"Shock and Awe"

[Fred Shapiro]

On Sun, 23 Mar 2003, Imran Ghory wrote:

> The following was said by Lord Kennet on 30th Oct 1996,

OK, looking more closely at Nexis I see that Gen. Charles Horner used
"shock and awe" in testimony before the House National Security Committee,
12 Sept. 1996:

"The very first speech I gave after the Gulf War, I talked about the B-2
and I did it right over here at a luncheon on this side of the hill. And I
talked about the need for being able to induce shock and awe against a
future enemy rather than just beating them into the dirt, and killing all
their soldiers, and destroying their cities."

This suggests that the term may have been in use soon after the Gulf War
and that Ullman and Wade may not have been the coiners.  Of course, Horner
could have been retroactively applying a 1996 term in recalling an earlier
speech that did not in fact use the term.

Fred Shapiro


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