Martial Arts meet the US Military…
The US Military has already taken a few things from Martial Arts, but the knowledge our military has borrowed seems to have been limited to hand-to-hand combat. Just for the record, I am no master of any martial art, but I have studied and practiced two of them. What I’ve learned in the few short years of study were the basics, and that is what I am suggesting the military borrow — just these basics.
One of the first things I learned is that you should learn how to fight so that you have the confidence to stay out of a fight. This outlook would really serve the US well, and I think that the reasons for it are obvious. Basically, what I quickly learned when I began martial arts training is that the training is for building confidence, poise, and for use in worst-case scenarios, but those worst-case scenarios should rarely ever arise.
Later, when I was learning technique, I learned that when you are striking a target it is more important to return to your original stance quickly than it is to strike powerfully. This seems like great wisdom for the US. Imagine how much better the US Military would be if we could have withdrawn from the many engagements that we’ve been involved in faster than we went into them. The US could be avoiding a lot of the criticism that it is getting now that the troops have been in Iraq for four or five times as long as it took to claim victory.
Once the fighter is back in his original stance he can be at peace, use less energy (or resources,) and maintain readiness for defense or another strike.
Lastly, love, compassion, and a forgiveness of sorts were reinforced time and time and again. This was easy to reinforce in training because when you are training your opponent is usually a freind or a mentor (or both.) After subduing any opponent it is always worthwhile to risk exposure to attack to offer help.
These are just a few things I thought about, but I am willing to bet that there are more. As I said I just know the basics.
Posted by David under Uncategorized |
I think that the Cold War era Mutually Assured Destruction was an example of the first principle. We prepared to fight a long-range nuclear war with the Soviet Union for better than forty years, knowing that by preparing to fight, and being confident in our ability to utterly destroy the enemy, we would never have to actually do it.
The second doesn’t seem to really apply to modern warfare. Unless you’re talking about surgical strikes, which do little than destroy a target and let whoever is around do the cleaning up, then you are going to have to leave troops on the battlefield for a long time. Once we went into Iraq, for instance, and began destroying their government and infrastructure, we were committed to rebuilding the nation afterward. We couldn’t very well just go in there, blow the place up, and then walk back out and say “oh, have fun putting things back together again.” That’s just not a realistic option in modern international affairs.
The third, yes, I agree. At the lower levels our military is learning that, but it has not quite managed to permeate into the upper levels of military and civilian leadership.
Comment by John — September 28, 2003 @ 7:11 pm
The way I envision the military, it can apply. The military should strike quickly with the surgical strikes that you mention until you have won the battle. Once a victory is established you move the part of the military body that is meant for fighting out, and then move in a new part. A division that is meant specifically for helping and rebuilding.
With the money that we pay our military I think it would be great if we had a military force that concentated on rebuilding with speed and a high degree of quality. Kinda like the Army Corps of Engineers on steriods. How much cooler would it be to have a military that could build the infrastructure for a nation in a matter of months than to have one that could destroy it in the same time?
Obviously, building is a lot harder… so that kind of ability to build quickly at high standards would be a lofty next goal for an ever more impressive US military. Let’s reach for it.
Comment by David — September 28, 2003 @ 7:20 pm
When striking, return as fast as possible. However, recent US military actions haven’t been (in the broad sense) strikes, they have been more like attempts to subdue, or restrain an opponent. In cases like that, you arrange yourself so that your opponents struggles wear them, tire them out while you remain relatively static, quite relaxed.
My preferred art is aikido, can you tell?
Comment by Malach — November 12, 2003 @ 7:19 pm
Yeah, and I really like your point too. I liken it analogously to using as little personnel and economic resources as possible while allowing the opponent to use up theirs.
Comment by David — November 13, 2003 @ 2:00 am
Which in turn, is straight out of Sun Tzu.
Comment by Malach — November 15, 2003 @ 9:53 pm