Customer Reviews

Mars Learning: The Marine Corp's Development of Small Wars Doctrine, 1915-1940

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This is a fine study of early twentieth century marine corps tactical and operation military history. Recommend to any serious military history buff!

This was required reading for a graduate course in the history of American military affairs. Keith Bickel's book Mars Landing, The Marine Corps' Development Of Small Wars Doctrine, acutely explored the Marine Corps' arduous and slow task of doctrine formation for its "small wars" missions that it conducted in Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and Nicaragua between the two World Wars. It was interesting to note that Bickel's research showed a similarity between the Army's methods for fighting against the Philippines' insurgency, and with the Marine Corps' methods used to combat the insurgencies they faced between the World Wars. Yet, since the Marines relied on Army training manuals for most of its existence up to World War I, and though the Army had plenty of experience in counterinsurgency operations, it did very little in the way of publishing counterinsurgency doctrine or conducting formal training in its schools for it. Thus, Bickel's main thesis was that the Marines were forced to develop their own small war doctrine based on lessons learned through direct experience in the field. Bickel's thesis was well supported by his exhaustive search of primary and secondary sources, including oral history collections, and student papers to produce a detailed accounting of how the lessons learned by Marines in campaigns were finally amalgamated into formal doctrine.

One of the key venues that Bickel researched to determine where Marine officers could turn to read about small war operations before they embarked for duty in Haiti in 1915, was the Army's professional journals. However, "...of over 850 professional journal articles during the period 1898-1915, only twenty-nine (3 percent) dealt with small wars problems" (43). Fortunately for the Marines, Bickel found that it did not take them long to learn the "military arts" and civil affairs measures that were required to successfully subdue the Haitian insurgency. Unfortunately, had their been a good record of lessons learned from the Philippines War and formal education in the Marine Corps' schools, then they would not of had to have relearned lessons such as; dividing the country into military districts, conducting night operations, using local guides, and creating a constabulary force. In fact, the Marine experience in Haiti was so similar to the Army's experience in the Philippines that Bickel noted, "The only measure that the Marines did not engage in was the reconcentration of the populace" (92).

Despite the Marine Corps' experiences in small wars, Bickel noted through his extensive research of the Marine Corps' school curricula that it was giving short shrift to training officers for what they would spend the vast majority of their time engaged in between the World Wars. Between 1924 and 1940, small wars comprised seven percent of the Company Officers' Course, and ten percent of the Field Officers' Course. Even more amazing is the fact that the Marine Corps did not publish its first doctrinal manual on small wars until 1935! In addition, by the time the Marine Corps' Small Wars manual was published, small wars doctrine was receiving less attention as the Marine Corps' mission requirements went through a fundamental shift to amphibious landing operations in the Pacific, as dictated by "Plan Orange." Bickel's book is a "must read" for anyone interested in understanding the agonizingly slow development of military doctrine.

Recommended reading for anyone interested in military history, and American history.

This is a valuable look at how the military studies and trains for counterinsurgency operations, with emphasis on "institutional memory" -- how the military choses what information to preserve and how it passes it on. It's a bit esoteric, but a fine addition to a course of study on military history or military science.