Wars were fought on terrain well chosen, by armies composed of men who carried out orders selected from a limited set of possibilities. To paraphrase the terminology of generative grammars, it was a limited war language, with not too many possible war sentences. Once improved means of work and production became the means of carrying on war, those in command could write more war texts, more scripts. As war efficiency increased, so did the possibility of a breakdown of the effort due to lack of integration and coordination. The military structure reflected the characteristics of the human praxis that fostered written language and, much later, literacy: relatively limited dynamics, centralized, hierarchical organization, low level of adaptability, a strictly sequential course of action, a deterministic mentality. David Oliver convincingly described the process: "Mechanics is the vehicle of all physical theory. Mechanics is the vehicle of war. The two have been inseparable." He refers to the practical demands of warfare in the context that led to the science of mechanics and eventually to the beginnings of projectile ballistics. By 1531, Nicolo Tartaglia of Brescia overcame his disdain for war and devised the gunner's square, which was perfected 100 years later by none other than Galileo. In 1688, the French introduced the socket bayonet on their muskets, which occurred simultaneous to changes in tools used at the time, i.e., the tools that allowed for manufacturing the bayonet.
The framework that created conditions for the ideal of literacy affected the pursuit of war not only in technology, but also in the way wars were played out. The advancing line of exposed troops were involved in a dynamics of confrontation that reflected linearity, a phenomenon prevalent in the practical experience of civilian life. Destructive power was added until the enemy was destroyed. Row by row, soldiers stopped to fire platoon volleys, then continued onto the decisive bayonet charge. The structure of writing (sequences, hierarchy, accumulation, closure) and the structure of this particular military engagement were similar. Literacy as such was registered rather late as a qualifier of the warrior. But once integrated in the practical experience of military self-constitution, literacy changed the nature of making war and enabling higher levels of efficiency corresponding to the new scale of war. These were no longer skirmishes among feudal warlords, but major conflicts between nations. These conflicts diminished in number but grew in intensity. Their duration corresponded to the relatively long cycles of production, distribution, and consumption characteristic of literacy-based practical experiences.
Under the pressure of many types of necessity embodied in human pragmatics, war was submitted to rules. It was civilized, at least in some of its aspects. The Catholic Church, preserver of literacy during the Dark Ages, when many little wars between feudal lords were carried on, took the lead in this direction. In order to avoid destruction of crops and lives in the barbarian societies of Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire, the only viable hierarchy tried to tame warriors with the literate rules that the Church preserved. With their own pragmatic considerations in mind, rulers accepted these prescriptions. It took a millennium for people to discover that wars never have final results. But they also learned that the experience of war creates knowledge-for example, of means used, weather patterns, territory, characteristics of the enemy-and creativity-what is called the art of war. Resulting in death and destruction, wars are also instances of self-education in one of life's most unforgiving schools.
The institution of the military
"The draft is the legitimate child of democracy," as Theodor Heuss defined it. Obligatory military service was introduced during one of the first modern revolutions- the French levée en masse (conscription) of 1793. The citizen-soldier replaced mercenaries and professional soldiers. The call "Aux armes, mes citoyens" that became a stanza of the French national anthem, glorified the expectations of the moment. Prussia followed suit almost immediately, motivated by economic reasons: cheap manpower for war. During the prolonged process of becoming an institution, the military enlisted the support of the state it defended or of those private establishments (church, landowners, merchants) that needed its services.
Feeding off the means generated by society, the military institution integrated the practical experience of the people in its structure and actively pursued courses of action meant to increase its efficiency. At every juncture of humankind's continuous change, the military had to prove levels of efficiency that justified its own existence as a factor in the active defense of resources. When it was no longer efficient and weighed too heavily on the socio-economic foundation, it was eventually overthrown, or the society supporting it stagnated, as we see happening time and again in military dictatorships.
As one of the many highly structured environments for human interaction, the military identified itself, as did all other social mechanisms, through repetitive actions. Each action could be further seen as a set of tasks, or orders, connected to motivations or justifications, which anticipate or follow practical experiences specific to the military. Some were connected to life within the organization, such as the possibility to advance in the hierarchy and affect future activity. These were internal in the sense that they were affected by the implicit rules adopted by the institution. Others were external, expressed in the nature of the relation between the military and society: symbolic status, participation in power, expectations of recognition.
Evolution of the military resulted in changes in the language involved in defining and modifying the interactions characteristic of military practical experience. This language became progressively more adapted to the goal-win the war-and less coordinated with civilian language, in which the discourse of motivations leading to the conflict occurred. Correspondingly, relations with the outside world-future members of the military, social and political institutions, cultural establishments, the church-took place in what appeared to be a different language.
Changes in the structure of the practical experience of human self-constitution, as well as changes resulting from a growing scale, had an influence both inside and outside the military. When the individuals making up the world constituted themselves as literate, the functioning of the military assumed the expectations and characteristics of literacy. What would emerge as military academies were probably established at this time. Von Moltke's ideas of changing the nature of relations with subordinates just predated the many modern advances in war technology: the use of steam-powered warships (by the Japanese in their war against the Russians in 1905); the introduction of radio, telephone, and automotive transportation (all tested in Word War 1); and even the articulation of the concept of total war (by Erich Lindendorf). All these correspond to a pragmatic framework within which literacy was necessary, and literacy's characteristic reflected upon new practical experiences. The total war is of the same nature as the expectation of universal literacy: one literacy replaces all others. There is to the military institution of the civilization of literacy an expectation of permanency, embodied in rules and regulations, in hierarchies, and centralized structure, similar to that of state, industry, religion, education, science, art, and literature. There is also an expectation of centralism, and thus hierarchy and discipline. These characteristics explain why almost all armies adopt similar literacy-based structures. Guerrilla wars, in their early manifestations (skirmishes during the American Revolution) and in their current forms in South America, for example, are illiterate in that they are not based on the conventions of literacy. They unfold in a decentralized manner, and are based on the dynamics of self-organizing nucleii. This is why military strategists consider them so dangerous today.
Patterns of military action and the language recurrences associated with these patterns express attitudes and values pertinent to the pragmatic framework. England, at the height of its literate experience, had a highly structured, almost ritualized way of carrying out war. One of the main complaints during the American Revolution was that the colonials did not fight according to the rules that literate West Europe had established over the centuries. Under circumstances of change, as those leading to the end of the need for a generalized, all-encompassing literacy, these attitudes and values, expressed in language and in patterns of military activity, are exhausted, except where they are carried over to other forms of praxis, especially to politics and sports.