{"id":72,"date":"2018-02-12T20:08:34","date_gmt":"2018-02-12T20:08:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-military\/?p=72"},"modified":"2018-02-13T00:50:30","modified_gmt":"2018-02-13T00:50:30","slug":"fighting-overseas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-military\/2018\/02\/12\/fighting-overseas\/","title":{"rendered":"Fighting Overseas"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Plans are worthless, but planning is everything.<\/p>\n

—Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1957<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Mahan\"<\/a>

Alfred T. Mahan<\/p><\/div>\n

Chapter 6 in Echevarria’s\u00a0Reconsidering the American Way of War\u00a0<\/em>(2014) covers a great deal of terrain in a mere twenty pages –from the early twentieth-century military interventions in the Caribbean (such as Panama 1903) to the Korean War (1950-3). The concise chapter begins by explaining how the small wars of the early twentieth century challenged a number of recent war-fighting traditions, including the ideas of the great naval strategist Alfred T. Mahan<\/a> (1840-1914).\u00a0 A blue-water navy was certainly important for projecting U.S. power at the dawn of the twentieth century, but Mahan “overlooked” (in Echevarria’s estimation) the challenges of projecting such force ashore. [For more on Mahan’s influence, see this lecture<\/a> by Mackubin Owens]<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Butler\"<\/a>

Smedley Butler<\/p><\/div>\n

During this period, Smedley Butler<\/a> was one American marine who became essential for the projection of U.S. force ashore in the Caribbean, Latin American, and Mexico.\u00a0 Butler became the most decorated marine officer in American history, but later came to regret his role as what he sardonically termed “a high class muscle- man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers.”\u00a0 He became a political reformer and wrote a searing memoir,\u00a0<\/span>War is a Racket<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>(1935).<\/span><\/p>\n