FaujHistorian
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There is a wonderful thread started by Xeric "Why do we need to study military history"
http://www.defence.pk/forums/seniors-cafe/214587-why-do-we-need-study-military-history.html
As the scope of Xeric's thread is much broader, I wanted to avoid turning that to Pakistan specific issues. Why it is important? because in some ways the history of Pakistani military is perhaps one of the major drivers of the history of Pakistan itself (you like it or not, that's different story). So here we go.
It is kind of ironic that military history is a important for young military officers, but it should almost always be written by civis (short for civilians), who are professionals in the field of history (e.g. University professors, think tank members etc). The reason is simple. A military officer is directly involved in the day to day grind of his job, so it is hard to expect from him that he will be an unbiased and brutally honest about writing down his views. An oath to keep things secret is another hurdle that he may not be able to climb over.
Civis on the other hand are free and unencumbered from many of those issues faced by active duty military personnel. This is why many of the great generals in history would bring along professional (read civis) historians with them to not only document the state of the current wars, but also advise the generals based on the past wars.
Modern day British/American generals may not have the same approach, however they at least have civilian journalists to record the state of current wars. This practice was pretty unbiased until the Vietnam war, however things were drastically changed in the post-Vietnam era, Now we are usually stuck with "embedded" reporters. They may not be unbiased as things used to be, however these reports still serve as post war historians or at least documentarians,
Christian Junger did a fabulous job documenting some aspects of Afghan wars of 80s and later years.
American think tanks from both left (Carnegie) or right (heritage) do a pretty good job for analyzing American military history. British too have a habit of keeping meticulous record of their military history.
In Pakistan however, the art of military history is spotty at best. We have a couple of well known civilian writers like Ahmad Rashid and Ayesha Siddiqua, but they are not professional military historians. Instead they are political historians that cover military. Their focus is not the art of war, and war techniques, but they focus on what the Pak generals have done wrong in the civilian and strategic arena. They do not document the life and death of army officers like Lt. Col Haroon, and what Pak army could have done better from the military point of view. They may have written articles but they have not written books on this topic (pardon my ignorance if they did).
Some retired generals did write military history about Pakistani wars, but still we are missing professional historians coming from civilian cadres. And thus we have made military decisions as a country that turned out to be disastrous for our military.
So let's make an effort to document relatively unbiased military history of Pakistan. The areas I suggest are following (feel free to add more).
1. Pre-1947 military history of Pakistan.
---- Focus: How and when the roots of modern day Pakistani military were put in place
2. Post-1947 military history (macro view)
3. 1948 war
4. Skirmishes issues post 1948 but pre-1965
5. 1965 war
6. issues in post 1965 war but pre-1971
7. 1971 war
8. Post 1971 military history
9. Russo-Afghan war from 1979
10. Post- Russo-Afghan war
11. American/NATO-Afghan war since 2001
Please make sure that your post states in bold letters, one of the above topics (or if you added a new one).
thank you
http://www.defence.pk/forums/seniors-cafe/214587-why-do-we-need-study-military-history.html
As the scope of Xeric's thread is much broader, I wanted to avoid turning that to Pakistan specific issues. Why it is important? because in some ways the history of Pakistani military is perhaps one of the major drivers of the history of Pakistan itself (you like it or not, that's different story). So here we go.
It is kind of ironic that military history is a important for young military officers, but it should almost always be written by civis (short for civilians), who are professionals in the field of history (e.g. University professors, think tank members etc). The reason is simple. A military officer is directly involved in the day to day grind of his job, so it is hard to expect from him that he will be an unbiased and brutally honest about writing down his views. An oath to keep things secret is another hurdle that he may not be able to climb over.
Civis on the other hand are free and unencumbered from many of those issues faced by active duty military personnel. This is why many of the great generals in history would bring along professional (read civis) historians with them to not only document the state of the current wars, but also advise the generals based on the past wars.
Modern day British/American generals may not have the same approach, however they at least have civilian journalists to record the state of current wars. This practice was pretty unbiased until the Vietnam war, however things were drastically changed in the post-Vietnam era, Now we are usually stuck with "embedded" reporters. They may not be unbiased as things used to be, however these reports still serve as post war historians or at least documentarians,
Christian Junger did a fabulous job documenting some aspects of Afghan wars of 80s and later years.
American think tanks from both left (Carnegie) or right (heritage) do a pretty good job for analyzing American military history. British too have a habit of keeping meticulous record of their military history.
In Pakistan however, the art of military history is spotty at best. We have a couple of well known civilian writers like Ahmad Rashid and Ayesha Siddiqua, but they are not professional military historians. Instead they are political historians that cover military. Their focus is not the art of war, and war techniques, but they focus on what the Pak generals have done wrong in the civilian and strategic arena. They do not document the life and death of army officers like Lt. Col Haroon, and what Pak army could have done better from the military point of view. They may have written articles but they have not written books on this topic (pardon my ignorance if they did).
Some retired generals did write military history about Pakistani wars, but still we are missing professional historians coming from civilian cadres. And thus we have made military decisions as a country that turned out to be disastrous for our military.
So let's make an effort to document relatively unbiased military history of Pakistan. The areas I suggest are following (feel free to add more).
1. Pre-1947 military history of Pakistan.
---- Focus: How and when the roots of modern day Pakistani military were put in place
2. Post-1947 military history (macro view)
3. 1948 war
4. Skirmishes issues post 1948 but pre-1965
5. 1965 war
6. issues in post 1965 war but pre-1971
7. 1971 war
8. Post 1971 military history
9. Russo-Afghan war from 1979
10. Post- Russo-Afghan war
11. American/NATO-Afghan war since 2001
Please make sure that your post states in bold letters, one of the above topics (or if you added a new one).
thank you
