Contemplatives in the Heart of the Military

Grand-Strategists and Military Philosophers for the U.S. Special Operations Forces - an Indispensability to be Welcomed

by Professor Robert D. Hickson(*), Joint Special Operations University, U.S. Special Operations Command

The need of our military for contemplative, strategic-minded men of action and deeply reflective military philosophers

To what extent does the U.S. Special Operations Command now have - or sustainingly try to form in our own military culture - contemplative, strategic-minded military philosophers like T.E. Lawrence? And, what would we do with them, especially now in our own grand-strategic and protracted 'global war on terrorism?'

As T.E. Lawrence fought against the Turkish and German 'special operations forces,' will our Special Operations Forces also now have a long-range, strategic 'counter-SOF mission' against 'covert, foreign, deftly networked special operations forces' and their subtly cultural and strategic MENTALITÉ...? Lawrence himself was very good at these kinds of things, given his deep and versatile formation and resourceful spirit.

More popularly known as Lawrence of Arabia and as the author of Seven Pillars of Wisdom, T.E. Lawrence was, unmistakably, a contemplative man in the heart of the British military in the time of the British Empire.

Lawrence, despite his formal rank, was, in effect, a general and a thinking general. No one in our U.S. Special Operations Command could rationally, or would likely, depreciate or trivialize his strategic, military accomplishments. Nor would they refuse to admire his magnanimity and his heroic life, especially in combat against the Ottoman Empire of the Turks. Yet, as a kind of heroic epic figure, Lawrence was not only a vivid-souled man and poet, but also a man with a deeply philosophical disposition that always strove to consider the roots of things and lovingly seek wisdom. The concept and reality of wisdom was very important to him, and should be to us, inasmuch as wisdom, at root, is the more responsive alertness and intensive ability to savor reality as it truly is.

Such a philosophical disposition, which has the capacity for silence and reflective wonder and attentive perception, constitutes an indispensable talent within any military, like our own, which must often live closely within the heart of foreign cultures, while trying to understand them and also, lest we be deluded and misled, to savor reality whole and entire, with a sense of proper proportion and depth, and without astigmatizing illusions.

But, what would the U.S. military culture, or even the culture of our Special Operations Forces, likely do with a man like Lawrence, if he were in our ranks today? Not only what would we do with him, what would we do to him? The answer to both of these questions, if we are honest with each other and with ourselves, would not be encouraging, much less inspiring. And, yet, our apparently growing and increasingly resented 'American Empire of Global Hegemony' (now often called a 'ROGUE SUPERPOWER') will need deep-thinking, far-sighted contemplatives in the heart of our military who are even more strategic-minded than the more cultivated and well educated oligarchs of the British Empire, who themselves so truly needed a philosophical and historically contemplative man like Colonel Lawrence. (And do we not still need reflective men, too, like my own mentor, Sam V. Wilson, or his own comparably beloved mentor, Edward Lansdale, both of whom could so deeply 'read a foreign culture?')

With even more scope and intrusive cultural presence than the British Empire ever had, the 'World's Sole Superpower' today has global access and provocative power and many increasingly dangerous, defensive (and now pre-emptive) missions and preventative responsibilities abroad, all of which imply the need for long-range minds and deep-thinking generals, as well as their contemplative intellectual counselors who should be always 'on tap,' if not 'on top!' (And I say this as one who is not in favor of the American Empire, not only because it is un-Constitutional, but also because it will destroy us and the larger common good.) Whether we like it or not, however, our current hegemonic (or imperial) and constabulary burdens are real and will abidingly require a deeply thoughtful and moral military culture that fosters strategic-minded officers and fresh-minded philosophical contemplatives who can savor and understand foreign strategic cultures and their own long-standing sustaining military cultures, as in the case of China. In an increasingly 'borderless world,' we shall likely have not only more 'borderless finance' and more 'borderless economies,' but also more 'borderless wars' and newly combined forms of 'total warfare,' or what the Chinese call 'Unrestricted War in the Age of Globalization.'

Our U.S. military culture must, therefore, also foster younger officers in deeper and long-range thinking, if only because the concept and reality of 'culture' itself - any kind of culture - implies cultivation and slow fruitfulness. And culture also always means some kind of a vital medium - a mediation and instrument of life and alacrity (not dullness), even when it is 'a culture of a virus.' As with the formation of our Special Operations Forces, a culture - any culture - cannot be formed 'overnight,' much less be 'mass-produced.' And this 'vital medium' must be supported on several fronts and really encouraged, not trivialized or mocked as something 'merely academic,' which is itself a cynical self-parody that ignorantly forgets that the root meaning of 'ACADEMIC' is 'ANTI-SOPHISTIC!' (Plato knew very well, and tried throughout his life to warn us about, the permanent temptation of the human mind, especially gifted minds, to resort to SOPHISTRY, with all of its intimately destructive consequences.)

This need of our general military culture for contemplative, strategic-minded and counter-sophist officers is even greater within the military culture of our U.S. Special Operations Command, because we have, by virtue of our founding and supplemental legislative charter, grand-strategic missions, not just military-strategic missions. Therefore, we especially need contemplative, strategic-minded men of action and deeply reflective military philosophers like T.E. Lawrence, who could deeply savor and understand foreign cultures and their militaries and their religious world-views, and not only in the Turkish and Arabic worlds of culture and religion.

The disciplined, cultured, versatile mind is still the most important thing - especially for Special Operations Forces

T.E. Lawrence also had real love for those among whom he labored, and it was not at all fake, or merely expedient. He truly willed their good, their own true fulfillment. His capacities for empathy and genuine love deeply enhanced his reliable perception of them and his long-range understanding. 'For even the most intensive seeing and beholding may not yet be true contemplation,' Josef Pieper once observed, because 'the eyes see better when guided by love; a new dimension of 'seeing' is opened up by love alone!' Lawrence had this love for those among whom he dwelt, and for whom he labored.

This same German professor, Josef Pieper, who lived himself in many foreign cultures and savored them deeply to their roots, adds a few other words of insight that may help us:

'Contemplation is visual perception prompted by loving acceptance. I hold that this is the specific mark of seeing things in contemplation: it is motivated by loving acceptance, by an affectionate affirmation.'1

I remember discussing in person with Professor Pieper the deeply contemplative mind of T.E. Lawrence, whose Seven Pillars of Wisdom I first read as a young second lieutenant in the jungles of Laos. Josef Pieper had himself lived in India, and among other alien cultures, and he soberly understood what the preconditions were for a deep understanding of other human beings, especially who lived in foreign cultures and had very alien traditions of statecraft and strategic intelligence. Moreover, Professor Pieper had also read and profoundly appreciated the Seven Pillars of Wisdom and the insights and vivid remembrance and contemplative capacities of T.E. Lawrence himself, to include his loving ability 'to keep alive the remembrance of a face,' and to understand 'an avowed sacred reality.'2 We, too, should appreciate and cultivate these contemplative capacities. And, it is worthy of emphasis to note that these attentive abilities to perceive reality in listening silence have no connection with any idealistic romanticism or emotional sentimentalisms. We are talking about the capacity of the human mind to understand objective reality, without the loud intrusion of one's own 'noisy self.'

Democratic slogans, ideological clichŽs, 'mind-forged manacles,' the illusion of technique, and our inordinate trust in and dependency on technology are not enough, and will not suffice for a mature nation and its military who are trying to understand reality and to deal with it honestly. We, too, must 'learn how to see again.' By 'learning how to see again,' Josef Pieper says,

We do not mean here, of course, the physiological sensitivity of the human eye. We mean the spiritual capacity to perceive the visible reality as it truly is.3

Later, in his own modest way, Josef Pieper adds:

'To repeat then: man's ability to see is in decline. Searching for the reasons, we could point to various things: modern man's restlessness and stress, quite sufficiently denounced by now [he was writing in 1952!], or his total absorption and enslavement by practical goals and purposes. Yet one reason must not be overlooked either: the average person of our time loses the ability to see because there is too much to see! There does exist something like 'visual noise,' which just like the acoustical counterpart, makes clear perception impossible.'4

Clear perception and cognition are rendered even more impossible when our lives are in 'fast forward' in bondage to a breathless 'warp-speed operational tempo,' which certainly offers no encouragement nor opportunity for reflection. With an insight applicable to our rambling and restless Intelligence Community, as well as to our American Military Culture, Josef Pieper also reminds us very wisely that:

'The ancient sages knew exactly why they called 'the concupiscence of the eyes' a 'destroyer.' The restoration of man's inner eyes can hardly be expected in this day and age - unless, first of all, one were willing and determined simply to exclude from one's realm of life all those inane and contrived but titillating illusions incessantly generated by the entertainment industry [to include the advertising industry and 'mass-media' of multi-media manipulation and other sophistic forms of deception, or 'perception management'].'5

Anticipating, a strong objection, Professor Pieper continues with his discernments:

'You may argue, perhaps: true, our capacity to see has diminished, but such loss is merely the price all higher cultures [or Empires?] have to pay. We have lost, no doubt, the American Indian's sense of smell, but we also no longer need it since we have binoculars, compass, and radars [and now 'satellites' and 'fusion sensors' and 'UAVs']. Let me repeat: there exists a limit [even for the 'Bionic Commando'] below which human nature itself is threatened, and the very integrity of human existence is directly endangered. Therefore, such ultimate danger can no longer be averted with technology alone.'6

We may recall in this context Hilaire Belloc's famous ironic verse regarding the Boer War and the British Empire. As the Commando Chief, Commander Sin, said in his self-inflicted blindness:

'Whatever happens, we have got

The Maxim gun, and they have not!'

But, there are no technical solutions to moral problems. And there are no technical solutions to the deeper matters of military ethos and its mental (or intellectual) culture. The disciplined, cultured, versatile mind is still the most important thing - especially for Special Operations Forces.

Indeed, I would argue, we in the military need to consider Josef Pieper's own contemplative words of insight, and then resolve to make our own strategic course-correction. For, he says, at stake here is this: How can man be saved from becoming a totally passive consumer of mass-produced goods and a subservient follower beholden to every slogan the managers may proclaim? The question really is: How can man [and the SOF soldier abroad and at home] preserve and safeguard the foundation of his spiritual dimension and an uncorrupted relationship to reality? The capacity to perceive the visible world 'with our own eyes' is indeed constituent of human nature. We are talking here about man's essential inner richness - or, should the threat prevail, man's most abject inner poverty [in a growing narco-democracy?]. To see things is the first step toward that primordial and basic mental grasping of reality, which constitutes the essence of man as a spiritual being.7

Josef Pieper is also, as he says, well aware that there are realities we can come to know through 'hearing' alone [and not only at NSA - the National Security Agency]. All the same, it remains a fact that only through seeing [and especially 'seeing things in contemplation'], indeed through seeing with our own eyes, is our inner autonomy established. Those no longer able to see reality with their own eyes are equally unable to hear correctly. It is specifically the man thus impoverished who inevitably falls prey to the demagogical spells [and sophistries and panderings] of any powers that be. 'Inevitably,' because such a person is utterly deprived of even the potential to keep a critical distance (and here we recognize the direct political relevance of our topic).8

These are very far-sighted words written by a German in 1952, a man who had just experienced World War II and its pervasively destructive aftermath. Will we be willing to learn from this cultured European man, who, being born in 1904, had seen so much himself? At least, let us not fall prey to the easy self-deception of 'American exceptionalism,' as if we are exempt from the tragedies of history and of empire that other countries have known, and most inwardly.

Further preparing us in the U.S. Special Operations Command to make our own applications of his insights as we ourselves are now taking over the larger and protracted, grand-strategic mission of conducting the 'GWOT' (the 'Global War on Terrorism,' as it is still commonly called), Josef Pieper now leads us up to some acute 'decision points.' He says about his own modestly offered analysis of things, as follows:

'The diagnosis is indispensable yet only a first step, [i.e., it is indispensable, but insufficient!]. What, then, may be proposed; what can be done? We already mentioned simple abstention, a regimen of fasting and abstinence [from 'all of those inane and contrived but titillating illusions incessantly generated'], by which we would try to keep the visual noise of daily inanities at a distance. Such an approach seems to me indeed an indispensable first step but, all the same, no more than the removal, say, of a roadblock.'9

Indeed, while using Professor Pieper's own words, I would also add that our Special Operations Forces as a military culture 'can thrive only when it springs from a higher level of visual perception' and contemplation, as when a painter or sculptor intensively sets himself 'to observe and study the visible mystery of a human face' or 'the countless shapes and shades of just one wave swelling and ebbing in the ocean!'10 Those who are especially good as intelligence officers or as professionals in 'special operations' tradecraft in special reconnaissance (or as 'global scouts') need have such intensity of observation and subtle discernments and capacities of perception, which are also a foundation for their deeper strategic reflections and cognition about these nuanced 'reports from reality.'

Let us cultivate an intellectual culture of contemplative men and place them, not on the margins, but in the heart of our Special Operations Forces

The 'quiet professional' in the Special Operations Forces, like an artist and a contemplative philosophic man, must be ready and always prompt 'to take a fresh look at the visible reality,' which 'requires authentic and personal observation.'11 Such is what we also mean by our desire to get 'ground truth,' with 'no bullshitsky!' It is also the way we freshly and frequently 'check our premises,' our unexamined assumptions.

Moreover, it is true that long before a creation [of an artist or a report of a strategic intelligence analyst] is completed, [the contemplatively observant professional] has gained for himself [like T.E. Lawrence of Arabia] another and more intimate achievement: a deeper and more receptive vision, a more intense awareness, a sharper and more discerning understanding, a more patient openness for all things quiet and inconspicuous.12

By being thus able 'to perceive with new eyes the abundant wealth of all visible reality, and, thus challenged,' the contemplative, strategic-minded military officer, or professional, thereby 'additionally acquires the inner capacity to absorb into his mind such an exceedingly rich harvest' and, then, his 'capacity to see increases.'13

Let us help cultivate, and not only at our Joint Special Operations University, such an intellectual culture of contemplative men like this, and like T.E. Lawrence himself. And, let us encourage and place them, not on the margins, but in the heart of our military culture, especially in the heart of our Special Operations Forces today. For, we need them very greatly. And we shall soon need them even more.

1 Josef Pieper, Nur der Liebende singt (Only the Lover Sings: Art and Contemplation) (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1990), pp. 74-75.

2 Ibid., p. 62

3 Ibid., p. 31

4 Ibid., pp. 32-33

5 Ibid., p. 33 - Emphasis added by author is underlined, emphasis from the original is in italics.

6 Ibid.

7 Ibid., pp. 33-34

8 Ibid., p. 34

9 Ibid., p. 35

10 Ibid., pp. 35 and 31, respectively

11 Ibid., p. 35

12 Ibid., pp. 35-36

13 Ibid., p. 36

(*) Robert D. Hickson, Bachelor of Science of the U.S. Military Academy, West Point, professor of strategic and cultural studies and national security at the Joint Special Operations University, U.S. Special Operations Command.