Edward M. Coffman, "The Duality of the American Military Tradition: A Commentary," Journal of Military History 64 (October 2000): 967-80.
This essay sketches the separate military traditions that developed over the years throughout the interwoven evolutions of the U.S. militia/ National Guard and the Regular Army. Based firmly in the colonial years and the necessity for large numbers of civilians turned temporary soldiers in wartime, the citizen-soldier tradition has dominated, but the regulars have their own tradition which was built up particularly in the Mexican War and maintained through West Point and the various regiments since then. Since World War II, the peacetime citizen-soldiers have come under increasing federal dominance.
Derek Croxton, "'The Prosperity of Arms Is Never Continual': Military Intelligence, Surprise, and Diplomacy in 1640s Germany," Journal of Military History 64 (October 2000): 6811004.
This essay explains why surprise played an unusually large role in the 1640s. At the Strategic level, the scanty security of military plans and the clumsy pace of armies made surprise rare and ineffective. At the tactical level, however, armies consistently failed to keep an adequate watch, and were consequently defeated in detail. As a result, French strategists and statesmen came to view war as extremely hazardous-probably even more than it actually was-and they accordingly sought to make peace more ardently than their superior material position would otherwise have indicated. The conterintuitive result is that a matter of the smallest tactical detail had an effect on the peace negotiations.
Stephen E. Bower, "The Theology of the Battlefield: William Tecumseh Sherman and the U.S. Civil War," Journal of Military History 64 (October 2000): 100534.
This essay describes the civil religion of U.S. General William Tecumseh Sherman and how it provided both a meaning to the Civil War and a rationale for the way he fought it. For Sherman, the Civil War was a religious war, fought for religious reasons. As the war progressed, he theologized about the American social and political order and how the violence of the battlefield related to it. Other scholars have rightly pointed to Sherman's life-long aversion to organized religion, but in doing so they have either ignored or overlooked his religious view of the world and how it influenced his understanding of events and the part he played in directing them.
Harold R. Winton, "Toward an American Philosophy of Command," Journal of Military History 64 (October 2000): 103560.
This essay examines the development of the United States Army's philosophy of command during the period between World Wars I and II. It does so by surveying instruction in the art of command given at the Command and General Staff School and the Army War College during the interwar era. The study concludes that the Army worked out a reasonably coherent, though not fully mature, construct of command during this period. The principal ingredients of this philosophy were singleness of responsibility, strength of will, intellectual acumen to assess accurately and deal effectively with complex situations, appreciation for terrain, care for subordinates, celerity of action, and ability to endure privation.
David K. Yelton, "'Ein Volk Steht Auf': The German Volkssaurm and Nazi Strategy, 194445," Journal of Military History 64 (October 2000): 106184.
Germany's leadership intended the Volkssturm, a national militia founded in September 1944, to play a dual role. Militarily, the force would enable the Wehrmacht to mobilize additional troops for the defense of every inhabited place in Germany. Such extensive, bitter fighting would, the Nazis reckoned, stalemate the war, raise Allied casualties, and ultimately collapse the morale of the supposedly inferior Allied peoples. A prerequisite to this strategy would be that all Germans, civilian and military, would have to be imbued with a fanatical will to resist. Thus, the Volkssturm's most critical duty was the psychological mobilization of the German home front. Overall, this essay argues that the creation of Volkssturm reveals how the Reich's leadership began implementing a coherent defense strategy in the autumn of 1944, and that Nazi ideological preconceptions continued to shape German strategy even in the war's final months.
Gian P. Gentile, "Shaping the Past Battlefield, 'For the Future': The United States Strategic Bombing Survey's Evaluation of the American Air War Against Japan," Journal of Military History 64 (October 2000): 10851112.
The Pacific portion of the United States Strategic Bombing Survey was different, and more complicated, than its evaluation of U.S. air power in Europe. Since the publication of its reports from the Pacific in 1946, the United States Strategic Bombing Survey has taken on the aura of a primary source that contains the "truth" about the American air war against Japan. A common conception of air power shared by Survey analysts and the bitter interservice rivalry between the Army Air Forces and the Navy shaped the "truth" that would emerge on the published pages of the Strategic Bombing Survey's Pacific reports.
Willliam M. Donnelly, "Thunderbirds in Korea: The U.S. 45th Infantry Division, 19501952," Journal of Military History 64 (October 2000): 11131139.
The U.S. National Guard and the Regular Army have often disagreed strongly about the ability of Guard officers to prepare large, combined arms units and then lead them in combat. Mobilized in September 1950, Oklahoma's 45th (Thunderbird) Infantry Division was one of only two Guard divisions deployed to the combat zone during the Korean War, arriving there in December 1951. While Guardsmen comprised only about 22 percent of the 45th strength, they held the great majority of senior positions and were sprinkled throughout the division; thus, its performance during this period can be judged as a Guard unit. Guard units in June 1950 were cadré formations and during the postmobilization training program, the 45th had to overcome many obstacles, most not of its own making, including deployment to Japan just five months after mobilization. The 45th arrived in Korea as the war's second phase congealed into a war of posts. In Korea, while the Thunderbirds adapted well to many conditions not covered by the Army's training program, the 45th never reached the levels of performace desired by its senior officers or by senior Regulars in Eighth Army. The division's shortcomings were common in other American divisions during this period, however, suggesting that the conditions of the war's second phase, rather than inadequate performace by Guard officers, had the greatest influence on unit performance.