Armchair Military: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

 

 

While the idea of a General who valiantly leads his troops from the front line has some basis in reality, in modern battlefields it is a common case of [[Hollywood Tactics]]. If the guy in charge of your army dies in the first volley, chances are you're going to lose. And even if he doesn't die, fighting with the army is going to make it much harder for him to tell what's going on or relay orders.

If they are merely incompetent anyhow, compare [[General Failure]].

 

 

== Anime and Manga ==

* In ''[[Maiden Rose]]'', every administration that we see has its own armchair military. In Vol. 2 the brass from Taki's country are particularly [[Obstructive Bureaucrat|obstructive]] and serve as a contrast to the type of frontline leader Taki is.

* Lelouch pointedly averts this trope in ''[[Code Geass]]''. "If a general does not lead, how can he expect his subordinates to follow?" While he isn't necessarily on the ''front'' lines, he is personally present at nearly every battle he commands. He takes this philosophy to such an extreme that his chess strategies often involve the king being right out with the rest of the pieces, making offensive moves.

** Subverted in ''[[Gundam Seed]]'' by Captain William Sutherland, a General Staff officer notable for both his [[Obstructive Bureaucrat|banality]] and [[Moral Event Horizon]]-crossing strategies. Sutherland seems like an armchair admiral who can only recommend the strategies he does because he's never actually seen combat. Yet in the final episodes it's Sutherland who leads the attack on ZAFT from aboard his flagship, the ''Doolittle''; it quickly becomes apparent that he uses the tactics he does not because he is ignorant, but [[We Have Reserves|because he has no regard for human life.]]

* General Damon from ''[[Valkyria Chronicles]]'' and his top brass commanders never take part of the fighting itself, show [[Fantastic Racism|racism to Darcen soldiers]], and overall are [[General Failure|terrible commanders]]. It's no wonder that they are [[The Scrappy|rather unpopular among fans.]]

 

 

== Film ==

* Marshall Murdock in ''[[Rambo]] 2'' was an armchair general.

* Some movies show generals in British High Command during [[World War II]] as heartless armchair generals.

* Subverted in ''[[The Hunt for Red October]]''. Jack Ryan is an author of books on naval history and a CIA analyst, but he winds up rolling up his sleeves and going face-to-face with Captain Ramius.

** Ramius also lampshades the trope when he learns what book Jack wrote and tells Ryan that his conclusions were all wrong.

 

== Literature ==

* ''About Face'', an autobiography by Colonel David Hackworth, proposes that the war in Korea and Vietnam was undermined by academic 'experts' and military commanders with no understanding of what was happening in the field.

* David Halberstam's ''The Best and the Brightest'' is about the decisions of America's military and foreign policy experts under the Kennedy and Johnson administrations that led to the US getting bogged down in Vietnam.

* In the novel ''Stark's War'' and its two sequels, by [[John Hemry]], the entirety of the US military command being loaded with this type is what causes the title character and his fellow soldiers to mutiny, after deciding they were through with micromanagement using horribly broken war theories getting troops killed for nothing.

* Senator Arnos in the fourth ''[[Codex Alera]]'' book ''Captain's Fury'' is the first type. Despite being a figure of authority in military tactics, Tavi notes that Arnos doesn't see the soldiers he's commanding as "real", having only seen battles through strategy meetings or high above the air in an air carriage. This causes him to adopt [[We Have Reserves]]-style strategies and try to order the deaths of civilians who the Canim spared as "sympathizers to the enemy".

* Subverted in the semi-literal but not figurative case of the real-life General David Petraeus, US Army (most famous for overseeing "The Surge" in Iraq) who has a fictional version of himself portrayed in ''[[The Salvation War]]''. He's never at the front lines of any battle and at first glance seems to simply be commanding from the back through monitors. However, he's ''not'' unaware of the cost of war in lives, and he is ''damn'' good as a commander. In fact, he ends up as commander of the Human Expeditionary Army, although this is because only the U.S.A. has the command/control capability to actually lead a force of its (nominal) size.

** Jeff and his friends are fascinated with military history. Of course they take to it like ducks to water.

* The men responsible for organizing the Battle of Yonkers in ''[[World War Z]]'' were armchair military types. Their list of blunders included putting soldiers in hazmat suits that made it difficult for them to reload, not paying attention to the fact that they were fighting an army made entirely of ''infantry'', therefore giving their tanks the wrong kind of ammunition, bringing bridgelayers, not securing the area or taking advantage of higher ground, digging trenches when they weren't needed, using a really big airstrike on just the front ranks of the enemy, and a whole bunch of other stuff. It's torn to shreds by the man being interviewed in the story, saying that most of the inappropriately chosen stuff [[Suicidal Overconfidence|was there for purely PR reasons]].

 

*** Sisko manages to avoid becoming one when he has a major strategic operations role during the early Dominion War.

** In the episodes [http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Homefront_(episode) Homefront] and [http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Paradise_Lost_(episode) Paradise Lost], an admiral who nearly topples the UFP government says politicians are armchair military.

** Some [[Expanded Universe]] novels do feature an admiral or two getting down and dirty when necessary. Even the stuck-up Admiral Arlen McAteer, whose grudge against Picard being made captain is entirely based on his own ideals for a perfect Starfleet (translation: Picard is too young to be a competent captain, despite his numerous successes).

** There is a fine example of one in ''[[Star Trek Elite Force]] II'', when a typical example of an armchair admiral disbands the Hazard Team as unnecessary in these "civilized" times. Along comes Picard and points out that this may be the case at the heart of the Federation but is definitely false on the outskirts. He promptly reassembles the Hazard Team despite the admiral's objections.

*** It's frequently pointed out in later seasons of SG-1 and Atlantis that the IOA, when faced with a difficult decision, will deliberate until after the deadline so that someone else can make the decision and they can criticize it. While the operating principle behind the IOA is sound (civilian oversight of military operations), they are so incredibly ineffectual as to be criminally negligent.

* This trope is the entire point of the BBC game show ''[[Time Commanders]]'', where random people off the street get to direct historical battles simulations (with help from historians and professional tacticians) to see if they can change the outcome of history.

 

== Video Games ==

* You are this every time you play a strategy game.

* Flagg from ''[[Medal of Honor]]'' (2010) is unworried by avoidable losses of his own and Afghan forces.

 

== Web Original ==

* A frequent target of the satirical ''[http://ifyoulikeitsomuchwhydontyougolivethere.com/ spEak You're bRanes]'' blog is people who go onto news blogs and smugly lecture on military tactics, warfare and the need for martial solutions to social problems while simultaneously making it clear that they're both lacking in military experience and as far from the fighting as it's possible to get. Fittingly, the tag used to identify examples of these people is 'Armchair Generals'.

 

== Real Life ==

* As a lighter example of [[Interservice Rivalry]], the US Air Force is frequently referred to as the "Chair Force" by the uniformed personnel of other branches. Airmen with a self-deprecating sense of humor have also been known to toss the term around themselves. Ironically, in the Air Force, it's ''only'' the officers who are supposed to get shot at - unless one is in Combat Control or Pararescue.

* [[Adolf Hitler]] is halfway to this trope. While he did have combat experience, he only made it to the rank of Corporal before taking the reins of the largest army in Europe. While Hitler did come up with some effective strategies, he greatly overestimated his military acumen. The fact that he had made a lucky guess regarding his disposition of forces during the French invasion gave him the impression that he was a closet military genius, which would color many of his decisions throughout the remainder of the war.

** Eisenhower benefited from the unique nature of his command: a [[Multinational Team|multinational force]] fighting along a large front (well, two fronts, if you count Italy)<ref>Yes, we know the Eastern Front was bigger. Eisenhower had nothing to do with the Eastern Front. So please, pipe down.</ref> with logistics in particular being a nightmare. As it turns out, Eisenhower was a good diplomat and knew how to leverage the United States military's logistical skills (logistics has historically been the US military's strongest suit) into victory<ref>Yes, we know that the Eastern Front was extremely important. However, neither the Western Allies nor the Soviet Union could have won without the other's efforts. Now ''pipe down''.</ref> Eisenhower was competant as a strategist, but not especially skilled at it; however he was perfect for the job he was there for - getting the Americans, British, French, Canadians, Poles, and others to concentrate on fighting the Axis and not squabbling with each other over who got the glory.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Military and Warfare Tropes]]