HAIH at the U.S. Army War College, Part 1

Summary

History As It Happens: HAIH at the U.S. Army War College, Part 1

Released on June 17, 2025

In this compelling episode of History As It Happens, host Martin Di Caro takes listeners on an insightful journey to the U.S. Army War College and the Heritage and Education Center in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Joined by Kate LeMay, Director of the Heritage and Education Center, and Michael Nyberg, Chair of War Studies at the War College, the discussion delves deep into how historical understanding shapes contemporary military strategy and leadership.

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1. Welcome and Introductions

The episode kicks off with Martin Di Caro expressing his excitement about visiting the Army War College, a prestigious institution dedicated to educating military leaders in grand strategy. He introduces his guests:

• Kate LeMay, who oversees the archives, library, and museum that capture the soldier's experience in the U.S. Army.
• Michael Nyberg, who spearheads the War Studies program, focusing on preparing military officers for senior strategic roles.

2. The Mission of the Army War College

Michael Nyberg outlines the core mission of the War College:

“We try to get them ready for that next level of senior responsibility here. And that's really our job here.” ([02:29])

The institution caters to a diverse group of military officers, including lieutenant colonels, colonels, and international delegates, emphasizing the importance of developing a broad skill set beyond operational expertise.

3. Preserving Military History through Archives

Kate LeMay emphasizes the significance of the Heritage and Education Center:

“It's a reflection of the United States history. So look at army history. What you're really considering is American history.” ([04:32])

She highlights the center's extensive collections, including personal papers from high-ranking generals and firsthand soldier experiences from every major conflict, providing invaluable resources for both current students and historians.

4. Integrating History into Strategic Education

The conversation shifts to how historical documents and artifacts are integrated into the curriculum:

“We have a ton of artifacts.” ([04:50])

Kate draws parallels between the Heritage Center and institutions like the Smithsonian, underscoring the multifaceted approach to preserving and educating about military history.

Michael adds that these historical resources allow students to immerse themselves in the strategic decision-making processes of past military leaders, fostering a deeper understanding of grand strategy.

5. Teaching Grand Strategy: Balancing Tradition and Modernity

Michael Nyberg discusses the evolution of teaching grand strategy:

“We're trying to stay a little bit ahead of where changes are coming and try to anticipate these things without losing sight of some of the basic principles that we think are important for students to understand.” ([12:22])

He explains the incorporation of ancient strategies, such as those from Thucydides, alongside contemporary issues like artificial intelligence and drone warfare, to build a robust and adaptable strategic mindset.

6. Historical Lessons Applied to Current Conflicts

The discussion delves into applying historical insights to modern-day conflicts, particularly the Russia-Ukraine war. Michael Nyberg uses historical analogies to dissect current events:

“What elements of this war would have been familiar to the ancient Greeks? And then, as you said, talk about what's new, what's being introduced here that's different...” ([20:03])

This approach helps students discern patterns and unique challenges, enhancing their ability to formulate effective strategies.

7. Strategic Empathy and Understanding Adversaries

A pivotal part of the discussion centers on "strategic empathy":

“You can't build good strategy on bad history.” ([23:02])

Michael stresses the importance of understanding the historical and cultural contexts of potential adversaries like China and Russia to anticipate their strategic moves and intentions effectively.

8. The Challenge of Modern Warfare

The episode addresses the complexities of contemporary warfare:

“The United States prior to Vietnam had not fought a counterinsurgency war.” ([24:12])

Michael Nyberg reflects on historical missteps, such as the Vietnam War, highlighting the necessity of adapting military strategies to suit diverse and evolving conflict scenarios.

9. The Role of Professionals and Historical Accuracy

Both Michael and Kate underscore the importance of historical accuracy and professional integrity in military education and archival work:

“We're here to keep the historical record accurate.” ([18:28])

Kate LeMay shares anecdotes about unique artifacts, like General Omar Bradley’s WWII map with a potential cigarette burn, illustrating how personal touches in archives humanize historical events and provide deeper insights.

10. Reflections on the Difficulty of Winning Modern Wars

Addressing the broader question of why modern wars are harder to win, Michael Nyberg offers several perspectives:

“There are some people who think it's because of atomic weapons that you can't fight a war to decision against a nuclear state.” ([26:47])

He discusses factors such as nuclear deterrence, globalization, and mismatched strategic interests, advocating for a historically informed approach to understanding and addressing these challenges.

11. Conclusion and Forward Look

The episode concludes with a nod to the next installment, promising an exploration of a specific exhibit at the Heritage and Education Center. Martin encourages listeners to engage with the content by signing up for the newsletter and following the podcast on Substack.

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Notable Quotes:

• Michael Nyberg: “The motto of the place is not to promote war, but to preserve peace.” ([06:54])
• Kate LeMay: “We have collections of papers given to us by general officers... a reflection of the United States history.” ([04:32])
• Michael Nyberg: “You can't build good strategy on bad history.” ([23:02])

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This episode offers a profound exploration of how historical knowledge and archival resources are integral to shaping effective military leadership and strategy. By intertwining past lessons with present challenges, History As It Happens provides listeners with a nuanced understanding of the enduring impact of history on current events.

Transcript

[Kate LeMay]

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[Martin]

This is a special episode of History as it happens on location at the Army War College and Heritage and Education center in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. With Kate LeMay and Michael Nyberg. Our conversation next.

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[Martin]

Happy birthday, US Army 250 years. Hey everybody. Welcome to this special episode of History as it happens. We're on location in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, at the Army War College and Heritage and Education Cent. Today and Friday's episodes are coming to you from root hall here at the Carlisle Barracks. And with me today are Kate Clark LeMay, director of the Heritage and Education Center. She runs the archives, library and museum dedicated to the soldier experience in the US Army. Hello again. Kate Lamay.

[Kate LeMay]

Hi, Martin. Thanks for having me.

[Martin]

I am so happy you invited me here. And Michael Nyberg, the chair of War Studies at the US Army War College. Great to meet you, Michael.

[Michael Nyberg]

Great to be here. Thanks for having me here.

[Martin]

And we're going to talk about what you study and what you teach here. I think that's actually the right place to start because as I told Kate when she accepted the position here, I did not know the Army War College well. I had heard of it, but I didn't know it was here in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, population 20,000. And I did not know there was a museum and a heritage center and this fascinating archive that I'm going to check out. You're teaching Michael the country's military leaders, grand strategy. Tell us a little about your work.

[Michael Nyberg]

Our students here are lieutenant colonels and colonels from the US Military, mostly Army, but we have Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps, Space Force, all of that. And we have about any year, 75 to 80 international officers. The joke is we want to have people here from everybody we're on speaking terms with. So we want allies and partners here. And what we basically do here is take students who have been very good at something operational. They've been an armor officer or medical corps officer or infantry, whatever they've done up to this point, and get them ready for jobs in which they're gonna have to be experts at a whole new set of skills. They're gonna have to know a different leadership skill. They're gonna have to know political science, they're gonna have to know history, they're gonna have to know a lot about what's going on in the world. So we try to get them ready for that next level of senior responsibility here. And that's really our job here.

[Martin]

Kate, what do you do?

[Kate LeMay]

I direct the premier archive of the United States Army. It's an unparalleled resource for United States army, but through a biographical lens. So if you think about the U.S. army, you might be thinking of tactical operations and reports that are pretty dry and pretty unrelatable to the everyday human experience. That is not what we have at the United States Army Heritage and Education Center. Instead, we have collections of papers given to us by general officers. So one, two, three, and four star generals. We have over 200 collections from major leaders. Those resources are invaluable for today's students because they can understand strategic decision making through a historical lens. And in addition to that, tons of everyday sort of soldier experiences as they were recorded in letters During World War II, Vietnam, the Korean War. We have representation in this archive of every single conflict and more so the US army, as I like to think of it. It is a reflection of the United States history. So look at army history. What you're really considering is American history.

[Martin]

The army is older than the nation state. 250 years. 1775. I just did an episode, actually, about the battles of Lexington and Concord. You have stuff here. You mentioned lots of stuff. Well, I mean, I saw tanks and things like this out on the. On the property. Old town. But you also have uniforms, I'm guessing, and all this stuff.

[Kate LeMay]

Yeah, we have a ton of artifacts.

[Martin]

Well, there's a museum here.

[Kate LeMay]

It's a museum as well as a library and an archive. So if you're familiar with the Smithsonian like you and I are, Martin. It was familiar territory for me because every Smithsonian has a library, an archive, as well as a collection of objects. It felt very familiar in that sense for me to come and step into this role. What was different was that I'm now serving the mission of The Army War College, which is to ensure that its students understand grand strategy.

[Martin]

So if you have, say, Eisenhower's papers. Right. Michael can use those as a resource.

[Michael Nyberg]

We can also go further down. We can look at colonels. We have a lot of papers of people that would be in a similar position to where our students are right now. Advisors, senior advisors that we have as well. So we can actually put our students almost into the mind of somebody at the same career spot doing similar things in similar parts of the world.

[Martin]

Yeah, because not too many people had Eisenhower's position.

[Michael Nyberg]

Right.

[Martin]

Supreme ally commander.

[Michael Nyberg]

Yeah, those are pretty rare.

[Martin]

Yeah. I mean, he's really thinking on the strategic level. So. Yeah, I imagine not having any military experience myself, that a colonel or lieutenant colonel is thinking about different things.

[Michael Nyberg]

I just give you one example. We have the papers of a man named Spencer Cosby here, who helped to put the cherry trees in the basin in Washington. But he was also one of the American observers of the First World War. So we can see what an American colonel was thinking from 1914 to 1916 or so when he was over there, what he was observing, how war was changing, what it would mean for the United States, what it would mean for the army, how technology was changing, all of the problems that really we're dealing with today. Spencer Cosby was dealing with just over 100 years ago. Wow.

[Martin]

World War I, the Russia, Ukraine war has drawn comparisons to that. Why don't we return to that a little bit later? We'll start big, and then we'll narrow down to, say, scenarios you discuss in your classroom. You had mentioned to me the motto here. So this is the Army War College. You're not promoting war or trying to get into wars. You're trying to preserve the peace. Explain the motto. Because armies are made and created and financed to fight and win wars.

[Michael Nyberg]

The motto of the place is not to promote war, but to preserve peace. And, of course, an army has to be ready to fight. It has to be ready to engage if necessary. But one of the things we teach is the art of strategy is using military force, as the Navy likes to say, left of boom. How you can use it to reassure, how you can use it to deter, how you can use it to produce an effect, ideally without violence. But, of course, if it comes time that the army has to fight, these are the leaders who are going to be designing those plans and taking the army into the fight. So we have an entire department here that does nothing but think about that part of the problem.

[Martin]

You do have to prepare for war and There does need to be deterrence. I think I mentioned to both of you when I was preparing to come up here, my own position is anti war. That doesn't mean I'm a pacifist, nor does it mean I stick my head in the sand. There are scenarios where the United States gets involved in a war like World War II, where after Pearl harbor, the country wasn't prepared and it took quite a while to get. I mean, we're living in a different universe now, right? The United States is a hegemonic power, and we have a lot of security responsibilities and commitments all over the planet. We'll talk about one of those China, Taiwan, at one of these points. But I could see you want to jump in here.

[Michael Nyberg]

No, I was just going to say I don't think you'd find too many people in this building who are in favor of war. The name comes from when it reported to the War Department before the Department of Defense was created. So it's not like you have people running around here dreaming of ways that they can go and attack somebody. What they're doing is trying to figure out all of the problems that you just articulated. We are now a hegemonic power dealing with a world that seems to be changing by the hour and by the minute. And one of the reasons this institution was created was to have people who are thinking for forward, not just reacting to events as they happen. So we were created in the aftermath of the Spanish American War, where one of the criticisms was that the army wasn't thinking ahead about what it would need to do. It was just reacting to circumstances as they happened.

[Martin]

Well, war changes, but at the same time, some things do remain the same. I mentioned Russia, Ukraine. We'll get back to that. This is my interviewing style, Michael. This is your first time with me here, so I do bounce around a bit. But you mentioned the Spanish American War. That did change things. The United States becomes more of a. A global presence after that point, after being a continental empire. We are in Root hall, named after Elihu Root. He's an important figure in history that doesn't get a lot of attention. I learned a little bit about him. Kate LeMay, in your great exhibit at the Smithsonian about the 1898 war. Why don't you start us off here? Eliu Root, his importance.

[Kate LeMay]

Well, he was at the time the secretary of the War Department, the precursor to the Department of Defense. He was really smart in figuring out what to do with this expansion of US Power. He wanted to make sure that the United States was Being responsible in all these newly assumed territories. In order to do that, he imposed strategy. He was adamant that senior leaders be trained in order to understand strategically and kind of coordinate with one another across this vast new expanse of the United States States territory. You know, he did put into place. He was the brain behind the Platt Amendment.

[Martin]

Like, remind us what the Platt Amendment was. For those who have forgotten, this is.

[Kate LeMay]

Something that people love and hate. And it asserted Cuban independence, but only through a constitution that was approved by the United States. Cuba was a protectorate of the United States until this Platt Amendment allowed for a little bit more room. And as we know, it got more and more complex.

[Martin]

Eli Uroot, a believer in naval power. Is that correct? And do his ideas still hold up?

[Michael Nyberg]

Well, he was the Secretary of State as well as Secretary of War. He won a Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts in binding arbitration, trying to force states into a negotiation before they went to war. So he was thinking about all of these problems on a global perspective. And he wanted to make sure, as Kate said, that American officers would be able to understand and contribute to these discussions of grand strategy. So Navy's certainly a part of it. We talk a lot about that here. We're mainly focused on land power, but we're trying to make sure that our students understand all of the domains in.

[Martin]

Which war is fought in those days, foreign policy. And I'm learning this now, reading a book about the Cold War. The author talks about before the creation of the national security state, it was a very informal process, foreign policymaking, even in roots day, even in Woodrow Wilson's day, where he handed off a lot of responsibilities to Edward House and Roosevelt. Franklin Roosevelt himself had a very informal process of creating foreign policy. Things have changed. Right. We're in a different universe today, aren't we, Michael?

[Michael Nyberg]

We are. And one of the things that's changed is going from a reactive to a proactive way of thinking about these things. So the National Security Council, Department of Defense, all of those things are designed to make sure we're not just responding as the world is changing, but we're trying to affect change as it happens in the way that we want to see it happen.

[Martin]

So let's drill down then, a little bit. How has the teaching of grand strategy changed over time? Beyond the obvious? I mean, we have cyberspace, outer space, all these other domains that didn't exist, say, 100 years ago when we were fighting the Nazis and Imperial Japan.

[Michael Nyberg]

Yeah. We're trying to stay ahead as far as we can. So one of the emphases right now is on data literacy with our students and understanding what artificial intelligence and later quantum computing, what those things are going to do to the strategic environment. We're looking at a world that is just last night with Israel attacking Iran. And what does that mean for American strategic interests and the way that strategy is changing? Ukraine's attack with drones, sneaking them into Russia. What does that mean for the way the world is changing? So what we try to do, although it's difficult to do, we try to stay a little bit ahead of where changes are coming and try to anticipate these things without losing sight of some of the basic principles that we think are important for students to understand.

[Martin]

Can you tell us about, say, a specific lesson without, you know, revealing information that people aren't supposed to know?

[Michael Nyberg]

No, no. We're totally unclassified in this building. We do an entire module on Thucydides, who wrote this book 2,500 years ago. The way that I read it anyway, and teach it, it feels quite present. The problems that they're dealing with are the exact same problems. So we spend about three days in the classroom going through this book and looking at it. And I think every time we teach it, with the exception of nuclear, we. I can see something in it that we're dealing with now, even with AI, because as technology is changing now, so it was changing in the ancient Greek world, and there are people who are trying to figure out what this technology is and get ahead of it, and there are other people who are just saying, I don't want to think about that, or I'm not going to worry about that. And inevitably, they don't do terribly well. So what we do is we start the year with Thucydides, and we can keep coming back to that text again and again and again. At the same time, as I said, we're thinking about AI, we're thinking about drones, we're thinking about the new situation in Europe right now. We're thinking about all of those things. So we're trying to build their education on principles and make sure that we're staying current at the same time with.

[Martin]

The aim of avoiding war ultimately, but also how to win a war, and also maybe learning from past experience when things didn't go so well.

[Michael Nyberg]

Yeah, that would be great. So teaching students a little bit about historical models is certainly something that I'm interested in doing, but you hit the core of it. The ultimate aim of strategy is to get what you want without fighting for it. If that doesn't work and you have to fight Then your army has to be prepared and it has to know what it's getting into.

[Martin]

You mentioned Thucydides. I did try to read that book last year. I started it. I had too many other things to read and I put it down. It was fascinating. So there is the so called Thucydides trap. Which one was jealous of the other? Athens feared Sparta or Sparta feared Athens?

[Michael Nyberg]

Yeah, it's Sparta fearing Athens rise. I'm actually not terribly fond of that book or that concept. But then maybe it's a different discussion we can have. But again you see everything in there. You see the problems of Athens as a democracy and the difficulties they have doing that. You see how third party actors are able to play and take advantage of the war between Athens and Sparta. You see people trying to influence public opinion with misinformation. I mean everything that we're dealing with seems to be in that book.

[Martin]

It is harder for a liberal democracy to wage war than say an authoritarian system.

[Michael Nyberg]

This is certainly what the Athenians believed and it affects the way that they think about grand strategy and it affects the way that we think about grand strategy.

[Martin]

Based on your perspective, that could be either good or bad. I mean from my perspective that's good, right. But these choices are difficult to make. We live in a real world with real problems. Kate Lemay, on the Thucydides note. I know you don't have Thucydides papers here, but have you ever found a document though that oh is so surprisingly relevant?

[Kate LeMay]

Well for sure. One of the exciting objects that's in the collection of the United States Army Heritage and Education center is the wartime map of General Omar Bradley that depicts the landings on Utah beach in La Manche in Normandy, France. For me, when I look at it, I see the various strategic goals that are literally lines drawn on this map. You know, the objective was to take Cherbourg, but the way in which he planned it out with Montgomery and with the other nations leaders, it feels like you can almost touch the history. Right. And it's right there. And you know, this comes from this very specific moment that is now incredibly famous. What is also cool is that there's a cigarette burn on it and we suspect it was from Montgomery.

[Martin]

Bernard Montgomery, the British general.

[Kate LeMay]

It's one of those legends that we can't prove. But the fact is there was one smoker amongst them. Right. So there's an interesting thing.

[Martin]

If Omar Bradley didn't smoke, I wouldn't, I didn't know either way.

[Kate LeMay]

I know, I know that's interesting and that's what the personal collections allow you to have some insight.

[Martin]

And those lines on the map, too, are men being sent, many to their deaths. We know today that it worked out okay. But at the time, Eisenhower had prepared a statement should the invasion fail. But you know, you're sending many men to their deaths. But it was unavoidable.

[Michael Nyberg]

Yeah, it's going to be a little heavy, but I mean, I firmly believe if we as a nation are going to ask our young men and women to risk their lives, we owe it to their officers to give them the very best education that they can have as they're preparing this. So at the strategic level, Eisenhower is thinking about, what does it mean to go into a formally occupied France? How do we govern France? Do we occupy it? Do we turn it over to someone like de Gaulle? What do we do about Germany once we get there? Do we need to get to Germany before the Russians get there? Because we don't want the Russians to have too much of the East. There's a presidential election in the United States in the fall of 1944. That's what we mean by strategy to thinking not only about the effect that you're going to have in that immediate space, but what effect are you going to have writ large? What are you going to do with the shipping? Because a lot of that shipping has to go to the Pacific to deal with the other front that's happening. How do you balance those priorities? What do you do with your British allies who have similar goals to yours, but they don't overlap perfectly? So those are the kinds of things that we want students to begin to think about. It's not just how do I get enough material to Utah beach, or what do I do to get over that sandbar? But what is this going to mean if it works or if it doesn't work, what is the strategic implication and what do you have to do about it?

[Martin]

So that's entangled into politics, then?

[Michael Nyberg]

Absolutely.

[Martin]

We say in our country, the military is not supposed to be politicized. But at the same time, we're living in a political world. I mean, war is an extension of politics. Do you agree with that?

[Michael Nyberg]

Yes, absolutely. It's a famous phrase from Clausewitz. When students complain about that, I like to borrow the line from the Godfather that this is the life we've chosen. We have a system in which civilians are in charge. We elect a commander in chief. The Senate and the House determine military policy. They determine budgeting. This is the way the American system is designed to function. So it's Something also that we want our students thinking about. What does that mean we say here? I've heard some of my colleagues say military officers want fewer options. Politicians usually want more options. So how do you think about the ways that you present things to politicians? So those are all things that exist at this strategic realm that we want them to be thinking about, not just in the present, but of course, in the past as well.

[Martin]

Director lemay.

[Kate LeMay]

Yes.

[Martin]

How do you balance that? The politics. Right. It's impossible to avoid. But you're not here to be political.

[Kate LeMay]

No, we're here to keep the historical record.

[Martin]

Other people's politics can intrude, maybe.

[Kate LeMay]

We're doing our best to make sure that we make the historical record accurate. We deal in biography. So it's always going to be someone's perspective that might be different from someone else's perspective. But again, that's where the interesting kind of nuances come in. That's why historians have jobs, because they can interpret these things. But Rick Atkinson did not win a Pulitzer Prize for An army at dawn without coming into AHEC 69 visits.

[Martin]

Oh, wow.

[Kate LeMay]

Yeah. So there's something to the narrative that is in the gift of the historian's telling of it. But he had those archives that fueled his narrative.

[Martin]

That's fascinating. Sorry to interject there. What I meant though is, you know, cause I've been to Mount Vernon, I've been to Monticello, I've talked to the people there about all the effort, all the hard work they put into presenting the past as accurately as possible. But, you know, people bring their own biases on trips to Mount Vernon and Monticello, and they don't like this exhibit or they think that exhibit is to this or to that. So in a way, it's like it's a no win situation. But you're professionals here, so for sure.

[Kate LeMay]

That'S what I always say. Thank you.

[Martin]

Yes, we're professionals. That's what I say to media bashers. We're professionals. Russia, Ukraine, this has been compared to World War I. It's been compared to World War II because there are tanks. There were no drones or satellite imagery in World War I or World War II. Yet we're looking at a war that's now been bogged down in a small part of eastern Ukraine. I shouldn't say small. 20% of the country, eastern Ukraine, for three years now, with basically no movement on either side. How do you present that as a problem? And what do you learn from that in your classroom?

[Michael Nyberg]

Well, there's obviously a thousand ways we can do that. We have people who are looking at the operational side. We have people who are looking, trying to figure out what the Russians are up to. We have NATO officers here. The way I try to do it is to just go back to Thucydides and say, what elements of this war would have been familiar to the ancient Greeks? And there are thousands of them that we can talk about. And then, as you said, talk about what's new, what's being introduced here that's different, what historical analogies make sense. What I would do with students, what I do do as students, is think through the similarities and differences in the World War I analogy and the World War II analogy to see what insights we can get, because no historical analogy is ever perfect. The metaphor I like to use in the classroom is, it's like going to the eye doctor when they flip the lenses. Is it better or worse if I do this? What are you seeing through the historical analogy that you're not seeing otherwise?

[Martin]

The lesson I draw away from this is that war does not work. Putin thought he would conquer Ukraine and Kyiv within days. In one sense, very little has changed here. It was another political leader thinking that he had. This was going to be a cakewalk, and they'd be parading through the Capitol. And here we are again with an intractable conflict where he doesn't want to pull out. At the same time, he can't achieve.

[Michael Nyberg]

A victory unless you take it from the Ukrainian side, in which case the resistance in fighting a war has meant that they're able to retain their statehood, their freedom, maybe even their lives. I mean, maybe even to prevent a genocide. Again, no one in here is promoting war. What we're saying is, how do you help Ukraine achieve the things that Ukraine needs to achieve? Consistent with America's interests, consistent with our alliance's interests. How do you do all of that? While minimizing the obvious risk of an escalation of the war? And those are questions that don't have answers. They have to be studied, and they have to be thinking about pros and cons.

[Martin]

It's often said that China must be watching what's happening in Russia, Ukraine. And some people say China must learn. Then, you know, trying this with Taiwan, which is separated by a channel or strait, would be even more difficult.

[Michael Nyberg]

Yeah, I'm not an expert in amphibious operations. What I would do is say, and.

[Martin]

This is the Army War College.

[Michael Nyberg]

Yeah, we do have Navy people here that do that. But what I would say is the key thing for me as an historian would be to understand that Russia and China's historic place is different, that China looks at the world very differently than Russia looks at the world. And we teach a concept here called strategic empathy, where you're not trying to sympathize with Russia or China, but you're trying to understand what their position is and where they're coming from so you can better understand what they're trying to achieve. And to my view, that begins with history. That begins with understanding where in time China thinks it is, where in time China thinks the United States is, what they think Taiwan means to them, to their own national identity. It starts with that because I think one of the problems we had with Putin is we understood what we wanted him to be. We didn't understand what he and his state actually were.

[Martin]

It's clear that US Leaders underestimated him.

[Michael Nyberg]

Europeans, too.

[Martin]

Where did we go wrong? And why did we underestimate this individual? Or why does China think it owns Taiwan and wants to reabsorb Taiwan and the United States? Not in a treaty, but there is congressional legislation, is there not, that requires the US to defend Taiwan? So this is not just an abstraction. We could have soldiers over there.

[Michael Nyberg]

Right. We certainly have an interest in Taiwan remaining independent and all of that. But for me as an historian, I want students to understand that this thing did not prop up as an issue yesterday. This issue has a long history. China sees it in a certain way, we see it in a certain way, the Taiwanese see it in a certain way, and that these histories are very complex. They don't produce easy answers either. But a phrase I like to use in the building, I've heard a couple other people use it, so I hope it's catching on, is that you can't build good strategy on bad history. So I want to make sure that people understand where all this is coming from.

[Kate LeMay]

Love it.

[Martin]

Do you teach Vietnam?

[Michael Nyberg]

We do, occasionally. We used to. We do quite a bit when we. Especially when we talk about guerrilla operations and when we talk about a state fighting a non state actor. To me, Vietnam's an interesting case, too, because now US Vietnamese relations are quite good. We have a Vietnamese officer in the next incoming class. So again, you want to make sure that you're understanding this in as wide a space of time as you can.

[Martin]

Well, strategically speaking. So the United States prior to Vietnam had not fought a counterinsurgency war.

[Michael Nyberg]

Oh, we had.

[Martin]

We had. Where?

[Michael Nyberg]

Yeah, we fought them in the Philippines.

[Martin]

Okay, let me adjust what I said. That generation had not fought a counter insurgency. Those World War II commanders, their experience had been the Second World War, the people who led us right in Vietnam. Largely right.

[Michael Nyberg]

So you really have two problems there. One problem that you have is you have an army built for deterring the Soviets in Germany that's now asked to fight in the jungles of Southeast Asia. And you have a generation of officers, not all of whom, but some of whom took away the lesson that if we defeated Germany and Japan, we can certainly defeat guerrillas in Vietnam. And that's, in my mind, that's an historical error. You want to be asking students, is that true? What are the assumptions you're making behind that? And let's really investigate whether armies that are developed to do one thing easily succeed at doing something else.

[Martin]

And that was a political war. But also, the army shares culpability there as well, with Westmoreland. Not to go over the whole history here in a relatively short podcast.

[Kate LeMay]

We have his papers, by the way.

[Martin]

You do?

[Kate LeMay]

Yes.

[Martin]

Oh, wow. I'd love to see those.

[Michael Nyberg]

And we have a great example of an officer, HR McMaster, who wrote a really wonderful book using those papers, looking at what happens when the army doesn't question its historical assumptions. And General McMaster was really, really good at thinking that whenever he came here and whenever I've seen him at other places, of getting people to say, is the history you're building this on right, or are you hoping that it's right?

[Martin]

So he was here, McMaster, he researched here.

[Michael Nyberg]

He was not a student here?

[Martin]

No, no, he was on a master. He researched Dereliction of Duty, I think.

[Michael Nyberg]

Was his Dereliction of Duty.

[Martin]

Excellent book by H.R. mcMaster. So in Vietnam, we're fighting counterinsurgency, and maybe that's the new school of thought that we, our army, now needs to learn if we're going to be fighting in these places. There was a counterinsurgency war in Iraq, counterinsurgency in Afghanistan, but today, you're teaching great power, competition, and counterinsurgency. I mean, I guess what I'm trying to get at is what was the priority maybe 25, 30 years ago is not necessarily the priority now, the way we're fighting wars.

[Michael Nyberg]

So it's a huge strategic question. Do you have that assumption right? Because it's true, not just for the United States, but for most armies. Whenever you predict what you think the future is going to be like, you're usually wrong. So do you build a system where you kind of make a gamble or hedge your bets because your resources are finite, or do you try to build a system that can easily adapt to meet different challenges. This administration has asserted that great power, competition is its priority. So obviously, that's where we've been thinking as well and what we've been doing. But you can't rule out the possibility of something else coming. So you have to think about creating intellectual flexibility in your senior leaders and thinking about the ways that you can adjust if you're wrong.

[Martin]

My final question here is the United States record in winning wars for several decades now has not been good. United States isn't alone in that. Russia, as we've discussed, other countries have had a lot of trouble. Why has war become so hard to win? Very few decisive outcomes. When you look around the world, it depends.

[Michael Nyberg]

There are some people who think it's because of atomic weapons that you can't fight a war to decision against a nuclear state. So you end up with these wars like the one you're seeing in Korea right now or the one that you're seeing in Russia, Ukraine. Others argue that a globalized society makes it much more difficult to do. Another thing we might think about is that the American interests in Vietnam were not such that we were going to go to total war. President Johnson's decision not to call up the Guard of Reserve, all of these other limitations, there's a mismatch there as well. So I think we want to treat this problem historically as well, and we want to get our students thinking. And if I can just pick up on your other point, I think we all in this building would argue that the professionals are certainly in charge of actually doing this, but we want the American people involved in these discussions and educated about these discussions as much as humanly possible. So what Kate's great people over there do with their museum exhibits and making some of these archives available online, we want to make sure that this is not just the preserve of professionals, but that the American people themselves are making their voices heard.

[Kate LeMay]

And I would like to add that.

[Martin]

Yeah, that's a great setup for you to, you know, pitch your work. Go ahead.

[Kate LeMay]

Well, one of the things that I am passionate about is the Army Heritage and Education center is part of the Army War College. We do serve these students. We're working to integrate our collections into the curriculum Mike is teaching. You know, you mentioned the Korean War. We have an incredible staff that understands our collections very well, and they picked and selected a feast of primary source documents for the professors at the War College to incorporate in their teachings. This is something I want to see more of because people like Mike who teach at the War College understand how important history is in Creating value behind strategic decision making.

[Martin]

Nothing quite like a primary source document.

[Kate LeMay]

Exactly. And then the students, it helps them understand the points of view from the past through this very specific kind of handwriting or the marginalia notes or the map that is handwritten. Noted. You know, we have Colonel Pierce's map of the Philippines, part of the Philippines from under Wainwright's direction during World War II. And it's annotated. This is where I was when we surrendered to the Japanese. And you see the sort of various points where he was taken as then as a prisoner of war. There's nothing like that. Martin translates otherwise, the pain, the humanity of this experience that this man had, this map that outlines exactly how much he walked and where he was. It's really, really fascinating. So I'm super psyched. The Army Heritage and Education center is part of the War College. In fact, we make the War College distinguished from some of the other professional military educational schools because we're such a great archive.

[Martin]

And we're going to actually talk about an exhibit in the next episode of this podcast. Michael and Kate, this is been great. Kate, you'll be with me for the next episode with Molly Bombay and your curator, Michael Nyberg. Thank you so much. And remember, new episodes every Tuesday and Friday. My newsletter comes out every Friday. You can sign up at history as it happens.com or just find us on substack. Search for History as it Happens. SA.