Richard F. Miller: Obama's not very good "Midst of Battle" speech

A combat-embedded Harvard-trained historian executes an academic takedown on Obama’s West Point speech. What follows is a guest post from Richard F. Miller, author of In Words and Deeds: Battle Speeches in History. I picked up Miller’s book the other day, intrigued by the idea of a military historian who takes his deadly subject matter seriously enough that he sought to experience it firsthand.* We had a brief email exchange, and this quick, off-the-cuff assessment of Obama’s Afghanistan escalation speech was the result.

Miller classes it a “Midst of Battle” speech, and rates it a not particularly good one. In fact, pretty bad. ”In general, a battle speech, or call to action is not the place to recite one’s limitations.” Ouch.

Here’s the full scorching, as Miller wields his analytical historian’s flamethrower:

For my companion volume to Words and Deeds (MS due in three weeks) I’m actually analyzing a few of Obama’s speeches as commander in chief. I’ll probably include the West Point address in the book’s epilogue. Regarding West Point, I would say this:

The form of battle speech is that of Midst-of-Battle Speech, probably the most common and diverse of the battle speech genres. The most relevant — and obvious — comparisons would be to Bush’s announcement of the Surge (Jan. ‘07) and Petraeus’s Assumption of Command Speech (Feb. ‘07).

The most important convention these sorts of speeches is first, simplicity of message (e.g., attack, retreat, hold) and next, consistency of message. The latter is key — time and attention spans are short. When a civilian commander, versus a NCO, gives such a speech, multiple audiences have to be accounted for — friends, allies, enemies, fence sitters, etc. This actually puts nuance at a severe discount — clarity is key. Battle speeches are not diplomacy. The same message must be received by all constituencies.

Given the foregoing, but not addressing the policy merits, Obama’s speech was a failure. It transgressed both simplicity and consistency with its call for a July 2011 terminus (since walked backwards and forwards by a variety of administration shills).

The speech was too long, and its length was spent badly. Where he might have outlined some basic tactics (a key according to SLA Marshall) he was silent about details — the numbers matter less than what one does with the troops. (Here both Bush and Petraeus excelled in defining broadly where and how new force would be applied.) Consistency also fell short because he reproached his predecessor, an gratuitous distraction from his message.

Consistency was also violated by the other boundaries that Obama set. For example, in emphasizing, unnecessarily, in my view, that America’s war-making capacity was subject to economic limitations, should the Taliban to assume that American can be compelled to withdraw by, Heaven forbid, dynamiting the New York Stock Exchange? In general, a battle speech, or call to action is not the place to recite one’s limitations. One can imagine FDR calling for “the inevitable triumph” but “subject to the success of next war bond drive.”

Moreover, civilian commanders-in-chief have a special responsibility in their battle speeches from which their military counterparts are exempt — rallying the civilian population. Here, Obama failed miserably, save for the only segment of the civil population that seemed to matter to him — the Democrats’ left wing. Unfortunately, in democracies, wars are not waged by placating special constituencies. They must enjoy broad based support. That begins with the “visible presence,” to use Patton’s phrase, of the president. The only resolution I observed during the speech were the stony faces in the audience.

One final and related observation. Staging and props matter a good deal in these situations. Talking to a roomful of cadets was a mistake and another distraction. There are certain kinds of speeches, just like there are certain kinds of orders, lover’s messages, job terminations, and awful medical diagnoses, that one gives face to face, period. The only way for a president to do that is alone, behind his desk, in the Oval Office. There is no more awesome responsibility than ordering youngsters to what will be a certain death for some. And that can only be done by looking directly into the camera and thus into the hearts of his fellow Americans. The presence of a visible audience during the speech acts like an automobile bumper, absorbing the shock of the speech.

But for some speeches, the shock should not be absorbed. The awesome, solemn, terrible business of ordering troops into battle is one of these.