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Posted on 05/24/2013 12:50:58 PM PDT by JerseyanExile
By all accounts, the present-day United States military is the best—that is, the most capable—in all the world. In the estimation of their countrymen, today’s American warrior (the homelier term G.I. having now gone the way of doughboy) may well be the best of all time. Yet America’s Army doesn’t win. Except for small-scale skirmishes, it hasn’t since World War II.
The United States Army is like one of those chronically underperforming professional sports franchises: the team looks good on paper but somehow doesn’t quite get the job done. Despite a huge payroll, a roster loaded with talent, and an enthusiastic fan base, performance on the pitch falls short of what’s needed to win championships.
What explains this gap between apparent potential and actual achievement? When Americans send their army to fight, why doesn’t it return home in triumph? In The Generals, Thomas R. Ricks ventures an answer to that question, with his book’s title fingering the chief culprits.
Writing in 1932, the soldier-historian J.F.C. Fuller identified the essential attributes of successful generalship as “courage, creative intelligence and physical fitness.” A prize-winning journalist best known for his cogent analysis of the Iraq War, Ricks does not question whether senior American military officers can do the requisite number of push-ups and sit-ups to demonstrate their physical vigor. Yet since World War II, he argues, the quality of creative intelligence found in the upper echelons of the United States Army has declined precipitously. So too has the quality of civil-military interaction—the dialogue between senior officers and senior civilian officials that is essential to effective war management. Here the problem stems at least in part from pronounced lapses in moral courage. Together, these failings at the top explain why an army that seemingly ought to win doesn’t.
(Excerpt) Read more at theamericanconservative.com ...
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Well said.
Once again, we see the false argument that ‘the American Army lost the war in Vietnam.’ The Army won every major (battalion-sized or larger) and most of the smaller firefights (that I was in, anyway). The war was lost at the negotiating table, and by Congress’s refusal to re-engage, or even adequately support our ally, when the PRV broke the agreement.
The US didn’t lose VietNam. We quit. That’s worse. But one can’t blame the generals for that.
“By all accounts, the present-day United States military is the best—that is, the most capable—in all the world.”
LOL! No need to read further.
Since WWII - no matter how poorly equipped, how small, how pathetically funded, how uneducated, how ragtag, how undisciplined, how disorganized - have we once vanquished an enemy into unconditional surrender. Of course we’ve never delared any actual wars either, except the never-ending “wars” against Communism, poverty, drugs, terror, etc etc etce tce etce egdhbcrn/klCL:
well said
Except for Grenada, Panama, Iraq #1, Iraq #2, Afganistan.
The problem is not with the GIs, but with the officer corp, the Pentagon, and the commander in chief.
With all fairness to McNamara, the military command also thought that a major offensive in the North was not a good idea. There was a lot of back and forth with China and the Soviet Union as well, so a stalemate was seen as the best alternative.
After the battle of Ia Drang, the NVA could not concentrate its forces, or the US would have been all over it. But without a concentrated enemy force, the US would have just been patrolling empty jungle, yet subject to hit and run attacks. So the US avoided concentrations as well.
The stalemate was almost broken by Nixon ordering the carpet bombing by B-52s, which even the North admitted, after the war, almost broke them. The trouble with that was that the NVA fled to Laos and Cambodia and offered to drag them into the mess as well.
The biggest lesson learned by the US military was that it had to markedly improve its technologies, because its casualties were far too high for future conflicts. It did so.
You’re right on all points.
It isn't the Marine Corps of the recruiting posters anymore.....its PC faggotry, risk aversion, CYA, and DHS run and hide or fight with scissors training.
Nope...they are “go along to get along” and make flag/general officer rank.
Patton...now THERE was a general.
My mother’s hero...she who endured Nazi-occupied France...
Well, speaking as a USAF veteran (1970-1974), I can without hesitation say...Thank God for the U.S. Marine Corps!
We can also use a couple Lees and Jacksons.
A major problem was that LBJ started to micromanage the war, even going so far as to personally select individual bombing targets. That’s a recipe for disaster.
Totally from the heart. Thank you.
We can also use a couple Lees and Jacksons.
I concur, ought-six.
I had the great good fortune to watch Andrew Bacevich mentor his young Officers. He made me wish that I was one of them. Andrew Bacevich is one of the few people in the world that, when he talks, I shut up and listen. Conservatives would do well to have a tour of Conservative speakers including Andrew Bacevich, Victor Davis Hanson and Daniel Greenfield. We would be smart to have these guys serve as mentors to young Conservatives.
I knew we were in real trouble when the memorandum came down saying that it wasn’t fair to evaluate Soldiers based on their performance in combat. You could end a career if the Soldier was one second late on the fitness test or because the Soldier looked fat, but it wasn’t fair to evaluate Soldiers based on their performance in combat? We have an Army of runners with all that entails.
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