‘Heroic’ Warfare and the Problem of Mass Armies: France 1871–1914

Abstract

In 1995, Edward Luttwak published an article in Foreign Affairs. Called ‘Toward Post-Heroic Warfare’, and reflecting the political hubris fostered by the United States’ unipolar moment, it rested on the expectations created by the ‘revolution in military affairs’ and its attendant and then-fashionable military doctrines. It imagined the armed forces of the West enjoying such technological edge over their most likely enemies that they would be able to wage wars that were casualty-free, at least for themselves, and which would be speedily terminated by the unopposed use of air power.¹ From the perspective of the first decade of the twenty-first century, and given the experience of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the article captures less the characteristics of war after the 9/11 attacks and more those of the previous decade, following the end of the Cold War. Air power was unopposed in osovo in 1999, and ground forces suffered no losses in the combat phase. Protracted conflict since 2002 has continued to involve the use of air assets in an uncontested environment, but its principal burdens have been shouldered by armies, whose members have suffered grievous injuries, not least from improvised explosive devices. By 2010, the most successful British service charity — that is in terms both of growth since its inception in 2007 and of its public profile — was called Help for Heroes. It had both reconfigured how wounded service personnel were cared for and created a fresh public awareness of what the British armed forces did.