Naval Institute Press
291 Wood Road
Annapolis, MD 21402
© 2016 by Robert H. Scales
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Scales, Robert H., date, author.
Title: Scales on war: the future of America’s military at risk / Maj. Gen. Bob Scales, USA (Ret.).
Description: Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, [2016] | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016022664 (print) | LCCN 2016032121 (ebook) | ISBN 9781682471036 (ePub)
Subjects: LCSH: United States—Military policy—21st century. | United States—Armed Forces—Operational readiness. | Military art and science—United States.
Classification: LCC UA23 .S29498 2016 (print) | LCC UA23 (ebook) | DDC 355/.033573—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016022664
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First printing
CONTENTS
Preface
Acknowledgments
1 Two Unnecessary Heroes
2 The Cinderella Service
3 The American Era of War
4 Adaptive Enemies
5 Forecasting War
6 The New Age of Infantry
7 Small-Unit Dominance
8 War in Two Epochs: McChrystal and Patton
9 Feeding the Narrative
10 The Human Dimension
11 Intent and Intuition
12 Touch
13 Ripley’s Ghost
14 The Unblinking Eye
15 Mother Ships and Battleship Bureaucrats
16 Firepower
17 Air Support to Soldiers and Marines
18 Win Forever . . . in Combat
19 Strategic Genius
20 The Draft
21 Earning the Right
Conclusion
Notes
Index
I first “met” Jim Mattis virtually (though not yet in person) when my coauthor, Professor Williamson Murray, and I wrote our book The Iraq War: A Military History. The publisher, Harvard University Press, wanted to be first with a book about the March on Baghdad in 2003, so they gave us only a few months to produce it. We worked like dogs, and by the next fall it was on the shelves.
Two characters stood out in the book: Maj. Gen. David Petraeus, commanding the Army’s 101st Airborne Division, and Maj. Gen. James Mattis, his Marine counterpart, commanding the 1st Marine Division. By the end of the campaign both had achieved near-legendary status—Petraeus for understanding the need for a shift to counterinsurgency and Mattis for his remarkable skill as a fighting and intellectually gifted infantryman.
Two years later, Mattis was commanding all Marine forces in Central Command, leading the headquarters responsible for the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. As he watched the battle from his perch in Tampa, Florida, he became concerned with the tough battle being fought to retake the Iraqi city of Fallujah. When it was over the city was ours but at a cost of more than ninety Marine lives. Early on a November evening just after Thanksgiving, Mattis called me at home.
“General, it’s me, Mattis. I just read your book.” Of course I thought he was referring to The Iraq War. “No, I mean Yellow Smoke.” I had published Yellow Smoke before the invasion of Iraq. I had written it to offer a future vision of ground warfare. “I keep your book by my bedside,” Mattis said. “You say some things in it about tactics and the human dimension in small units. Many of those things I saw play out in Fallujah. We need to talk.” Here was a fighter, the archetype American warrior, wanting me to talk to him about tactical warfare. Of course I agreed.
The phone call started a relationship between us that continues to this day. His next assignment after returning from the second battle of Fallujah was as commander of the Marine Corps Combat Development Command (MCCDC), and it came with promotion to three stars. MCCDC is essentially the Marine Corps’ in-house think tank. It develops fighting doctrine and runs schooling, training, and the requirements for new weapons. It was here that I became reacquainted with “Rip” van Riper, a retired Marine lieutenant general, who like me was a military writer and intellectual. We became something of a brain trust for Mattis.
Mattis knew something was not right about how the Marine Corps fought at the tactical level of war. He thought at the time that some of my ideas might prove useful in making changes after Fallujah. In January he put me in front of all Marine brigadier generals in the auditorium at Henderson Hall, the Marine Corps Headquarters in Arlington, Virginia. The next month I gave the same briefing to the Marine Corps’ “Executive Offsite.” Present were all the senior Marine generals and the Commandant of the Marine Corps, Mike Hagee. It was a tense moment for me: a retired Army artilleryman lecturing to a body of men who considered themselves to be leaders of the most competent tactical body on Earth. Of course it was a risk for Mattis to invite me, as well.
I talked for an hour and a half and then answered questions. I kept the notes of that talk, and those notes generally form the outline for this book. General Hagee was extremely kind to me, and he told Mattis to get on with some of our suggested reforms. They seem so simple today: to construct a system of “combat profiling” that would allow Marines to observe an enemy’s body language to determine his intent; to create a virtual “shoot house” to teach Marines how to react to various unpredictable circumstances when fighting in towns and cities; to reinvigorate the long-range shooting course, by which (to use my words) every infantryman would be a sniper. The list went on.
The Marine Corps’ greatest asset is its relatively small size. As Mattis used to say, “When the captain says hard to starboard, small ships turn faster than big ones.” So, very quickly, our ideas began to shape Marine training and tactics. After his stint in MCCDC Mattis took command of the First Marine Expeditionary Force in Iraq and had the opportunity there to put theory into practice. The results were extraordinary. He saved many lives.
Upon return to the States Mattis again was promoted, this time to head a newly created four-star headquarters, the Joint Forces Command (JFCOM). Mattis’ energy and “take no prisoners” attitude shook up colonels and generals. Things started to get done. One of his efforts was to elevate the study of the tactical fight, just as he had done at MCCDC. Unfortunately, most generals and admirals considered