History and Analysis of Operations Other Than War

Fall 2002

PUBP750; ITRN701; HIST615

Tuesday, 19.20-22.00

Room 256, Arlington Campus

Instructor: E. P. Visco

 

Syllabus

 

This course examines the roles and activities of military forces in carrying out missions unrelated to war. Such activities are referred to by a variety of names: contingency operations, operations other than war, stability and support operations, and others; the names change, but the activities do not. And that is one of the considerations of the course. Two widely held beliefs are explored in the course. The first is that the mission of armed forces, with principal emphasis on the forces of the United States, is to fight and win the nation's wars. The second belief is that there is something new and perhaps unique about US recent operations other than war, particularly peace support operations, when compared to operations during the late 18th, the 19th and first half of the 20th centuries. The scope of the course is both geographical and temporal.

 

For coherency, the sequence of the course will follow the chronology described by Sweeney (Jerry K. Sweeney, ed., A Handbook of American Military History From the Revolutionary War to the Present, Westview Press, 1996), amended by the instructor. That chronology is:

 

·        The Building Period: 1775-1815

·        The Institutional Period: 1816-1865

·        The Reform Period: 1866-1914

·        The Unsettled Period: 1915-1941

·        The Global Period: 1942-1963

·        The Uncertain Period: 1964-1994

·        The Undefined Period: 1995-present

 

Each of the periods will provide one or more operations (cases) for seminar sessions; readings will be assigned so that students will be prepared to engage in discussions well-informed about the basic features of each case. Access to many sources, including the world-wide web, is encouraged as there are no full-fledged authoritative single sources for the cases. Students will be asked to lead case discussions. The history of the operations will be used to provide bases for examining the two widely held beliefs. The military operations will be assessed in terms of ‘mini-methods’ suggested by Neustadt and May (see texts, below). The mini-methods comprise a qualitative analytic structure as a technique for drawing observations, conclusions and possibly recommendations from past operations to apply to present and future operations. In addition, the assessments of the historical operations will include consideration of consequences—intended and unintended.

 

Alternative analytic structures may be considered during the course; students will be encouraged to suggest processes that may be adapted to analysis of particular cases or operations. One possible structure consists of dissecting the military operations according to the following:

 

·        Mission and objectives (risk assessment? understood? communicated? feasible?)

·        Plan (process and product; risk assessment?)

·        Preparation (logistics, people, other; sufficient? timely?)

·        Deployment and movement

·        Operations and actions (related to mission; documentation?)

·        Mission completion (measures of performance; measures of effectiveness; exit criteria?)

·        Re-deployment (re-assignment; release of people and materiél)

·        Stand-down (documentation?).

 

An independent student paper will be required. The paper will compare an operation from the 18th, 19th or first half of the 20th century with an operation from the second half of the 20th century. The desired analytic framework used for the comparison is the Neustadt and May mini-methods process. Alternative analytic processes may be used with permission of the instructor but the benefits of the alternatives must be demonstrated by the students to the satisfaction of the instructor. The paper will follow the standards of graduate student effort but no specific format is dictated. The needs of the topic suggest that the size will be not less than 10 pages, but length is not a critical evaluation characteristic. Students will brief their papers at the penultimate and final sessions of the class; each briefing should be designed to be presented in 20 minutes with five additional minutes available for questions. Viewgraphs or computer slide show charts are preferred media for the briefings. The paper will represent the final examination in the course.

 

A mid-term "take home" examination will be required.

 

Course grades will be determined by combining student accomplishments in four categories: 1. The mid-term examination (20%); 2. Class participation (25%); 3. The major paper (45%); 4. Briefing (10%).

 

University Required Comment on Plagiarism

All work must be your own. Inappropriate use of the work of others without attribution is plagiarism and a George Mason University Honor Code violation punishable by expulsion from the University. All students should familiarize themselves with this honor code provision (http://www.gmu.edu/facstaff/handbook/aD.html). To guard against plagiarism and to treat students equitably, written work may be checked against existing published materials or digital data bases available through various plagiarism detection services. Accordingly materials submitted to all courses must be available in electronic format.

 

 

NOTE: There will be no class at the first scheduled date (27 August 2002); the instructor will be participating in a symposium in England. The first assignment, to be completed for the class session on 3 September, is to read:

·        Dunlap’s paper, “The Origins of the American Military Coup of 2012”;

·        Neustadt and May, “Preface” and Chapters 1 and 2;

·        Boot, “Preface”; and

·        be prepared to discuss the material at the session on 3 September.

 

Required Texts:

 

Andrew J. Birtle, U.S. Army Counterinsurgency and Contingency Operations Doctrine 1860-1941, Center of Military History, US Army, Washington, DC, 1998. [Federal Stock Number: 008-029-00337-6]

 

Max Boot, The Savage Wars of Peace. Small Wars and the Rise of American Power, Basic Books, 2002.

 

Charles J. Dunlap, Jr, “The Origins of the American Military Coup of 2112,” Parameters, US Army War College Quarterly, Vol. XXII, No. 4 (Winter 1992-93). [to be made available by the University].

 

Richard E. Neustadt and Ernest R. May, Thinking in Time. The Uses of History for Decision Makers, The Free Press, 1986.

 

Other References of Interest:

 

Kenneth Allard, Somalia Operations: Lessons Learned, Institute for National Strategic Studies, National Defense University Press, January 1995 [publications of the NDU can often be obtained free by calling the Press; otherwise, they are available from the Government Printing Office].

 

Antonia Handler Chayes and George T. Raach, eds., Peace Operations. Developing An American Strategy, Institute for National Strategic Studies, National Defense University Press, October 1995.

 

Robert W. Coakley, The Role of Federal Military Forces in Domestic Disorders, 1789-1878, Center of Military History, US Army, Washington, DC, 1988. [CMH publications are available from the Government Printing Office; orders can be placed on-line through the Federal Government's Web pages. The Federal Stock Number for this book is: 008-029-00167-5]

 

Tom Czerwinski, Coping with the Bounds. Speculations on Nonlinearity in Military Affairs, Institute for National Strategic Studies, National Defense University Press, 1998 [probable the most understandable, to date, exposition of the insufficiency of linear thinking for dealing with military analysis and the need for a focus on complex adaptive systems as the next step in the progression. [The book can be obtained from CCRP Publications Distribution Center, c/o Evidence Based Research, Inc., 1595 Spring Hill Road, Suite 250, Vienna, VA 22182].

 

Hans Delbrück, History of the Art of War (Volume I, Warfare in Antiquity; Volume II, The Barbarian Invasions; Volume III, Medieval Warfare; Volume IV, The Dawn of Modern Warfare), University of Nebraska Press, English language edition 1975 (first published in 1900).

 

Clayton D. Laurie and Ronald H. Cole, The Role of Federal Military Forces in Domestic Disorders, 1877-1945, Center of Military History, US Army, Washington, DC, 1997. [Stock Number: 008-029-00333-3]

 

Senator Sam Nunn, Domestic Missions for the Armed Forces, Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College, February 1993 [presented at the Fourth Annual Strategy Conference of the Army War College; SSI can be contacted at 717-245-3376].

 

Frank N. Schubert, ed., The Nation Builders. A Sesquicentennial History of the Corps of Topographical Engineers. 1838-1863, Office of History, US Army Corps of Engineers, 1988 [May not be easily found; look to someone in the Army to get a copy, perhaps].

 

Frank N. Schubert, Building Air Bases in the Negev. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Israel, 1979-1982, US Army Center of Military History, 1992 [The book is available from the Government Printing Office].

 

Larry Wentz, contributing editor, Lessons From Bosnia: The IFOR Experience, Institute for National Strategic Studies, National Defense University Press, 1977. [The book should be available from the CCRP Publications Distribution Center, above].