{"id":65691,"date":"2003-07-26T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2003-07-26T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/2003\/07\/26\/mark-perry-four-stars\/"},"modified":"2003-07-26T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2003-07-26T00:00:00","slug":"mark-perry-four-stars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/2003\/07\/26\/mark-perry-four-stars\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Perry, Four Stars<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mark Perry, Four Stars<\/em><\/h2>\n<\/p>\n

• L’extrait<\/strong> concerne les premi\u00e8res pages du livre Four Stars<\/em>, de Mark Perry, publi\u00e9 en 1989 par Houghton Mifflin Company, \u00e0 Boston.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

• L’auteur<\/strong>, Mark Perry, est un journaliste et analyste, sp\u00e9cialis\u00e9 dans les questions militaires am\u00e9ricaines. Perry fut notamment journaliste \u00e0 The Nation<\/em>, p\u00e9riodique lib\u00e9ral (progressiste), et ses analyses sur le monde militaire am\u00e9ricain impliquent une appr\u00e9ciation en g\u00e9n\u00e9ral critique.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

• Le sujet<\/strong> du livre est un historique, — le premier du genre aussi complet — du Joint Chief of Staff (JCS), l’\u00e9tat-major g\u00e9n\u00e9ral combin\u00e9 des forces arm\u00e9es am\u00e9ricaines, qui comprend les quatre chefs d’\u00e9tat-major (Navy, Marine Corps, Army, USAF) et un pr\u00e9sident du JCS, un officier g\u00e9n\u00e9ral venu d’une des armes repr\u00e9sent\u00e9es au JCS (sauf le Marine Corps). On mesure \u00e0 la lecture de ce livre quelle force redoutable repr\u00e9sente le JCS dans la vie politique am\u00e9ricaine.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\n

(L’une des principales r\u00e9v\u00e9lations du livre de Perry concerne la p\u00e9riode du Viet-n\u00e2m. Il d\u00e9taille comment, en 1967, le JCS envisagea une d\u00e9mission collective pour protester contre la strat\u00e9gie suivie au Viet-n\u00e2m, mais recula au dernier moment, estimant que cette d\u00e9cision serait appr\u00e9ci\u00e9e comme \u00ab\u00a0une tentative de coup d’État<\/strong>\u00ab\u00a0.)<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

• La situation<\/strong> de cet extrait se concentre sur les positions strat\u00e9giques des diff\u00e9rentes armes, c’est-\u00e0-dire essentiellement la Navy et l’Army (l’USAF \u00e9tant encore une arme subordonn\u00e9e \u00e0 l’Army et le Marine Corps \u00e9tant subordonn\u00e9 \u00e0 la Navy), avant l’entr\u00e9e en guerre et \u00e0 l’entr\u00e9e en guerre (1939-42). Ce qu’on mesure bien, c’est la formidable autonomie de ces armes, leur autonomie de pens\u00e9e et leur puissance d’influence par cons\u00e9quent, les positions extr\u00eamement tranch\u00e9es en mati\u00e8re strat\u00e9gique. C’est un bon exemple de la r\u00e9alit\u00e9 du pouvoir aux USA, où les groupes de pression et d’int\u00e9r\u00eat, — et, dans ce cas, Navy et Army sont des groupes de pression et d’int\u00e9r\u00eat — ont des positions autonomes, la politique d\u00e9cid\u00e9e par le \u00ab\u00a0pouvoir\u00a0\u00bb civil \u00e9tant en fait une prise en compte en forme de compromis des positions des uns et des autres. Dans l’extrait, on d\u00e9couvre la position tr\u00e8s particuli\u00e8re de la Navy, dont la strat\u00e9gie dite \u00ab\u00a0Pacific First \u00a0\u00bb \u00e9tait proche du courant isolationniste et dont le v\u00e9ritable but strat\u00e9gique \u00e9tait la r\u00e9duction, voire la destruction de la Royal Navy, per\u00e7ue comme la v\u00e9ritable concurrente de l’U.S. Navy. L’U.S. Navy privil\u00e9giait le th\u00e9\u00e2tre du Pacifique et pr\u00e9conisait de laisser le th\u00e9\u00e2tre atlantique \u00e0 la Royal Navy, dans l’espoir que celle-ci s’userait notablement contre la marine allemande, facilitant d’autant plus l’affirmation h\u00e9g\u00e9monique de l’U.S. Navy apr\u00e8s la guerre. La strat\u00e9gie de l’U.S. Navy \u00e9tait (et elle le reste) \u00e0 la fois plan\u00e9taire et con\u00e7ue sur le long terme, et elle ne s’embarrassait gu\u00e8re des consid\u00e9rations sentimentales et morales concernant les alliances.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

____________________<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

An Admiral and a General<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n

\u00ab\u00a0All members of the JCS have expressed from time to time their firm belief that the military must always be controlled by civil authorities.<\/em>\u00a0\u00bb — General of the Army Omar Bradley<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

At the end of 1939, it was clear to most of the military that the United States would soon be involved in a worldwide conflict. They believed that Japan’s brutal invasion of Manchuria in the early part of the decade and Germany’s conquest of Poland, back in September, made the coming struggle inevitable. These concerns, however, were more than offset by the military’s supreme confidence in its ability to lead men in battle. The only thing it lacked was a unified command structure that could manage the conflict. It was a critical handicap: on the eve of World War II, the nations top officers were engaged in a bitter debate over which service’s strategic plan for victory should be endorsed by the president. The resolution of this debate, the nations need to hear a single military voice, led directly to the establishment of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS).<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The JCS is one of those handful of official government bodies that was actually established before<\/em> Congress could give it official sanction. In the 1920s, the nation’s two services communicated through a joint Army-Navy Committee, a group that was no more than a pro forma bow to a coordinated command. Even so, by the beginning of 1940 this titular committee was beginning to argue over just which service would have the primary responsibility for fighting what most officers-believed would be a two-front war. The Army and Navy squared off publicly in January 1941, eleven months before the attack on Pearl Harbor, when they became embroiled in a debate over the degree to which the United States should support British war aims in Europe. The services weren’t splitting hairs; at stake were resources, personnel, and glory.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The Navy led the charge, claiming that the future war should be its concern. On the horizon loomed Japan, which, the Navy believed, should be dealt with first. Its position was actually aligned closely with isolationist policies and was rife with unashamedly anti-British sentiments: naval leaders doubted that Britain’s interests could ever coincide with America’s, and they reminded their civilian superiors of Great Britain’s traditional opposition to American maritime interests. The American people, the Navy said, weren’t interested in helping Great Britain retain its influence in Europe or in shedding blood for the British colonial empire. The Navy had a powerful and well-placed advocate in the person of Fleet Admiral William D. Leahy. While not nearly as strongly anti-British as some of his colleagues, Leahy nevertheless advocated naval dominance in military policy. He was joined by Admiral Ernest J. King, a hard-drinking tactical genius who had been shunted aside by the \u00ab\u00a0old boys\u00a0\u00bb during the 1930s. King just didn’t seem to fit the Navy’s \u00ab\u00a0dress white\u00a0\u00bb peacetime tradition of officers who were known more for their sophistication than for their battlewagon prowess. As a result, he was unceremoniously exiled to the North Atlantic at a time when few thought that that theater would matter.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

This Army-Navy quarrel was exacerbated after America entered World War Il, when it became clear that the services would be forced to coordinate their operations. Recognizing this necessity, in early February 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt directed both services to establish a \u00ab\u00a0joint coordinating body,\u00a0\u00bb with greater responsibilities than the pro forma (and now clearly outdated) Joint Board of the Army and Navy. Roosevelt knew he would need such a command staff if the American military was to work successfully with the sophisticated and highly organized British Chiefs of Staff Committee in designing an overall strategy to win the war. According to the official JCS history, the body was directed to advise the president on \u00ab\u00a0war plans and strategy, military relations with allies, the munitions, shipping and manpower requirements of U.S. forces, and matters of joint Army Navy policy.\u00a0\u00bb This body, the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, met officially for the first time on February 9, 1942.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The establishment of the JCS did not resolve the growing feud over which service would take the lead in designing U.S. war strategy. Ernest King — just returned from the North Atlantic — argued for the adoption of what became known as the Pacific First approach, which held that the United States should defeat Japan before dealing with Germany. In addition to showing a traditional mistrust of the British, the strategy had a logic of its own: Japan had launched a direct attack on the United States (that is, the U.S. Navy); it considered America its primary enemy, sought hegemony in the Pacific (the \u00ab\u00a0American lake\u00a0\u00bb), and had conquered the Philippines, an American colony. There was more than a service principle at stake : the Navy believed that the war against Japan was a war between two fleets as well as two nations. Naval officers argued further that the British seemed to be doing quite well against the Germany and could probably hold them off indefinitely, or at least until Japan had been defeated.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The Navy wasn’t alone in its parochial concerns. Just after Roosevelt established the JCS, General Dwight D. Eisenhower drew up a memo detailing his own (and the Army’s) view of American military strategy. He argued for an immediate buildup of American forces in Great Britain, a move that implied an early landing of Allied forces on the European continent. For he and other Army leaders believed that the Japanese offensive in the Pacific had, by early 1942, run its course. The United States could turn its attention to Europe, thereby keeping Great Britain in the war. Eisenhower’s memo viewed the conflict as a war between two of the world’s most powerful armies, a position that would fully commit the United States to the concept of \u00ab\u00a0total war,\u00a0\u00bb without which, Army leaders believed, a total victory could not be won. They told their Navy colleagues that the defeat of Germany would give the United States a greater voice in postwar European affairs and thereby undercut England’s position on the Continent. They argued further that Russia’s entrance into the war didn’t reinforce the Navy’s position after all, but was a compelling reason that the United States needed to put its primary focus on the Continent or be cut out of a postwar European settlement that was certain, especially after 1942, to include the Soviet Union.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Eisenhower’s memo reflected an earlier Army position known as Operation Victory, an ambitions mobilization plan that called for the deployment of a 210 division force backed by tiers of bombers and ships. The plan horrified naval officers, who believed the American people would never agree to such large-scale mobilization. In addition, it would undermine America’s real value as an arsenal and breadbasket. For Roosevelt, there was never really any debate; his intention all along was to fight in Europe first, though clearly pot because of pro-Army prejudice (Roosevelt had, after all, been Assistant Secretary of the Navy). But what Roosevelt gave with his right hand he took back with his left: having accepted a Europe First strategy, he vetoed any thought of mobilizing 210 divisions.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Basically, Roosevelt believed that Germany was the greatest threat America faced and worried about the slim but very real possibility that the Soviets might defeat Germany without<\/em> an allied invasion of France. This was something, as Winston Churchill continually reminded him, that neither the United States nor Great Britain could tolerate. Roosevelt agreed. When Army Chief of Staff George Marshall attempted to use the Pacific First strategy as a bludgeon against British war plans, Roosevelt told him to drop the argument because it antagonized the British.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The interservice debate didn’t end with Roosevelt’s decision. While Roosevelt foreclosed the Army-Navy rivalry, thereby soothing the British, he kept the debate alive within the American military as a means of spurring what he considered a useful argument over military strategy. In other words, while Roosevelt silenced Marshall’s use of the Pacific First plan for political purposes, he allowed Ernie King to pose the question continually in administration circles, thereby unintentionally institutionalizing service rivalry.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Ever since, military commanders have continually noted that not only did the United States win the war despite service rivalry, it might well have won because<\/em> of it. Public opinion and congressional sentiment were clearly on the Navy’s side. Throughout the first two years of the war there were even, as Eisenhower sarcastically noted in his wartime diary, \u00ab\u00a0insinuations\u00a0\u00bb that the War Department, an Army fiefdom, had \u00ab\u00a0conspired\u00a0\u00bb to \u00ab\u00a0expose the Navy to defeat at Pearl Harbor for the sake of maneuvering America into war in Europe.\u00a0\u00bb So it was that in the midst of the most horrifying world conflagration in human history, service rivalries were translated into a classic Washington battle of bureaucracies, with the Navy Department in a showdown against the War Department.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

For those who believe the American military rejected narrow service concerns the moment of the Pearl Harbor attack, the Army-Navy feud is a sobering reminder of just how deep, and pervasive, service rivalries have always been. On a more practical level, while Roosevelt refused to use this competition as a stick against British designs in the Balkans and the Mediterranean, he failed to intervene when it dictated clearer strategic visions, more stringent uses of military resources, and narrower military timetables. In effect, the Navy’s Pacific First strategy served as a handy brake on the Army’s penchant for more men, more resources, and more firepower. It is a ploy the Navy has used, with some success, to this day.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The residue of the Army-Navy competition in defeating the Axis is still apparent, and it amuses historians and writers who cover military affairs. Navy officers continue to argue that \u00ab\u00a0we won that war,\u00a0\u00bb scoffing at Army pretensions that \u00ab\u00a0if you haven’t fought the Germans, you haven’t fought a war at all.\u00a0\u00bb The Air Force, a relative latecomer to the debate, had its own claim — that the strategic bombing of German and Japanese cities tipped the balance in favor of the Allies — which he Army and Navy consider \u00ab\u00a0preposterous.\u00a0\u00bb In 1942, a number of officers realized that the service competition was counterproductive, even self-defeating. Eisenhower, for one, came to despise it and wanted to resolve it. The feud became so bitter, and so public, that in Congress the competition between the War and Navy departments raised political questions about the nation’s ability to wage a united war. But it took a number of significant wartime incidents, and their public revelation, to provide the initial impetus for reform of the American high command.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

[Notre recommandation est que ce texte doit \u00eatre lu avec la mention classique \u00e0 l’esprit, — \u00ab\u00a0Disclaimer: In accordance with 17 U.S.C. 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only.\u00a0\u00bb.]<\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mark Perry, Four Stars • L’extrait concerne les premi\u00e8res pages du livre Four Stars, de Mark Perry, publi\u00e9 en 1989 par Houghton Mifflin Company, \u00e0 Boston. • L’auteur, Mark Perry, est un journaliste et analyste, sp\u00e9cialis\u00e9 dans les questions militaires am\u00e9ricaines. Perry fut notamment journaliste \u00e0 The Nation, p\u00e9riodique lib\u00e9ral (progressiste), et ses analyses sur… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[4084,2625,3889,2744,4088,3539,4083,4082,4085,4086,4087,4090,3080,4089,1010],"class_list":["post-65691","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-extraits","tag-chiefs","tag-coup","tag-detat","tag-eisenhower","tag-four","tag-jcs","tag-joint","tag-king","tag-leahey","tag-mark","tag-perry","tag-putsch","tag-roosevelt","tag-stars","tag-vietnam"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65691","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65691"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65691\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}