Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Robert Bullard, "Military Pacification."

A note for all of you students of war and American history. One of the key documents in understanding historical American approaches to war, especially counterinsurgency, is Robert L. Bullard, "Military Pacification," Journal of the Military Service Institute of the United States, 46 (January-February 1910), 1-24. Bullard, who eventually commanded Second U.S. Army in World War I, served in the Philippines and Cuba and drew on his experiences in the islands and (less effectively or accurately) as a youth growing up in the Reconstruction South to shape his understanding of the issues of pacification. (Bullard is also the subject of an excellent biography by Allan Millett.) While he is wrong on several specific issues--let's just say William Dunning would blush with pride at some of the howlers in the article--his overall conception of pacification is very interesting and historically and militarily important.

For example, Andrew Birtle, author of the the best two volumes on American counterinsurgency, has used Bullard's formulation in those books and on several other occasions to help shape his overall argument.

Despite the importance of the article, no one has made it widely available...until now. The very helpful staff of the Combined Arms Research Library (CARL) made me a paper copy from the bound edition in their archives. The very helpful staff of the School of Advanced Military Studies converted the copy into a pdf, and today the folks who run the digital library for CARL have made the article available in pdf format for anyone who is interested:

Robert L. Bullard, "Military Pacification," Journal of the Military Service Institute of the United States, 46 (January-February 1910), 1-24.

Enjoy. (And don't forget to pick up a copy of that memoir by Bullard's contemporary and sometime boss, Frederick Funston.)

1 comment:

Stephen said...

Nice. Great stuff. I can get my mind off of diapers for a minute or two.