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I almost completely agree with your post except for one tidbit: "... the lack of actual 'real' wars to train the leaders ...". The US is almost continuously in

I almost completely agree with your post except for one tidbit: "... the lack of actual 'real' wars to train the leaders ...". The US is almost continuously involved in plenty of wars. Afghanistan and Iraq surely have been big enough to train generals (a WWI/II scale war is luckily the exception rather than the rule), but the generals have been slow to adapt to a new type of enemy (insurgency vs. straight up battle against a conventional army) and a new way of fighting a war. The excellent article quite eloquently makes the point that this kind of big scale thinking and adaption is exactly what a general needs to be able to do, and which the current system fails to promote.

pmr_ 14y ago
There is something I don't understand: The US (or at least certain agencies) have been involved in creating or supporting insurgencies in different scenarios (even Afghanistan itself) for most of the post-WWII era. There has to be an enormous amount of experience dealing with para-military groups and a lot of examples of how not to deal with one, e.g. the Soviets in Afghanistan. I would have expected that experience to pay off in the current situation. Either supporting an insurgency is radically different from combating it or all that knowledge is lost in the cracks between the different agencies conducting those operations.
AYBABTME 14y ago
I don't think Afghanistan and Iraq have been big enough to train generals. In fact, its less about the size of the wars than their nature. They're just not the kind of wars that general will be trained for. There is no front in Afghanistan. The war out there are much less about the military application of force than about the political restoration of nations. But the military is given the control of what's going on because of the poor security conditions. The Afghan and Iraqi theaters are 'distractions' to what the military are prepared to do. Generals are trained, like the rest of the army, for conventional warfare, to protect the sovereignty of their nations should a full scale war take place. We could shift the focus of the training on counter-insurgency, but that would effectively train the whole army to responds to a single kind of problems: insurgency. Then the country itself would be left with an army that is unable to defend its sovereignty, but that is very good at throwing down weak governments and shutting down rebellions. Generals, along their careers, are not primarily trained for counter-insurgency. Counter-insurgency is a spin-off of recent conflicts, but it's not the main goal of the military. Because of that, there's no sentiment that generals should go on a theater and take care of it until it's over. They just go in and fill the seat. The Afghans are well aware of this and it removes much credibility from our military : "You say that you will change things, but the guy before you said that, and in 6 months the next guy will say the same thing. I will still be there, and you will be back home. I will still be stuck in this conflict, and you will watch TV with your children and talk strategy about an eventual clash with China." In a 'real' war, there's a sentiment of urgency, there's an actual threat. The generals, the army, MUST defeat the enemy or a _real_ defeat will take place. In a war like Iraq, Afghanistan or Vietnam, if they win or lose will not change much to their lives, except for the price of gas and some more or less fear in the airports. It's more complex than the price of oil, but the end result is that recent conflicts are pawn-moves in the current state of the world. It's in that sense that I say recent wars are not big enough. They are not engaging enough to justify a shift in training, and they are not the type of war generals are mainly prepared for (thus the lessons they will get out of them are of limited apparent usefulness - although everybody thinks counter-insurgency is the big thing.)
- anonymouz 14y ago
  I can see your point, but disagree with it. I would say that, as the article also asserts, it is the job of generals to adapt to new kinds of warfare. Saying that these are not "real wars" or "conventional wars" is pointless. In the end the generals have to be able to lead the military in whatever situation the political leaders and the global geopolitics put them in. The US military is facing these kinds of insurgencies, because the enemy has adapted it's strategy: The Taliban are not stupid enough to engage the US in full on frontal assaults, because they'd lose. Assuming that generals would only have to face a specific kind of conflict ("conventional" warfare) is a losing proposition. In fact, if you examine conventional wars more closely, you'll find that the way these have been fought has changed drastically from one to the next, and a military leadership that is not able to adapt to new kinds of war has a huge drawback. (For example, WWI was a trench war, a few years later, in WWII the method of warfare has completely changed, towards fast tank assaults and air raids. During the cold war area, a large scale tank battle in Europe was still a realistic threat, nowadays it's unthinkable. During the later part of the 20th century the US has had great success by relying on an almost invincible air force to exhaustively bomb the enemy before sending in any troops, ...). As the main task of the US military nowadays seems to be less in territorial defense and more in engaging in "messy" wars similar to Afghanistan and Iraq, I think the leadership needs to adapt accordingly instead of waiting for the next war that fits their preconceived notion of what a war should be.

pmr_ 14y ago

There is something I don't understand: The US (or at least certain agencies) have been involved in creating or supporting insurgencies in different scenarios (even Afghanistan itself) for most of the post-WWII era. There has to be an enormous amount of experience dealing with para-military groups and a lot of examples of how not to deal with one, e.g. the Soviets in Afghanistan. I would have expected that experience to pay off in the current situation. Either supporting an insurgency is radically different from combating it or all that knowledge is lost in the cracks between the different agencies conducting those operations.

AYBABTME 14y ago

I don't think Afghanistan and Iraq have been big enough to train generals. In fact, its less about the size of the wars than their nature. They're just not the kind of wars that general will be trained for. There is no front in Afghanistan. The war out there are much less about the military application of force than about the political restoration of nations. But the military is given the control of what's going on because of the poor security conditions. The Afghan and Iraqi theaters are 'distractions' to what the military are prepared to do. Generals are trained, like the rest of the army, for conventional warfare, to protect the sovereignty of their nations should a full scale war take place. We could shift the focus of the training on counter-insurgency, but that would effectively train the whole army to responds to a single kind of problems: insurgency. Then the country itself would be left with an army that is unable to defend its sovereignty, but that is very good at throwing down weak governments and shutting down rebellions. Generals, along their careers, are not primarily trained for counter-insurgency. Counter-insurgency is a spin-off of recent conflicts, but it's not the main goal of the military. Because of that, there's no sentiment that generals should go on a theater and take care of it until it's over. They just go in and fill the seat. The Afghans are well aware of this and it removes much credibility from our military : "You say that you will change things, but the guy before you said that, and in 6 months the next guy will say the same thing. I will still be there, and you will be back home. I will still be stuck in this conflict, and you will watch TV with your children and talk strategy about an eventual clash with China." In a 'real' war, there's a sentiment of urgency, there's an actual threat. The generals, the army, MUST defeat the enemy or a _real_ defeat will take place. In a war like Iraq, Afghanistan or Vietnam, if they win or lose will not change much to their lives, except for the price of gas and some more or less fear in the airports. It's more complex than the price of oil, but the end result is that recent conflicts are pawn-moves in the current state of the world. It's in that sense that I say recent wars are not big enough. They are not engaging enough to justify a shift in training, and they are not the type of war generals are mainly prepared for (thus the lessons they will get out of them are of limited apparent usefulness - although everybody thinks counter-insurgency is the big thing.)

anonymouz 14y ago
I can see your point, but disagree with it. I would say that, as the article also asserts, it is the job of generals to adapt to new kinds of warfare. Saying that these are not "real wars" or "conventional wars" is pointless. In the end the generals have to be able to lead the military in whatever situation the political leaders and the global geopolitics put them in. The US military is facing these kinds of insurgencies, because the enemy has adapted it's strategy: The Taliban are not stupid enough to engage the US in full on frontal assaults, because they'd lose. Assuming that generals would only have to face a specific kind of conflict ("conventional" warfare) is a losing proposition. In fact, if you examine conventional wars more closely, you'll find that the way these have been fought has changed drastically from one to the next, and a military leadership that is not able to adapt to new kinds of war has a huge drawback. (For example, WWI was a trench war, a few years later, in WWII the method of warfare has completely changed, towards fast tank assaults and air raids. During the cold war area, a large scale tank battle in Europe was still a realistic threat, nowadays it's unthinkable. During the later part of the 20th century the US has had great success by relying on an almost invincible air force to exhaustively bomb the enemy before sending in any troops, ...). As the main task of the US military nowadays seems to be less in territorial defense and more in engaging in "messy" wars similar to Afghanistan and Iraq, I think the leadership needs to adapt accordingly instead of waiting for the next war that fits their preconceived notion of what a war should be.