[Granville-Hough] 6 Sep 2009 - Ultimate Logic of War

[Trustees for Granville W. Hough]

     I was a nuclear effects officer in the Army, and I had many interesting
discussions with my fellow officers in the Chemical Corps.  My approach
was that war as we practiced it in WWI and WWII and since was insane.  We
destroyed everything and had to use huge resources to rebuild.  My
question was simple: Why not use chemical and biological agents, and
just destroy the people and keep the infrastructure intact?
If the object of war is to gain the enemy's land and resources, and a
lot of history tells me that it is, why destroy them in the gaining?
Dick Cheney was merely echoing conventional wisdom when he spear-headed
the focus of war from Afghanistan to Iraq.  There was nothing we really
wanted in Afghanistan, but Iraq had oil.  So - just forget Afghanistan
and conjure up some rationale for attacking Iraq.

     I studied weather patterns at the Industrial College and proposed
how weather flows could be used to move the neutralizing agents over the
enemy territory, eliminating them but saving our own forces.  No uses of
nuclear weapons or even assault artillery, no destruction of
infrastructure.  Everyone was caricatured in our fun yearbook for some
aspect of their year, so I was shown as an Indian rain dancer.  My own
conclusion was that the weather flow approach could be used but it was
extremely dangerous and error-prone.  What the SFC states is essentially
correct in the micro sense.  But the approach could still be used to
neutralize oilfields, or even to eliminate the whole population of
Bagdad, though it might take out neighbors right or left, dependent on
which way the wind was blowing.

     Needless to say, my approach was not considered moral.  It's OK to
kill with bayonets, rifles, bombs, land mines, nuclear blasts, but
immoral to use
painless and lethal gas or biological agents.  I never heard a single
person express concern about the use of earth's resources to rebuild
infrastructure we destroyed.  One factor in my retirement was that my
views on the logic of war were so far out that there was no one with me.

	(I suppose one of the exercises I found most revolting was bayonet
practice, an early part of cadet training at West Point.  As the mission
of infantry was to close with the enemy and kill him or her on the
ground, the most practical training was bayonet practice, where we had
straw dummies on the ground to receive the thrusts, given while we were
yelling at the top of our lungs. This we were to install in the minds of
our soldiers - the desire to find that enemy and kill him or her as
quickly as possible.)

     Keep the essay around for future use. From Granville, an unwitting
graduate of West Point, of the Artillery School, Fort Leavenworth
Combined Arms College, Industrial College of the Armed Forces, and the
Air War College.