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Andrew Ladi
Mrs. Smith
ERH 102
14 February, 2017
Humanities in Military Education
Military education has been founded in the sciences. Internationally, the German model
after the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71 proved that scientific observations of warfare with ideal
planning for their officer corps could overcome the French model of freelanced creative officer
thinking that many nations had based their officer corps off of. The sciences in military education
have always been important early on in the United States with the foundation of The United States
Military Academy in 1802 whose first superintendent, LTC Williams said, “we must always have
it in our view that our officers are to be men of science” (Zengerle, 1). Science, technology,
engineering and mathematics (STEM) started to become increasingly relevant after World War II
as more and more products became more technical. The sciences of STEM in military academia
were further expanded after World War II when, with the Cold War, a greater need was placed on
technical skills so that military officers may have better understanding of the technical elements
of warfare that were evolving at the time. What has been gained through STEM, not just at West
Point but involved with other formal avenues of military education, is that there has become an
officer corps that is bloated with the thinking of scientific analysis but lacking an understanding
of human nature. The recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have shown that a greater emphasis
needs to be placed on the humanities in military education so that future officers may be better
communicators, critical thinkers of unquantifiable data, and understanding of human nature.
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Liberal Arts encompasses a broad sector of studies. STEM focusses on narrow fields of
specialization that require masses of technical skills, professionalism and vocational work (Saxon,
436). The Liberal Arts focus on a broad education so that students may be better informed about
the world around them. This broad education is centered around the study of human nature and
how it effects the world around us. This means that classes are focused on history, phycology and
English. The study of the world makes possible the opportunity for students to make conclusions
of their work developing critical thinking skills. STEM does not emphasis this and their students
lack the ability to see how the world is connected beyond their field of expertise since their
education is narrowly focused to their discipline rather than being versatile for our complex world.
Military officers need to be better communicators in order to increase military efficiency
which can only occur through a study of the humanities. The world may be becoming more
technical but that means that issues are more complex. Wars themselves are becoming more
complex so officers need to be ready to deal with a range of issues on modern battlefields. In order
for leaders to work as a team and properly delegate authority they need to be able to communicate
clear messages. Ranger and Airborne school teach, “move, shoot, and communicate” (Zengerle,
1). Communication is a central skill of the humanities that teaches human relation. STEM does
not quantify the value of human relationships and so cannot teach the importance human
communication. The clarity of thought and expression of it can only be properly taught in the
softer disciplines, this being all the more important in battle.
Commanders lacking clear
communication can lose the day. A classic historical example is General Lee of the American
Civil War failing to clearly communicate his intention to his subordinate commander, General
Ewell, to take the remaining Union stronghold atop Commentary Ridge at the end of the first day
of the Battle of Gettysburg. General Lee left it up to General Ewell ‘if practical’ to take the Union
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position (America’s Civil War). General Lee is later credited as wanting General Ewell to take
the position (America’s Civil War). If Lee had clearly ordered Ewell according to his intentions,
then thousands of lives and supplies would have been saved for another fight on more favorable
terms for the Confederacy than what had occurred at the Battle of Gettysburg, it would have also
meant a Confederate victory at Gettysburg. General Lee was an Engineering student at West Point,
Humanities teach that if Lee had better understood his subordinate then he could have more
effectively communicated his feelings to Ewell, making him aware to his ambitions.
Communication continues to be critical in the modern world. Before the Surge in Iraq of 2007,
Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld was told about the deteriorating conditions of Iraq. His advisors
were calling for a new strategy but he would not listen and banned them from mentioning ‘Vietnam’
in his presence (Kaplan). This absence of communication lead to a breakdown of American
strategy in Iraq that would not be corrected until the Surge in 2007 lead by General Petraeus who
focused on a humanistic approach to fighting the insurgency in Iraq. His ideas could not have
gotten far without meetings and briefings of subordinates to convey his ideas so that they would
follow through with his strategy. General Petraeus is a student of the Liberal Arts and graduated
from the social sciences department at West Point which focusses on humanity studies. But
communication cannot occur without a reasoning through problems.
Military thinking needs cost-benefit analysis (Zengerle, 2) but there are non-qualitative
elements that need to be evaluated. These elements include moral, cultural, linguistic and
emotional factors that are not taken into account of by a defined scientific value. It takes an
understanding of phycology to properly engage with people like this. An officer needs these skills
to interact with the people around them and to understand their opponent. The modern conflicts
involving counter insurgency have shown that an increase need for people to understand linguistic
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and cultural differences in the societies the US is involved with are needed to win conflicts.
Without this understanding, our military will fair no better than it did in Vietnam. Officers act as
the mediators since they are in command. They lead the fight on the ground, as in Vietnam to ‘win
hearts and minds’ (Zengerle, 2). There were attempts to quantify human emotions in Vietnam by
senior army leadership that included utilizing the Hamlet Evaluation System (Zengerle, 2) which
color coded friendly and non-friendly villages in South Vietnam. This was to gage the success of
counter insurgent operations. It failed once the Tet Offensive occurred in 1968 which saw
hundreds of color coded villages, marked as friendly, turn enemy overnight. The Tet Offensive
made the Hamlet Evaluation System irrelevant. Further US armed forces attempted to gage
success by body count, a quantitative approach to the war but failed to understand the psychotically
leanings of civilians. The US continued to kill enemy combatants at high ratios throughout the
war but without winning heart and minds, the US army failed in Vietnam. The US army failed to
take into account the need for qualitative data, which the Liberal Arts deals with. During the Surge
of the 2007 Iraq War and later Surge in Afghanistan in late 2009, US Army General Petraeus took
command and emplaced a revamped counter insurgency strategy which was based off of his
personal education. He possessed a PhD in International Relations and his efforts included
transforming the Army officer corps to allow a greater emphasis on humanistic studies so that
junior officers would be better equipped with an understanding of human phycology. This allowed
young officers to better relate to locals and lead to an overall reduction of violence in Iraq by 50%
in the first two months of the strategy and by 40% in Afghanistan within the same timespan
(Kaplan). The strategy being based on humanities, which General Petraeus studied are based in
the Liberal Arts.
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Officers need to have an understanding of human nature. By understanding people, you
learn to understand the characteristics of war. War involves fighting people so all plans are made
around them. Human emotions are not quantifiable making it impossible for STEM to accurately
judge a situation. Humanistic studies would allow for this and present another avenue of creative
thinking to emerge that would revolve around people, not objects or ideas, as the center pieces of
theories. President Johnson during the Vietnam war emphasized the need for Liberal Arts in order
to win in Vietnam (Zengerle, 2). He wanted American advisors to be proficient in cultural and
linguistic studies of the region so that they could better relate to the Vietnamese. His desires may
not have been properly exercised but the later conflicts in the Middle East under General Petraeus’s
guidance called for the same strategy. Earlier on, more interpreters and cultural experts were
brought into the policy and strategy planning for American forces which helped curtail violence
in both conflict zones during the Surge’s (Kaplan). That was unlike in Vietnam where regional
experts were brought into strategic decision making too late, after the Tet Offensive. The Liberal
Arts were and continue to be pivotal to warfare since experts on the customs of locals could relate
to them and better defeat adversaries by understanding their fundamental nature. The broad
perspective of ideas could only be brought about by humanistic studies.
In the end humanities are needed in military education so that future officers may be better
communicators, critical thinkers of unquantifiable data, and understanding of human nature.
Formal military education and higher education today favors STEM for its technical fields of study.
That is needed in the military world to operate advanced weapon platforms ranging from stealth
fighters, drones, robots and nuclear missiles. It misses a point though and that is that individuals
have to make decisions about when and how to use these systems so that national security goals
can be reached. The broad instances and circumstances involved in the decision making requires
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a broad thinking mind that can analyze data and communicate their observations to others. These
skills cannot be taken for granted and are best taught by the Liberal Arts. They cannot be forgotten
in education let alone military education so that the United States Armed Forces may be best
prepared to fight the next war, not the last war.
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Works Cited
Kaplan, Fred. The Insurgents: David Petraeus and the Plot to Change the American Way of War.
Reprint ed. N.p.: Simon & Schuster, January 2014. Print.
Magazine, America's Civil War. "Confederate General Richard Ewell's Failure on the Heights."
Civil War Trust. Civil War Trust, n.d. Web. 13 Feb. 2017.
<http://www.civilwar.org/battlefields/gettysburg/gettysburg-history-articles/confederategeneral-richard.html>.
Saxon, Ken. "What Do You Do with a B.A. in History?" Argumentative Writing: A Rhetoric with
Reading Tenth (2016): 435-41. Print. Class Textbook
Zengerle, Joseph. "The U.S. Military is great on STEM. It should also be great on liberal arts. Why
officers should read Shakespeare, know history and understand psychology." The
Washington Post . N.p., n.d. Web. Class Handout