The Third Principle of Sentient Life

by Andrew

"You can't handle the truth! Son, we live in a world that has walls. And those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. Who's gonna do it? You? You, Lt. Weinberg? I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom. You weep for Santiago and you curse the Marines. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know: that Santiago's death, while tragic, probably saved lives. And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives...You don't want the truth. Because deep down, in places you don't talk about at parties, you want me on that wall. You need me on that wall.
We use words like honor, code, loyalty...we use these words as the backbone to a life spent defending something. You use them as a punchline. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom I provide, then questions the manner in which I provide it! I'd rather you just said thank you and went on your way. Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a weapon and stand to post."

Colonel Nathan R. Jessup, A Few Good Men

Lieutenant General Mattis certainly doesn't need me to defend him. However, given commentary that suggests soldiers are trained to enjoy shooting people, that armies promote sociopathy, etc., I think perhaps a little time spent in explain what it is armies do would be worthwhile.

Above is probably the most famous line from Aaron Sorkin's excellent play and movie, "A Few Good Men," which chronicles the trial of two Marines accused of murdering their squadmate. For those unfamiliar with the plot, the Marines were ordered to conduct a 'Code Red,' disciplinary action between enlisted men intended to improve the performance of a substandard soldier or Marine, ordered by COL Jessup via the Platoon Commander. Something went wrong and the Marine in question died, and Jessup refused to acknowledge having ordered the Code Red, putting the Marines on trial for murder. In the course of being cross-examined by the defense attorney, COL Jessup gives the above soliliquy, followed by an admission that he did order the Code Red. While I am a fan of the film and I believe the outcome was the correct one, I am not alone among military personnel in acknowledging that while COL Jessup was wrong not to accept responsibility for his actions, the points he makes in the above speech are nonetheless valid.

Prostitution may be the world's oldest profession, but the profession of arms didn't come much later. Humanity has fought with each other as far back as recorded history, and almost certainly well before that as well. There have always been people who decided that it would be a lot easier to take what someone else has produced rather than doing the hard work of producing it themselves. Early on, that led to crimes like theft and robbery. As humanity formed into tribes that worked together, they moved on to war, the wars growing in scope as humanity developed larger tribes and then nations. As technology advanced and wars became more destructive, humans decided to try and create rules to reduce the destructive effects of war. We even trying forming institutions that would try to avert war, from alliances like the Triple Entente and the Triple Alliance (big failures) and NATO (a pretty big success) to international organizations like the League of Nations and the United Nations. But, contrary to what people like to believe, when it comes to fighting it doesn't take two to tango. On September 1, 1939, Poland would have been quite happy to remain at peace, but Germany wasn't willing to go along, thus kicking off round two of the First World War (and people think sequels are a relatively new innovation). Going to war isn't like launching missiles from a submarine; as long as one side is willing to turn its key, you have a war.

Many nations prefer to avoid war. From the historical perspective, this is probably an excellent strategy, as wars are expensive and destructive. But avoiding war is, as noted above, not merely a matter of choosing not to fight. As George Washington observed many years ago, "If we desire to avoid insult, we must be able to repel it; if we desire to secure peace, one of the most powerful instruments of our rising prosperity, it must be known, that we are at all times ready for War." Nations that have avoided war generally either have strong militaries that can repel potential invaders, or geographic advantages that make conquering them too difficult to justify. (Switzerland, the best example, combines excellent defensive terrain and a capable military to make it far cheaper for any European nation to simply go around them if engaged in war.) And even when nations are strong enough to make invasions unwise, history offers countless examples of leaders who made the mistake of believing they could win a fight despite strong evidence to the contrary. Armies are therefore a necessary evil. If everyone would agree to lay down their arms perhaps it would be otherwise, but there is no reason to believe such a state of affairs would ever obtain. It is therefore incumbent that nations maintain the ability to defend their citizens from the depredations of neighboring states.

War is not violence for the sake of violence. War is focused violence, killing and destruction aimed at a very specific aim. Historically, war's aim has been the conquest of territory. For the United States, war generally seeks to break the enemy's will to resist and therefore end the war. But the destruction and death that war inevitably requires are not random; they are aimed at the targets that strategists believe will lead to the preferred outcome. Sometimes those choices are good; in Kosovo, NATO was able to convince Serbia to withdraw from Kosovo (eventually) by bombing Serbian installations throughout Serbia, causing destruction that was eventually large enough that the Serbian government decided it was unwilling to accept that level of destruction to accomplish its aims in Kosovo. Sometimes those choices are bad; Israel's recent war with Hezbollah and Lebanon appears (and this may prove to be inaccurate as more information surfaces) to have hit many Lebanese targets that damaged Israel's reputation without harming Hezbollah. But in both cases, national militaries selected targets based on their belief that destroying them would end the war in their favor. Even much of the devastation inflicted on Germany and Japan during World War II was done on the mistaken assumption that such a high degree of damage would induce those governments to surrender. Successful wars are the result of violence placed in the correct places.

A good army, then, is one capable of fighting successful wars. This sounds like circular reasoning, but if we posit that successful warfighting requires certain characteristics, we can divine the characteristics of a successful army. As noted above, successful armies apply the appropriate amount of violence against the appropriate targets. Accomplishing this requires a number of things: good intelligence, intelligent leadership, an understanding of the art and science of war, and, above all, good soldiers. Good soldiers can overcome a lot of deficiencies. For those who enjoy a little history, studying the events early on the morning of June 6, 1944 is a good case study in the value of good soldiers. American airborne troopers jumped into Normandy and into a disaster. Due to the volume of German antiaircraft fire and the inexperience of the pilots, few if any of the paratroopers landed in their drop zones. Instead they were scattered far and wide across the Cotentin Peninsula, often alone or in groups of only 3-5 soldiers. Some had officer or NCO leadership, others were only groups of privates. They very easily could have done little more than mill about aimlessly, waiting for light or for leadership to find them. But they knew their objectives, and they knew the importance of their mission, so those small groups did whatever they could to find their objectives and complete their missions. The individual initiative of hundreds of soldiers made the airdrop a success despite conditions far worse than what the planners had envisioned, and helped to make D-Day a success. Creating a successful army, then, depends on getting good soldiers.

Despite humanity's proclivity for fighting, finding the right men for an army is not easy. One must find people willing to risk their lives for generally abstract principles. The number of people willing and able to accept those risks are not large. Then those individuals must be trained. On the one hand, soldiers have to be trained to kill other human beings, something that is thankfully quite difficult for most civilized people. On the other hand, soldiers have to kill the right people; armies that simply kill everything they see are not effective in modern war, not to mention the rather stark ethical issues such conduct would raise. So armies must train soldiers to be ready to pull the trigger, but who identify their targets before doing so to ensure they are killing the right people, something that goes against the self-preservation instinct. That requires something that can overcome self-preservation.

What makes people risk their life by going into combat? One possibility would be some kind of mental problem; sociopaths might well enjoy the opportunity to kill others with legal sanction. But even members of the military aren't always at war, and sociopaths have difficulty functioning normally enough to avoid suspicion when their unit isn't actually in combat. And because the military doesn't want people who kill for the sake of killing, sociopaths don't really last long. Even the man suspected of raping and murdering an Iraqi girl and her family was put out of the Army due to personality problems shortly after his return from Iraq. The military neither wants to recruit sociopaths, nor does it want to create them. So it must find another method, and the means most commonly used it a cause. That cause is, unsurprisingly, patriotism: while people have many reasons for choosing military service, it is rare that patriotism doesn't play a role. Military personnel believe, as a rule, that their service is in some purpose, that it is not simply killing for the sake of killing.

It is therefore wholly unsurprising to me that LTG Mattis would say that it's fun to kill some people. I don't believe he means it is literally fun to pull the trigger and see another human being die, but that eliminating the enemies of his country is a good feeling because his actions have real meaning. I understand, as I suspect does LTG Mattis, that some people will disagree with that meaning, but for us it exists. We are risking our lives in the service of something greater than ourselves, and that is a good feeling. (Particularly when you survive the experience.)

Which brings me back to COL Jessup's comments. I am quite confident that the comments to this post will include people who wish to inform me that I am foolish or stupid to believe that military service is a noble calling. Others will point out that what we're doing in Iraq is bad, and therefore our service there is not helping our country or that we're sick individuals because we look forward to the opportunity to eliminate the enemies of our country. Even in unambiguously good causes there will always be those who believe military service is a bad thing, and there are no small number of people who live in a fantasy world where we could all get along if it wasn't for military people instigating wars, as if the human race as a whole has a natural tendency for peace that the military undermines. I hope that, for those who actually seek understanding of the military, I have done some little good in explaining who we are and what we believe.

Why do you like them so much?
Because they stand upon a wall and say, 'Nothing's going to hurt you. Not tonight. Not on my watch.'

<"The third principle of sentient life is its capacity for self-sacrifice. For a cause, a loved one, for a friend."
- Delenn to Draal: "A Voice in the Wilderness #2" - Babylon 5, Season 1>