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learned. Eventually, the term lessons and the idea of learning from con-
temporaneous experience began to appear in these journals. Essay con-
tests for these journals were expressly designed to learn from the
 lessons of the past. As discussed below, the Marine Corps would follow
this practice, soliciting articles from those in the 9 eld during their two
decades in the Caribbean and actually using journal articles as a basis for
writing new doctrine.
In addition to the new journals, most of9 cers in the Philippines relied
on personal experience as their guide. Twenty-six out of the 30 generals
who served in the Philippines had spent a good portion of their careers
performing nation-building operations and battling irregular forces in
the American South and on the Western frontier.22 Of9 cers such as Gen-
eral Chaffee, who had chased the infamous Southern partisan group
Mosby s Rangers during the Civil War, and other of9 cers who learned
the utility of destruction from General Sherman s March to the Sea ap-
plied these same approaches against the insurrectos and the civilians sus-
pected of supporting them in the Philippines. After four years of trial
and error in the Philippines, a handful of familiar tactics had been re-
discovered and implemented with varying degrees of success.
For many junior of9 cers with little or no prior frontier or occupation
experience, however, reconstruction and governance were frustrating
endeavors. Lacking doctrine, training, and resources especially in re-
mote areas where civilian administrators were scarce these of9 cers
struggled to manage local governments and implement other nation-
building tasks. These younger of9 cers learned by trial and error how to
balance  attraction and  chastisement policies. Eventually, as the in-
surgency grew and in areas where it was strongest carrots often gave
22. Max Boot, The Savage Wars of Peace: Small Wars and the Rise of American Power (New
York: Basic Books, 2002).
Two Centuries of Small Wars and Nation Building " 41
way to sticks, and commanders focused on the more brutal aspects of
guerrilla warfare.
Over time, the military s tactics to  crush the insurrectos became in-
creasingly forceful and controversial. Tactics varied, as local com-
manders in different areas tried out different approaches. In an effort to
isolate guerrillas from the population, villages were often garrisoned and
burned, populations were placed in concentration camps, crops were
destroyed, and torture such as the notorious  water cure  was used to
extract information.23 Following Sherman s example of banishing fami-
lies who assisted rebels, a handful of guerrilla leaders and their families
were even exiled to Guam. The use of indigenous forces, such as the
Philippine Macabebe Scouts, the Philippine Constabulary, and other na-
tive units, supplemented American forces, provided useful intelligence,
and could often be counted on to administer some of the harsher meth-
ods in the 9 eld. Just as the Army had capitalized on tribal rivalries on the
Western frontier to gain the tactical advantage, so they played on long-
standing hatreds within Philippine society to break down the resistance.
Of9 cers would 9 nd themselves defending the use of these hard-learned
but brutal tactics, despite their apparent tactical utility.
When news of harsh tactics and various atrocities committed by
American troops reached the United States, the American public was
morti9 ed. This was the sort of behavior they expected from cruel Euro-
pean colonists, not  benevolent American liberators. Veterans of the
Philippine War found themselves defending their counterguerrilla tac-
tics. Of9 cers serving in the Philippines felt that only when harsh tactics
had broken the will of the insurgents would the population respond to
the  policy of attraction. 24 Major General Loyd Wheaton wrote in
1900,  You can t put down a rebellion by throwing confetti and sprin-
kling perfumery. 25 Whether or not this is the case is open for analysis.
The military s simultaneous mission to Cuba, where such harsh mea-
sures were not implemented or perhaps where they did not need to be
implemented provides additional insight into this counterinsurgency
puzzle.
23. In the water cure a captive was made to drink copious amounts of water, after
which pressure would be applied to the painfully distended abdomen.
24. Boot, The Savage Wars of Peace; David Haward Bain, Sitting in Darkness: Americans in
the Philippines (Boston: Penguin, 1986); Gates,  Indians and Insurrectos.
25. Quoted in Birtle, U.S. Army Counterinsurgency and Contingency Operations Doctrine
1865 1941, 135; and Stanley Karnow, In Our Image: America s Empire in the Philippines (New
York: Ballantine Books, 1989), 179.
42 " lifting the fog of peace
Cuba: Lessons Applied
In contrast to what occurred in the Philippines, a bloody Cuban insur-
gency was somehow avoided in the immediate aftermath of the Spanish-
American War. There are a number of potential reasons for this. First,
the three years of 9 erce guerrilla warfare by the Cubans against the
Spanish, combined with the brief American invasion, had laid waste to
the island and its infrastructure and likely exhausted the Cuban people.
Second, the fact that the Teller Amendment made it clear to the Cubans
that the United States had no desire to colonize the island may have
quelled potential animosity aimed at would-be occupiers. This concept
was reinforced by General Brooke s actions upon assuming control of
the island in January 1899. Over the course of the year, General Brooke
established indigenous provincial governments under the tutelage of his
own of9 cers, thus reinforcing the concept of local rule while ensuring a
level of competence as the new of9 cials became accustomed to their
roles. Finally, Brooke s decision to immediately demobilize the 50,000
men in the Cuban Army of Liberation by paying the soldiers, buying
their weapons, and providing retraining for employment as policemen
was probably the single most effective means of quelling any potential re-
bellion. The havoc an abruptly unemployed band of young men with
weapons can wreak on an occupying army would become all too appar-
ent 100 years later, following the fall of Saddam Hussein in Iraq.
On the Americans second tour to Cuba, in 1906, signi9 cant violence
was also averted this time by veteran of9 cers of the Philippine insur-
rection who comprised the command and staff of President Roosevelt s
cadre. Anticipating guerrilla warfare, Marine Corps colonel Littleton
Waller and Army general Bell applied some of the hard-learned lessons
from their Philippine experience.26 They immediately ordered troops to
garrison towns, conduct patrols, and collect intelligence on potential
rebel sympathizers. Arguably, these measures proved effective in pre-
venting would-be guerrillas from conducting their operations.27
Meanwhile, on the nation-building side, Cuba was a  workshop for
American progressivism. 28 General Leonard Wood (after whom the
U.S. Army engineers school is named) was praised by fellow Progressives
for his aggressive program of nation building. They considered the gen-
26. See Boot, The Savage Wars of Peace, 120. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]