EVERY amateur military historian knows that the most disastrous mistakes at the start of a new war are usually made by generals still fighting the last one. Nowadays even military cadets are taught to avoid imitating yesterday’s heroes too closely. All eyes are on the future of war. Around the Western world’s military academies military history risks going the way of courses on cavalry tactics as high-tech weaponry and post-modern battle tactics take over.
Apart from the study of futuristic warfare, the only growth area in Western military academies is the misnamed “disaster peacekeeping.” No one would deny the vital necessity for national security of having a military attuned to the most modern developments (even though some of our governments seem unhappy about paying for them), but essential though it is to prepare for worst-case scenarios, other threats may be more immediate and insidious.
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