Ritualisierte Kriegsführung - Reale Kriegsführung

[Quintus Fabius]

Ein interessantes Buch in diesem Kontext:

On the Psychology of Military Incompetence by Norman F. Dixon

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picks out some common characteristics of military incompetence, for example:

-A fundamental conservatism and clinging to outworn tradition, as well as an inability to profit from past experience.
-A tendency to reject, suppress or ignore information which is unpalatable or conflicts with pre-conceptions.
-A tendency to under-estimate the enemy and over-estimate the capabilities of one ’ s own side.
An undue readiness to find scapegoats and suppress news about military setbacks.
-A predilection for frontal assaults and the belief in brute force rather than the use of surprises or ruses.
-Indecisiveness and a general abdication from the role of a leader.
-A failure to exploit a situation due to the lack of aggressiveness.

There are obviously other reasons for failure in war, such as the lack of training, technological inferiority, the lack of proper intelligence equipment, failure of logistical support, ineffective flow of information and communication as well as the destruction of morale. However, those factors are external to the leader, whereas military incompetence is an inherent fault in military leadership. All else being equal, a well-equipped, well-trained fighting force will be made ineffective by the presence of an incompetent leader, and no amount of military intelligence, regardless of how accurate and timely it is, will be used effectively by an incompetent general. Therefore it is clear that a military leader is one of the most important force multipliers of any military organisation.

Und dazu braucht er Handlungsfreiheit durch 1 die Politiker und 2 durch die kulturelle Prägung und insbesondere den zweiten Punkt will ich hervor heben. Die uns führen sind ja über lange Jahre hinweg in diese Position gekommen und daher auf eine bestimmte Weise sozialisiert und kulturell geprägt worden.

Diese kulturelle Prägung durch den Cursus Honorum ist das größte Problem der meisten Armeen.

The Organisation as the Source of Incompetence

Dr Dixon goes on to postulate that it is the military organisation that contains the potential to create incompetent leadership or to promote incompetent persons to positions of great power and responsibility. He lists several characteristics and values which the military holds in high esteem and strives to achieve, as well as their negative consequences. Among these are:

-Uniformity, to the extent of oppressive conformity and the crushing of individual thoughts and the devaluation of initiative.
-Hierarchy and the importance of proper authority, to the extent of a fear to report bad news to superiors, the rejection of suggestions or corrections from the lower ranks, and hostility towards those of lower rank who initiate action without permission, however effective or necessary the action was.
-A love of regularity and regimentation and an inability to think outside of drill.
-The fact that ambitious and achievement-oriented officers are highly esteemed and respected in the military, so much so that self-serving and vainglorious officers are sometimes promoted to high leadership, with disastrous consequences.

Administrative incompetence refers to the inability of an organisation as a whole to adapt to change and innovation as well as the inability of an organisation to learn from past mistakes. This bureaucratic inefficiency is not caused by any one person, but by organisational culture as a whole.