The Attritionist Letters, volleys in the long war for control of US military doctrine

Summary:   Key points of military history are marked by debates among soldiers, usually invisible to the public but affecting the course of nations.  Such a debate is underway now about the doctrines by which we wage the long war against jihadists and their allies.  With the permission of the the Marine Corps Association (publisher of the Marine Corps Gazette, one of the finest of military journals), we’re bringing to public a series of entertaining but powerful vollies in that debate:  the Attritionist Letters.  This is an introduction to the series.  Letters will go up tomorrow and weekly thereafter.  The MCA also invited us to post on their new blog.   Comments are on for this series.

C.S. Lewis first published the 31 The Screwtape Letters in The Guardian from May through November 1941.  They are letters from Screwtape (a senior demon) to his nephew Wormwood (a novice tempter).  They discuss the moral context behind the wars then shaking the world, which are a manifestation (or perhaps an echo) of the larger war between good and evil.   They show that fallen angels (from low-level tempters up to Satan) are components of a bureaucracy driven by the personal needs of its participants as much as its ideology and purpose.  The result is often futility in action (pitiful under other circumstances, but an elment of their damnation).

The Letters entertain us by mocking evil, much as the passion plays did for people in the Middle Ages.  More importantly they show how the mundane decisions of our daily lives have embedded in them vital moral choices.

During the past year the Marine Corps Gazette has published the “Attritionist Letters”, written by junior officers protesting the dominance of second generation military thinking (i.e., French doctrines of methodical battle) to a 4th generational world — doctrines successful during the first half of the 20th century but unsuited for the new millennium.   As seen in our defeats in Vietnam and Iraq, and lack of success so far in Afghanistan.  Like the Screwtape Letters, they describe a conflict within a large organization during wartime — in which the internal struggle shapes the external war.

“All wars ought to be methodical, because every war ought to be conducted according to the rules and principles of military art …”
— Napoleon, From volume IV of The History of the captivity of Napoleon at St. Helena by Comte de Charles-Tristan Montholon (his executor)

Like Lewis’ book, these Letters entertain through mockery, but contain a serious critique of our military doctrines.  As insurgents fighting the established order, they place their careers at risk.  Accordingly the Gazette’s Editor has published these anonymously (for more about this, see section 6a of this website’s authors page).

Both sets of Letters describe a conflict in which the ruling forces have overwhelming superiority.  Both conflicts are fought for high stakes, and fought in the minds of individuals.  Unlike Lewis, however, our officers (and America) cannot count on an eternal and omnipotent power to produce eventual victory.  Our fate lies in our hands.

“The best way to drive out the devil, is to despise him and call on Christ, for he cannot bear that.
— Martin Luther, from The life and letters of Martin Luther by Preserved Smith (1911) — misquoted by Lewis in the preface

“Some folk have been clearly rid of such pestilent fancies with very full contempt of them, making a cross upon their hearts and bidding the devil avaunt. And sometimes they laugh him to scorn too, and then turn their mind unto some other matter. And when the devil hath seen that they have set so little by him, after certain essays, made in such times as he thought most fitting, he hath given that temptation quite over. And this he doth not only because the proud spirit cannot endure to be mocked …”
— Sir Thomas Moore, chapter 16 of A Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation (1534)

The Letters, posted on the FM website

1. Attritionist Letter #1 – the tides turn, turning the USMC back from the future?
2. Attritionist Letter #2 — our military seeks to retreat from the future into the past

For more information

(a)  Text of The Screwtape Letters by C. S. Lewis.

(b)  Links to all of The Attritionist Letters, posted at The Marine Corps Gazette.

(c)  For other posts on this topic see these FM Reference pages:

• Military and strategic theory
• America’s national defense strategy and military

(d)  Some posts about the debate about military doctrine for the long war:

1. A solution to 4GW — the introduction, 12 March 2008
2. The US Army brings us back to the future, returning to WWI’s “cult of the offense”, 13 February 2009
3. Our tactics are an obstacle to victory in the Long War, as the Darwinian Ratchet works against us, 19 April 2011 – A serious side-effect of attritionist methods

(e)  Posts about the training of officers:

1. Recommended reading: transforming the Army, the hard way, 15 January 2008 — Don Vandergriff, at the cutting edge of this struggle
2. 4GW: A solution of the third kind – Vandergriff is one of the few implementing real solutions.
3. About military leaders in the 21st century: “Theirs Is to Reason Why”, 1 July 2010
4. Preface to Manning the Future Legions of the United States: Finding and Developing Tomorrow’s Centurions, 16 July 2010
5. Training of officers, a key step for the forging of an effective military force, 17 July 2010
6. Dragging American Military Culture into the 21st Century, 13 August 2010
7. Building a new generation of visionary leaders for the US military, 30 September 2010

(f)  Posts about our senior generals:

1. The Core Competence of America’s Military Leaders, 27 May 2008
2. The moral courage of our senior generals, or their lack of it, 3 July 2008
3. Generals read “Ender’s Game” and see their vision of the future Marine Corps, 7 September 2010
4. Our growing domestic insurgency: revolt of the generals, 6 October 2010

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