or denied publication altogether serve as evidence that blue-suit thinkers are not receiving all the support they need if they are to flourish and serve as a wellspring of new, worthwhile ideas. Further dampening intellectual enthusiasm is the widely held (and unfortunately accurate) perception in the officer corps that those who spend too much of their Air Force career in intellectually oriented assignments instead of the "real Air Force" tend to reduce their opportunities for promotion.
How might the Air Force improve the climate for its thinkers? No single change will enhance the situation so decisively that an intellectually superior officer corps will appear instantaneously, but several significant shifts in emphasis and policy offer promise for long-term, continuous improvement.
The obvious, potentially most fruitful solution is to improve the promotion potential associated with academic positions in the Air Force. We must get away from a situation where one short tour in academe is all that an officer can afford if he is to remain competitive for promotion. It takes about five years for an individual to develop the research base and intellectual skills required to make a meaningful contribution to any intellectual debate. Encouraging officers to abandon academic pursuits after one tour tends to cut them off from intellectual activities about the time they are ready to contribute in some significant way to the consideration of defense issues.
A second measure that must be taken is to reform the security and policy review process so that an article may not be denied clearance except on grounds that it contains classified information, Any other arrangement invites unwarranted restrictions on the free and open debate of defense issues. Such restrictions have a chilling effect on the thinking of the entire officer corps––an unproductive situation at a time when technology is changing rapidly and an innovative, intellectually active officer corps is a must in any service. The difficulties of getting critical, perhaps controversial papers cleared for public release are well known at all ranks throughout the Air Force. It is time for a change.
A third alteration that might prove productive would affect section eight on the front of the OER form, which is concerned with writing. I suggest that we make this section more meaningful by requiring a combination of publications in professional journals (letters to the editor, book reviews, and feature articles) for any officer who is given any one of the top two ratings. A rating in the top block would go only to officers who had published at least one feature article in a professional journal. Here is one way that Air Force leaders could say clearly to the officer corps that intellectual activity is an expected, vital part of professional performance.
While none of these measures will have an immediate effect on the intellectual quality of the officer corps, they should mark a significant step toward the goal of ensuring an intellectually superior officer for the Air Force, one of the most important ingredients of an air force that can outfly and outfight the air force of any potential enemy.
With this editorial, I pass the responsibility for the Review to a new editor, Major Earl H. Tilford, Jr., who has performed extremely well for the past four years as the Review's associate editor. Major Tilford is an intelligence officer and military historian with a Ph.D. from George Washington University. He is a leading expert on the Vietnam War who has devoted a significant amount of his time and energy to distilling lessons from that war and sharing his findings with others in the officer corps. I am confident that he will keep the Review in the forefront of the discussion of defense issues during his editorship.
D. R. B.
Disclaimer
The conclusions and opinions expressed in this document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression, academic environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air Force or the Air University.
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