Simple McMaster misquote of me--at least--and inaccurate portrayal of Art Cebrowski's thinking as it evolved

First, my thanks to Robert Bradford for the heads up.

Here's the H.R. McMaster piece in World Affairs Journal, and here's the quote attributed to Cebrowski and me from January 2003:

As with Graduated Pressure's premise that limited attacks would alter enemy behavior, the belief that surveillance and information technology would permit rapid decisive operations became a surrogate for strategic coherence during the run-up to the Iraq invasion, disconnecting war planning from war's political goals. The late Admiral Arthur Cebrowski and his then-assistant Dr. Thomas Barnett wrote in January 2003, "When 50% of something important to the enemy is destroyed at the outset, so is his strategy. That stops wars--which is what network centric warfare is all about." But this gets things exactly backward: the elevation of tactical capabilities to the level of strategy divorces the tactical employment of forces from their strategic objectives.

Turns out Art and I did co-write an article in January 2003 called, "The American Way of War" for Proceedings. The problem is, that sentence appears nowhere in the piece. It is the only article I ever co-wrote with Art Cebrowski.

The odder thing, Art and I actually argue for the same sensibility that McMaster argues for in his piece.

Look at our conclusions about the American way of war and tell me these aren't sensible bits for Iraq and Afghanistan--as in, hardly the unblinking belief in technology:

Accordingly, the emerging American Way of War speaks to a future military force that features more:

-->Special operations-like forces whose easier insertion and extensive local knowledge will give them greater power and utility than large formations deploying from remote locations

-->Forces capable of applying information-age techniques and technologies to urban warfare, else we will not deny the enemy his sanctuary

-->Surveillance-oriented forces to counter weapons of mass destruction, else unambiguous warning will come too late

-->Concepts of "jointness" that extend down through the tactical level of war

-->Interagency capabilities for nation building and constabulary operations, lest our elite forces get stuck in one place when needed in another

-->Adjustments in force structure and posture in consideration of the growing homeland security roles of the Coast Guard, the National Guard, the Air National Guard, and the Reserves.

I don't doubt that Art may have written those words with somebody. It just wasn't me, and McMaster needs to correct his mistake or show me where I'm wrong in asserting his mistake. Because when I Google the quote, it comes up from Art's famous article with John Garstka in Proceedings in January 1998: "Network-Centric Warfare: Its Origin and Future."

So while McMaster may be correct in painting the 1998 Art Cebrowski with having his head up his rear regarding what Iraq and Afghanistan ultimately turned out to be, he's incorrect in painting 2003 Art Cebrowski with the same brush. So I'm saying this: using the old quote from 1998 to tar Cebrowski and mistakenly citing it as occurring in Jan 2003 calls the entire citation's goal in question--i.e., making Art seem like some NCW dinosaur clueless about what was coming down the pike. The piece he co-writes with me suggests that his views had evolved considerably by 2003. So if McMaster wants to tar somebody on "shock and awe," I will argue that he's patently wrong to do so with me (obviously), but also largely wrong in trying to do so with Cebrowski.

On the subject of Network-Centric Warfare, I am famous for one article, tellingly enough entitled, "The Seven Deadly Sins of Network Warfare," which--coincidentally enough, I wrote in opposition to Art and John's piece. Check out the list and tell me how my unrealistic belief in technology blinds me to the reality of the current age:

1. Lust
NCW Longs for an Enemy Worthy of Its Technological Prowess

2. Sloth
NCW Slows the U.S. Military's Adaptation to a MOOTW World [MOOTW refers to Military Operations Other Than War--to include nation-building, postconflict stabilization and reconstruction ops, and counterinsurgency]

3. Avarice
NCW Favors the Many and Cheap; the U.S. Military Prefers the Few and Costly

4. Pride
NCW's Lock-Out Strategies Resurrect Old Myths about Strategic Bombing [If anything, I make the case here against shock-and-awe just as strongly as McMaster does in his piece]

5. Anger
NCW's Speed-of-Command Philosophy Can Push Us into Shooting First and Asking Questions Later

6. Envy
NCW Covets the Business World's Self-Synchronization

7. Gluttony
NCW's Common Operating PictureCould Lead to Information Overload

McMaster is a smart guy and a good scholar. This strikes me as a simple mistake, but it's one he should correct immediately, because it identifies me with a view of warfare that is the exact opposite of what I've been arguing for my entire career.

NOTE: We made the Journal aware of the mistake and its editors promised to fix the online version, so expect the text on their site to change as a result. Of course, the print version of the journal will be wrong and unfixable and the one that gets catalogued in libraries. Even with the change, though, I think McMaster is guilty of slaying a straw man by using a 1998 quote that's arguably taken out of context (meaning, Art and Garstka weren't talking an Iraq scenario but were dreaming in the direction of a near-peer competitor--a completely different subject). So even with the correction, I think McMaster makes a bad choice in targets here.

Comments

[Suzannah Sennetti]

Tom -- I agree. I'm sorry. You deserve better.