Much to be learned in military history

One of the obvious lessons of history is that it is much easier to start a war than to predict how it will end.

But you have to study history, specifically military history, to learn that lesson. Too few ever do.

It is important to realize that those most responsible for starting a war, and even those who lead the fighting once it begins, may know few of the lessons that history so obviously provides.

In an uncertain world, we will unfortunately always make some wrong decisions. Those wrong decisions become “dumb” ones, however, when such mistakes could (and should) have been avoided.

For example, U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to bomb Iran reflects a general ignorance of such lessons. Future historians will regard this attack as one of the dumber decisions of a bizarre period in American history.

From the dawn of recorded history, leaders have started wars for any number of reasons they thought were good, only to have these wars end in disaster and death (often their own).

The First World War of 1914-1918 seemed to be little more than yet another struggle in European power politics, until it wasn’t. In four years, four empires were erased, and two others shattered beyond repair — empires, not nations or states. Into the power vacuum moved the United States and Japan, setting the stage for the next war to control the Pacific.

It was another year of dumb decisions in 1941. After the war between Japan and the U.S. was triggered by the surprise bombing of Pearl Harbor, Adolf Hitler declared war on the U.S., too — something he was not compelled to do. Having also just invaded his former ally, the Soviet Union, what could possibly go wrong?

It is terrifying to witness a similar ignorance of history reflected in the decisions of our own political and military leaders today. In a global society already teetering on the brink of various catastrophes, we cannot afford to relearn such disastrous lessons from the past.

And yet, to be fair, we can only learn lessons from the history of war if we have the chance to study it. Very few Canadian universities have faculty working or teaching in military history.

You are far more likely to encounter a classics professor than a military historian, and so have a better chance of learning about the Roman army than the Canadian army!

Without professors, without research, without courses, post-secondary institutions across Canada are ensuring that not only will their graduates know little or nothing about war, its history and what it means in the 21st century, but neither will future members of the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF).

Throughout my 20-plus years teaching CAF members, I have consistently admired their tenacity, their resilience and their ability to perform miracles with whatever stuff emerges from our frequently absurd procurement cycle. The CAF has always done more with less, even when “less” was the result of dumb procurement decisions and not just scanty funding.

What needs to change?

First, there are far too many echo chambers in political and defence circles, here and elsewhere, where contrary voices — offering reason, evidence and the lessons of history — are not invited or welcomed.

So, we prepare (as usual) to fight the last war instead of the next one and rely on leaders who lack the necessary education to make wise choices. (We need fewer new submarines and more courses on technology, war and society!)

Second, going forward, we can’t rely on underfunded civilian universities to provide all the education that wise leadership in the 21st century requires.

Bluntly, civilian universities don’t teach much of anything about war these days, even though they should.

The Department of National Defence used to provide some courses taught through the division of continuing studies at Canada’s only national university, the Royal Military College of Canada, but cuts reduced such offerings to a shell after the cancellation of the Officer Professional Military Education (OPME) program in 2012. Those mistakes should be corrected.

Younger Canadians, including CAF members, are not learning the lessons of military history, because they have little or no opportunity. Thus they won’t have the intellectual resources to challenge or guide the choices we will need to make about war in the years ahead, and that worries me.

Ominously, what we don’t understand about war can kill us all.

Dr. Peter Denton is adjunct associate professor of history at the Royal Military College of Canada, where — as a subject matter expert (SME) in technology, warfare and society — he has taught undergraduate courses in military history since 2003, as well as a range of graduate courses in the war studies program.