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Younghusband
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Younghusband

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May 23rd, 2008

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The Principles of War: 2. Maintenance of Morale

This post is part of the Principles of War series. See the introductory post or browse all posts with the principles of war tag.

Success in war depends more on moral than on physical qualities. Numbers, armament and resources cannot compensate for lack of courage, energy, determination, skill and the bold offensive spirit which springs form a national determination to conquer. The development and subsequent maintenance of the qualities of morale are, therefore, essential to success in war.

Comments to this entry

Ralph Hitchens
May 23, 2008
1:35 pm
Indeed. A leader in any capacity who does not put this near the top of a priority list does not know his/her business. As an aside, this is a pervasive theme of the popular Aubrey/Maturin series of historical novels by Patrick O'Brian.
jess
May 27, 2008
2:00 pm
Have you been reading Ardant du Picq again?
Michael
May 27, 2008
11:28 pm
At risk of picking nits, how much of that is morale and how much is esprit de corp?
lirelou
May 28, 2008
3:02 am
Armies are filled with people who don't know their business. I recall a battalion commander in Vietnam who would go through his officer's foot lockers while they were in the field. A friend of mine, one of his company commanders, was given Article 15 for having the playmate of the month taped to the inside of his foot locker. The good colonel felt it violated his policy that there would be no lewd pictures placed on public display. On a more positive note, one of the best examples of a troop commander lifting the morale of his men can be found in Guy Sajer's "The Forgotten Soldier". If I can find the text, I will return to reference it.
de teodoru
June 1, 2008
5:22 pm
Stalin deemed morale a major factor in his five principles of war. But it seems that we are making up for "morale" with voluntarism, high-tech and firepower. One can ask a lot about the morale of our troops on the War on Terror Front, what with no strategy to think of, just constant tactical adjustments and a high-tech infowar that, according to Pentagon insiders is not very useful to the men on the fire line, we may be left with the issue of morale as a homefront issue much more in need of critical care than on the front. For example, we attacked Iraq with a clear idea of cheap oil for our SUVs. Since then oil has doubled in price and we are spending more to kill a Jihadi that we used to spend to kill a regiment of NVA in Vietnam. The "Better War" that Sorley wrote about still eludes us in Iraq. Probably the best case against entering a war INTEL BLIND...LANGUAGE DEAF...CULTURE DUMB...and then just tweaking it tactically, was made by the following author addressing how we are falling into a "a worse war," not a better one, as we did towards the end of Vietnam:

http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20080501faessay87305/steven-simon/the-price-of-the-surge.html?mode=print

Daniel E. Teodoru