Military Scholar Finds Americans Woefully Ignorant of History, Geography
by Jim Brown
October 16, 2006
(AgapePress) - - A military historian says although the study of history is the key to military success, many U.S. students -- including some of the top students at American military academies -- are seriously deficient in their knowledge of this essential subject.Dr. Williamson Murray is Professor Emeritus of European Military History at Ohio State University and a Senior Fellow at the Institute of Defense Analysis (IDA). Recently, he spoke at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, DC, about his latest book, The Past as Prologue: the Importance of History to the Military Profession (Cambridge University Press, 2006).
According to Murray, if a person has not read extensively in history by the time he or she arrives in a government position or reaches a senior position in the U.S. military, it may be too late. He notes that in addition to being at IDA, he is also a visiting professor at the United States Naval Academy, where he teaches plebes "Naval History and Heritage," and where he has been dismayed by what he discovered about many students' knowledge of history.
"What has appalled me -- because, of course, here we're dealing with very smart kids -- is a substantial number of them are almost totally ignorant of basic historical knowledge of even the United States," the professor notes. "And a substantial number of them are completely ignorant of geography, even of the United States," he adds.
Also, Murray points out, the study and understanding of wars has been rejected by a substantial number of the senior people running universities and history departments throughout the United States. He sees this as quite ironic, he says, especially considering the fact that virtually every Canadian university has a professor of war studies.
This is a significant failing, the author suggests. That is because "the peace of Westphalia is dead," he contends, as is perhaps the era when the principles that historic treaty incorporated could be largely agreed upon by world powers. As he told the Heritage Foundation audience, Murray believes revolutions and violent religious conflict will mark future wars.
"And of those wars," the military historian asserts, "the kind of Clausewitzian belief in, if you will, the controlling nature of politics will in some cases be replaced, as we're seeing with al Qaida and a substantial number of the fundamentalists in the Islamic World." And what will be replacing that belief for these fundamentalist extremists, he says, is "nothing except a suicidal belief that we either win or die, and there is no surrender and no peace."
In this 21st century world, Murray observes, the United States is going to be confronting cultural wars, not the kind of traditional wars the nation has faced in the past. In light of this, the professor says America's leaders of the future are not only going to need to understand their own culture and history but also the culture and history of other peoples as well.
Jim Brown, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
