Sven Ortmann has a great post dispelling the myth that Germans are a uniquely warlike people. He runs down the list of events in German history that most misunderstand, and argues that there is no uniquely German impulse to take to the battlefield. Ortmann's larger point, however, cannot be emphasized enough:
"The whole idea of "warlike tribe", warlike nation" and so on is very misleading in my opinion. It's a curtain that conceals the more complicated origins of military prowess - and this curtain tells nothing about the origins."
It is very common, for example, for Americans to make jokes about French cowardice. Yet even a passing glance at the kind of losses that the French suffered on the Western front in World War I falsifies such a notion. The passionate nationalism and military exertion that characterized French history from the Revolution to World War I also belies the notion of uniquely French pacifism.
Even more common are essentialist works that expound on a certain "Asian way of war" characterized by subterfuge--an equally specious notion that ignores the tremendous diversity in military traditions across Asia and the commonalities between Asian and Western military thought and practice. Not to mention the fact that reading Sun Tzu instead of Mao may not be of much help in understanding modern China.
Essentialism appeals to people because it offers the opportunity to trace an unbroken line from past to present and easily categorize. But it is extremely harmful in practice for security decisionmaking.
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