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The military ultimately executes the policies of the Presidential administration which commands it and the Congress that funds it, under the laws the latter put

The military ultimately executes the policies of the Presidential administration which commands it and the Congress that funds it, under the laws the latter put in place. Especially in the Middle East and Vietnam, while there is blame to be put on theater commanders, the US military was also hamstrung by incoherent policy decisions of the civilian leadership. And frankly I don't care whether or not "many" armchair generals and admirals do or don't consider Korea a "loss." War is not a sports game. The details of the geopolitical and economic fallout of a stalemate like that matter a whole hell of a lot more than who "won."

mandmandam 3y ago
Sounds a lot like "Just following orders" and "You weren't there". > And frankly I don't care That's just it though. This isn't about you. Sports game or not, there are losers in war; and it's been us, a lot, for decades. Whoever you try to blame, whatever you call people who point this out, that fact remains true.
- blq10 3y ago
  You are very much missing the point. If you read the one thousand page postmortem on the invasion of Iraq - lots of blame to be placed on civilian leadership and intelligence. A few: The core reasoning (WMD) was the CIA misinterpreting Saddam grandstanding to his generals as a serious WMD program. This was due to the CIA having an insufficient grasp of the local situation, largely due to the fact that we had only infiltrated isolated parts of the regime and couldn't corroborate. Slightly before Obama's election, the US forces were effectively ordered to stop patrolling and attempting to take and hold territory in order to reduce the American bodycount for political reasons - this allowed forces outside the green zone to maintain continuity of operations and simply wait for us to get bored and leave. Similarly, lack of a clear set of objectives, and lack of frank expectations setting with the US population lowered the ability of the DoD to prosecute the war in a winnable fashion. These aren't small nitpicks, these are core reasons why the GWOT didn't go so well - and almost none of them have anything to do with defense procurement or military mismanagement.
  - lmm 3y ago
    You are missing the point; none of what you said refutes what you were replying to. While the civilian leadership does have the authority to order the military to stand around, get shot for a while, and go home having achieved nothing, presumably that's not what they actually asked for or wanted. Getting into the situation where you go to war that you're not going to be able to win absolutely represents a failure on the part of the military; perhaps not a failure of procurement or management, but very much a failure of leadership, which is exactly what OP originally said.
    - psunavy03 3y ago
      > Getting into the situation where you go to war that you're not going to be able to win absolutely represents a failure on the part of the military; perhaps not a failure of procurement or management, but very much a failure of leadership, which is exactly what OP originally said. Good God, what are you on? The military literally does not get to make these decisions. Only the civilian leadership in the form of the President and Congress gets to decide when and where the military goes to war. And as much as US military officers learn from Day 1 that it's their duty to refuse illegal orders (and it is), the day a combatant commander or Chairman of the Joint Chiefs tells the President or Secretary of Defense "no, this war is illegal" is the day we have ourselves a constitutional crisis, for good or ill.
      - lmm 3y ago
        > The military literally does not get to make these decisions. Only the civilian leadership in the form of the President and Congress gets to decide when and where the military goes to war. Sure, but it's the responsibility of the military to be clear to them about what they can and can't do (or, more likely, what it's going to cost, in money and casualties, to achieve x). Obviously yes if the President actually orders you to fart around and get shot then you do it. But if the President thinks sending three brigades to $country is going to keep the civilians there safe in the current crisis, it's the responsibility of the military leadership to know and advise whether that's a three-brigade job or not.
tialaramex 3y ago
Right. A recurring theme in successful military campaigns (though by no means enough to ensure success) is a very clear objective. Civilian politicians decide those objectives. If the objectives are vague that's their fault. If the objectives are unachievable, that's their fault. Only when there were clear, achievable objectives is there any opportunity for it to matter whether military leadership, tactics, training, equipment etc. were adequate. After all, if we don't know what success even looks like, what chance do we have? Compare "Corporate" (the British operation to re-take control of the Falkland Islands) with "Iraqi Freedom" (US invading Iraq for nebulous reasons) Even if you're not sure that Corporate was a good idea, or that the UK "should" own these islands, the objective was very simple and easy to understand. If we kill a whole bunch of Argentinians but have to retreat and they keep the islands, that's a failure. If they just walk away without a (further) shot fired and we get the islands back, that's a success. Easy. But what chance did US troops have for "Iraqi Freedom" ? Can they find the imaginary Weapons Of Mass Destruction in Iraq? No. Hopeless.

mandmandam 3y ago

Sounds a lot like "Just following orders" and "You weren't there". > And frankly I don't care That's just it though. This isn't about you. Sports game or not, there are losers in war; and it's been us, a lot, for decades. Whoever you try to blame, whatever you call people who point this out, that fact remains true.

blq10 3y ago
You are very much missing the point. If you read the one thousand page postmortem on the invasion of Iraq - lots of blame to be placed on civilian leadership and intelligence. A few: The core reasoning (WMD) was the CIA misinterpreting Saddam grandstanding to his generals as a serious WMD program. This was due to the CIA having an insufficient grasp of the local situation, largely due to the fact that we had only infiltrated isolated parts of the regime and couldn't corroborate. Slightly before Obama's election, the US forces were effectively ordered to stop patrolling and attempting to take and hold territory in order to reduce the American bodycount for political reasons - this allowed forces outside the green zone to maintain continuity of operations and simply wait for us to get bored and leave. Similarly, lack of a clear set of objectives, and lack of frank expectations setting with the US population lowered the ability of the DoD to prosecute the war in a winnable fashion. These aren't small nitpicks, these are core reasons why the GWOT didn't go so well - and almost none of them have anything to do with defense procurement or military mismanagement.
- lmm 3y ago
  You are missing the point; none of what you said refutes what you were replying to. While the civilian leadership does have the authority to order the military to stand around, get shot for a while, and go home having achieved nothing, presumably that's not what they actually asked for or wanted. Getting into the situation where you go to war that you're not going to be able to win absolutely represents a failure on the part of the military; perhaps not a failure of procurement or management, but very much a failure of leadership, which is exactly what OP originally said.
  - psunavy03 3y ago
    > Getting into the situation where you go to war that you're not going to be able to win absolutely represents a failure on the part of the military; perhaps not a failure of procurement or management, but very much a failure of leadership, which is exactly what OP originally said. Good God, what are you on? The military literally does not get to make these decisions. Only the civilian leadership in the form of the President and Congress gets to decide when and where the military goes to war. And as much as US military officers learn from Day 1 that it's their duty to refuse illegal orders (and it is), the day a combatant commander or Chairman of the Joint Chiefs tells the President or Secretary of Defense "no, this war is illegal" is the day we have ourselves a constitutional crisis, for good or ill.
    - lmm 3y ago
      > The military literally does not get to make these decisions. Only the civilian leadership in the form of the President and Congress gets to decide when and where the military goes to war. Sure, but it's the responsibility of the military to be clear to them about what they can and can't do (or, more likely, what it's going to cost, in money and casualties, to achieve x). Obviously yes if the President actually orders you to fart around and get shot then you do it. But if the President thinks sending three brigades to $country is going to keep the civilians there safe in the current crisis, it's the responsibility of the military leadership to know and advise whether that's a three-brigade job or not.

tialaramex 3y ago

Right. A recurring theme in successful military campaigns (though by no means enough to ensure success) is a very clear objective. Civilian politicians decide those objectives. If the objectives are vague that's their fault. If the objectives are unachievable, that's their fault. Only when there were clear, achievable objectives is there any opportunity for it to matter whether military leadership, tactics, training, equipment etc. were adequate. After all, if we don't know what success even looks like, what chance do we have? Compare "Corporate" (the British operation to re-take control of the Falkland Islands) with "Iraqi Freedom" (US invading Iraq for nebulous reasons) Even if you're not sure that Corporate was a good idea, or that the UK "should" own these islands, the objective was very simple and easy to understand. If we kill a whole bunch of Argentinians but have to retreat and they keep the islands, that's a failure. If they just walk away without a (further) shot fired and we get the islands back, that's a success. Easy. But what chance did US troops have for "Iraqi Freedom" ? Can they find the imaginary Weapons Of Mass Destruction in Iraq? No. Hopeless.