Bullets quickly write new tactics

Adapt military presses for today

How close should you keep your printing press to the front?  

Militaries have long brought their printing presses to war. Both Union and Confederate forces brought portable printers to the front to disseminate urgent order and routine documents. During World War I, typed German reports circulated ideas horizontally across the front, enabling continuous transformation of tactics. Insurgents sometimes even get in on the action. Later, during the Vietnam War, North Vietnam’s General Staff translated famous military works into the national script, while Army presses “produced specialized journals and manuals used for training purposes until the end of the conflict.”  

Beyond tactical uses, print also connects soldiers. Also during World War I, publications like the British Army’s The Wipers Times spread stories, satire, and poetry along the front. Our Forrest Harding even wrote for the 12th Infantry’s The Sentinel in the 1920s. Even today, you could hardly find an operations center without at least one printer.   

“A Thinking and Writing Military Is a Better One”

Given the importance of the printing press to armies in the field, I was disappointed hear of the Air Force defunding its press and the broader malaise in military printing.  
In “A Thinking and Writing Military Is a Better One” Laura M. Thurston and Adam Lowther highlight the value provided by military presses and call for their full funding.   

Certainly, the American servicemember’s incredible freedom of speech is a huge asset. Despite some issues with rank, we can think and critique official doctrine or policy largely without fear of risk, rumors, or reprisal. As servicemembers write, they build on a long history of professional thought on issues as wide as national defense policy down to tactical bridging operations. This freedom of speech cultivates expertise in our military and helps improve our communications skills as leaders.  

They also point out the rarely considered soft-power opportunity that our journals provide in influencing both partners and adversaries. Allies have long published in American journals, but even publishing American military thought in foreign languages can impact our adversaries. Consider this opening vignette from their piece:  

I, (Adam) was once at an international meeting in Changsha, China, representing the US Air Force, when a colonel from the People’s Liberation Army approached me and said, “I read your journal. We can match your technology, but we cannot match the quality of your officers. They are much better thinkers than our own.” I knew at that moment that our professional journals Strategic Studies Quarterly and Air & Space Power Journal (ASPJ) mattered and influenced how the Chinese thought about us and themselves. In the decade since that day, ASPJ—Mandarin ceased publication along with Arabic and French editions. With those cuts went significant influence in China, the Arab world, and Francophone countries around the world. 

Given their man, train, and equip missions, it is understandable that services might not want to publish foreign language editions. However, Military Review might offer a solution. Through a partnership with the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, Military Review publishes in both Spanish and Portuguese. Editors of other military journals could similarly seek funding for foreign language editions from Geographical Combatant Commands. For example, Indopacific Command might pay for Chinese editions of Air & Spacepower Journal or Military Review as Africa Command might subsidize French versions.  

And they are also correct that the journals have small budgets hardly worth cutting. Thurston and Lowther point out that the service presses could be fully funded for about $28 million—or about the cost of one F-35 engine. As we maintain our F-35 fleet, so too could we maintain our professional expertise through funded service presses. If the services do not fund their presses, less useful knowledge—especially about relatively obscure military topics—will develop. And finally, cutting presses may fracture professional discourse into newsletters with weak dissemination, no archiving, and staffs pulled out of hide.  

Adapt them for today

As military presses adapted during conflict, today’s service presses must also adapt. The Harding Project is modernizing the Army’s journals to reach the scrolling soldier with a web-first, mobile-friendly platform. This requires an investment in personnel, but not a big print budget. Likewise, improving the archives requires a small outlay today, but improves access to much of our military knowledge.  

Don’t cut service presses. Adapt them for today.

** Note that today’s title comes from Wilhelm Balck, a Prussian general, described Germany’s search for new doctrine thus.