Authors: Oliver Stone,L. Fletcher Prouty
This is straight out of Mao Tse-tung’s
Little Red Book
. In other words, all of a sudden the teaching of Mao, the Chinese Communist leader, had become part of the doctrine of the new U.S. military strategy. This example of the “fish in the water” was repeated thousands of times in thousands of lectures. The voice of Mao was raised again and again at the Army War College, to wit:
There are often military elements who care for only military affairs but not politics. Such one-track-minded military officers, ignoring the interconnection between politics and military affairs, must be made to understand the correct relationship between the two. All military actions are means to achieve certain political objectives, while military action itself is a manifested form of politics. There are of course differences between political and military affairs, each with its special characteristics, but the one should not be disconnected and isolated from the other.
The world today is already in a new era of evolution and today’s war is already approaching the world’s last armed conflict. This is also a fact which should be understood. The majority of mankind, including the 450 millions of China, is already engaged or preparing to engage in a great, just war against the aggressors and oppressors of the entire world. No matter how long this war is going to last, there is no doubt that it is approaching the last conflict in history. After such a prolonged, ruthless war, there will emerge an historically unprecedented new era for mankind in which there will be no more wars.
These are the written comments of one of the greatest military leaders of modem times. He is defining the Cold War in terms of real war. It was heady stuff for the leaders of the U.S. Army. They knew it did not have immediate application within the United States, but they saw ways to create armies of this type in other countries, particularly in the emerging Third World nations.
The next step on the road to full implementation of this new doctrine involved the joining of the teaching of Mao with the curriculum of the Civil Affairs and Military Government School at Fort Gordon, Georgia, and the creation, from this merger, of the new Special Warfare doctrine of 1960.
From army platforms such statements as “the kind of peace we have today is too important to entrust to the career diplomats and professional economists” became common as senior army officials began to see that the U.S. Army had a Cold War role. As explained by these lectures, “With U.S. guidance and help, the politico-military actions of Southeast Asian armed forces can be decisive in building strong, free nations, with governments responsive to and representative of the people.”
It did not take much imagination to see the way things were going. This new doctrine proposed that somehow a strong army—for example, one under a powerful leader such as Gen. Augusto Pinochet of Chile—was supposed to build “representative” government. This new doctrine visualized a national army suspended somewhere between the people on the one hand and the seat of government on the other—truly the “fish” (army) in the “water” (people).
Despite the planners’ optimism, they were never able to demonstrate an army that operated that way (least of all General Pinochet’s). Once an army has developed the power, it uses it. The seat of government becomes engulfed by this new army, and the people are subjugated. Tradition in military circles is always stronger than mere words.
Mao wrote those ideas about his army while he was the rebel leader. Once in power, and with that army under his control, the tables were completely turned. He became as dictatorial as all the rest. To those who are not students of the evolution of warfare and the history of war, some of these developments in U.S. military doctrine since World War II may seem complex and obscure. Essentially the regular armed forces of the United States have always been regarded as a base or cadre upon which the much larger forces required for overseas warfare could be built. The role of the regular armed forces, between wars, has been to train and equip themselves for war, and no more.
In the past, the United States has never used armed forces, during peacetime, for political or diplomatic reasons, other than for an occasional show of force externally. And certainly there is no role for these forces within the borders of this country, with a very few exceptions: to aid police or the Secret Service or in the event of national disasters and emergencies. Therefore, the emergence of U.S. military doctrine tailored to the policies of Chairman Mao is quite a departure, especially when flavored with the “Civil Affairs and Military Government” concept.
The U.S. armed forces have, for the most part, been cautious about this role. But over the years they have associated themselves with the armed forces of Third World nations, in support of this concept of the army being the “fish” in the “water” of the populace. Tens of thousands of leaders in the armed forces of Third World countries have attended U.S. military schools and colleges where they have been taught to adopt an Americanized version of Mao’s ideas of the politico-military relationships. Where the concept has been put into practice, certain military elements, including U.S. Army Special Forces, have been under the direction of the CIA. This was the case in Indochina between 1954 and 1965, and this is how it happened that the tactics of the Vietnam War were so closely allied with these Maoist ideas.
In other examples, covert operations were run, as much with a blank checkbook as anything else, to build up a new, popular military leader, as in the case of Ramon Magsaysay in the Philippines. As described in earlier chapters, Magsaysay’s CIA-supported rise placed him at the head of the military forces in the Philippines. The CIA knew that the military there could be relied upon to build a “strong government responsive and representative of the people.” And the fact is that once Magsaysay reached that level of military power, he also became the head of state, with the support of a strong army. His “fish” did not stay in the “water” for long.
Other examples of the theoretical application of these principles have involved such countries as Iran, Chile, Guatemala, the Congo, Indonesia, Tibet, Vietnam, and Laos, and many other nations in Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East. In every case where the intent was to create a model “Mao-defined” army, it has failed. In spite of this, however, proponents of the doctrine continued their work.
There was a singularly economic reason for this. Since World War II, the Department of Defense had become the perennial biggest spender in the government. If such a level of spending was to be continued, Cold War or not, there had to appear to be some reason for the vast procurement orders other than for actual warfare; and, perhaps even more important, there had to be some way to consume military hardware so that it would have to be replaced from new procurement. (This is one explanation for the growing size of the so-called black budget—the part of the federal budget that is secret and not accounted for by its recipients.)
It is quite customary to find that for every defense dollar spent on new military equipment, ten more dollars are spent for support during its military “life of type.” These same figures, perhaps even higher on the average, apply to the military hardware that is sent as “military aid” to other countries and maintained and consumed overseas.
On such a scale, a modest $50 million order may grow to $500 million over time. With this in mind, it is essential—from the point of view that the industrial complex supports, and in turn is supported by, the military—to have as broad a base as possible throughout the world in the armed forces of as many countries as possible.
Such a situation can create many extremes. At one time, for example, Egypt was firmly in the “Communist” camp and purchased its military matériel from the Soviets. However, the Soviet manufacturers were notoriously poor managers of essential follow-up supply requirements. The CIA sent an official letter to the Defense Department suggesting that it might be wise for some armament suppliers to acquire Russian-made spare parts and to produce them for the Egyptians. It did not make any difference who was going to get military hardware or whose it was as long as the dollars flowed through the industry.
After this “Mao doctrine” had been developed and preached at the War College level during the late 1950s by U.S. military experts steeped in Asian military lore, two of them wrote one of the most influential military documents of the past half century as part of the work of a Special Presidential Committee for President Eisenhower. Army General Richard G. Stilwell,
5
who served as a member of this committee, and Air Force general Edward G. Lansdale were the principal authors of this report. It was introduced into the White House on May 15, 1959, under the title “Training Under the Mutual Security Program (With Emphasis on Development of Leaders).”
The two generals were sponsored effectively by Allen W. Dulles, the director of central intelligence, and by the resurgent Army Special Warfare elements at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. In this important report, intended “for the President’s committee business only,” the authors set forth the doctrine “governing the employment of the military instrument, in peace and in war.” It was most influential during the Vietnam War and in other Third World developments since that date.
During the spring of 1959, the CIA had skillfully extricated the Dalai Lama from Tibet ahead of the invading Chinese Communist army (which, of course, used the same doctrine that had been adopted in the White House), and the CIA was setting up a massive overflight program of support for the Tibetan Khampa tribesmen, who were fighting a losing battle against the Chinese.
Gen. Maxwell Taylor, who served as chief of staff of the U.S. Army, from 1955 through 1959, had just resigned because of differences with Pres. Dwight D. Eisenhower over army policy matters. This was the climate in which the new U.S. military doctrine reached the White House. In deference to the general-purpose civilian Mutual Security Program, this long report paid lip service to “the essentiality of properly trained and motivated manpower” without using the word “military,” although any observant reader could see through this thin smoke screen.
It should be kept in mind that this was the context of army thinking at the time Gen. Richard Stilwell announced that an area to be discussed was “the exploitation of MAP [Military Assistance Program]-supported military establishments in furtherance of political stability, economic growth, and social change.”
Here the new doctrine raised its horns. The military would be used to further “political stability, economic growth, and social change” in peacetime. This was a totally revolutionary role for the U.S. military. For military forces in most Third World nations, such a function was unheard of. The doctrine was focused on the military of those countries in what the report called “the middle third of the world.”
To educate its readers and to underscore this point the report stated:
It is not enough, however, to restrict leadership inputs to U.S. norms. Except in specifically defined circumstances, our Armed Forces have no operative responsibilities within national frontiers; conforming generally to the precepts of Western democracies, they are not an integral part of the mechanism for maintenance of law and order. The prevailing concept is expeditionary—an instrument of latent power—unentangled domestically, ready for projection abroad should the exigency arise. Not so for the great bulk of the forces of the new nations. Their role has additional dimensions and their missions are actual as opposed to contingent. They are a key element in the maintenance of internal security and are largely determinant of whether stability or instability characterizes the routine of government. The Officer Corps is perforce deeply involved in domestic affairs. Those who lead, or are destined to lead, must therefore acquire qualifications and attributes beyond the criteria which identify the successful commander in combat.
Finally, the ranks of the Officer Corps in most less developed countries are a rich source of potential leaders of the national civil service, the professional class, and other nonmilitary sectors. Here one finds a high degree of discipline, dedication, and political moderation. Moreover, one must reckon with the possibility—indeed probability—that the Officer Corps, as a unit, may accede to the reins of government as the only alternative to domestic chaos and leftist takeover. Both considerations point to a program for selection and preparation of promising officers for eventual occupation of high level managerial posts in the civil sector, public and private.
In the field of general education, as in the development of national leadership, the military establishments can play a significant role.
During the Cold War, the full significance of these statements may not have been clear to many readers, because our concern with the threat of “Communism” and the Soviet Union was all that mattered. However, as these words are read in the nineties, they take on an altogether new significance as the policy statement of the military organizations of the world under a New World Order.
This introductory material was woven into the Mutual Security Program report to create a bridge from the more normal nonmilitary and political elements of the work to the revolutionary Cold War military doctrine. It served as a palliative for the civilian sector, both at home and abroad. But as the report moved along into a presentation of its military-sector concepts, it began to sound more and more like Chairman Mao and his political-military army that was deeply involved in the internal affairs of the state.
This subject was significant in the Eisenhower era, and it grew more controversial and dynamic during the aborted Kennedy period. It has become even more significant during the years since then. Despite the passage of decades since the doctrine was first introduced, some of the same military officers who developed and promoted these concepts—with the strong backing of the CIA—are even today in high-level positions where they are able to promote it and influence top-level policy more than ever before.