Rhetoric Plays Big Role In Military Decisions, UF Professor Says

January 27, 2005

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Wartime decisions often are influenced not by battlefield realities but rather by the rhetoric of politicians and military, according to University of Florida research.

Rhetoric typically is considered a tool of presidents, politicians, car salesmen, preachers and others who try to persuade their audiences. But it can have more critical implications, according to research in a book released in December, “Rhetoric in Martial Deliberations and Decision Making — Cases and Consequences.”

“There is another very crucial area in which rhetoric occurs, and that is when generals and admirals are deliberating whether or not to go to war, if they’re going to go to war where’s the best place to attack, what are the best weapons to use, and that sort of thing,” said Ronald Carpenter, a UF professor of English who has been researching rhetoric for nearly 40 years. “And officers who lack prowess with rhetorical skills in communication may be powerless to affect their fate.”

In his book, Carpenter, a former U.S. Air Force officer, addresses U.S. military decisions in the current conflict in Iraq, such as the fighting in Fallujah and Baghdad.

“Ever since World War II, it has been standard doctrine that the United States Army doesn’t fight in cities because of the civilian casualties, but that’s exactly what they are doing,” Carpenter said. “The general army officer doesn’t want to be there, but decisions by superiors have put them there.”

Through case studies, the book examines not only the rhetoric generals and admirals utilize, but also some techniques lower-ranking officers employ to change the minds of their superiors — and to change the course of events, Carpenter said.

“If you as a lower officer know that what the group wants to do is wrong, and your knowledge, expertise and experience say to you, ‘Hey, if we do this, we’re going to have a catastrophe,’ then just because the other guys in the room have more stars on their shoulder or ribbons on their chest, doesn’t mean that you just have to say, ‘Yes, sir,” Carpenter said.

Using memos, meeting minutes, personal correspondence and oral histories, Carpenter analyzed the most important decisions made during military history, including the Cuban missile crisis, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the Korean War landing at Inchon.

“In all of the cases I studied, I worked with the correspondence of the people involved,” Carpenter said. “I worked with their oral histories, their remembrances of what went on in the meetings and the transcripts of the meetings, so that I could look very closely at the language that was used.”

In one of the cases, Carpenter examined a meeting between Gen. Douglas MacArthur and the Joint Chiefs of Staff about whether U.S. Marines in the Korean War should land at the Korean port of Inchon, as MacArthur recommended.

The U.S. Navy held an 80-minute briefing of why Inchon was the wrong place to land, recommending another place with a beach and more favorable landing site. Following the briefing, the Army Chief of Staff agreed about the danger, Carpenter said.

But after MacArthur outlined the reasons he favored Inchon in a 30-minute talk, the Joint Chiefs of Staff decided the Marines should land at the site, Carpenter said.

“As it turned out, Inchon was a success, but the Army Chief of Staff called it the ‘luckiest operation in the history of warfare,’” Carpenter said. “You don’t want to trust people’s lives to luck.”

Two impulses on the parts of military commanders often operate in meetings where important war decisions are made, with the dominant impulse often energized by the commander’s rhetoric persuading others in the meeting, Carpenter said.

“You either have people, who as military people, feel they have to show courage,” he said. “The other impulse often pressed upon by military people is caution.” Regardless of whether a commander emphasizes courage or caution, employing rhetoric in his or her deliberations will succeed in the others following the plan of the rhetorician, Carpenter said. “Military deliberations are not just a matter of looking at maps and statistics, but a great deal of deliberation, highly dependent upon the way the various participants are able to argue in favor of one course of action or another, or how well they are able to use rhetoric to dissuade someone from a course of action,” he said.

By understanding the rhetorical tactics employed by commanding officers to persuade others, Carpenter said military personnel in lower positions could be more aware of how to use their own rhetoric as influence.

“Some of the most crucial decisions ever made deal with war, and that’s what I decided to investigate,” Carpenter said. “The people who made decisions with the way they talk are skilled rhetoricians, they know how to be persuasive, and it affects people’s lives.”

The waging of war remains an art and not a science, said William C. Calhoun, former dean of academics at the U.S. Naval War College in Newport, R.I.

“Dr. Carpenter, himself a former officer in the U.S. Air Force, has a deep interest in understanding the ability of senior commanders to influence the choice of one course of military action over another,” Calhoun said. “The elements of these abilities, including a thorough explanation of the context and consequences of each of four major case studies, forms expert analysis offered in (Carpenter’s book).”