I didn't think Fuchs was criticizing anyone or any Army, he is
criticizing governments that engage in potentially fruitless nation building wars which rarely work and are terribly wasteful of people.
He is also saying those kinds of wars teach -- embed, even -- bad habits and the purchase of expensive equipment with limited uses (MRAPS, anyone...). I very strongly agree with him.
As Infanteer said and this is really the point:
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..killing them requires the same skills as facing a regular opponent - only with them you have more considerations to take into account.(emphasis added / kw)
Presuming you mean the "regular" opponent requires more considerations, that's correct. A whole lot more. Artillery just for openers, mass and rapid maneuver capability or two quick additives...
As Fuchs says:
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I know that these statements are not capable of comforting those who serve(d) in AFG, but they're the harsh truth.
They are indeed truths and he's just scratching the surface. I appreciate and thank everyone now serving but no professional should get lulled into believing that either Afghanistan or Iraq were or are wars in the total sense. They are a series of skirmishes against lightly armed opponents and are a totally different thing to warfare against even a near peer opponent. While major war is itself a series of small unit skirmishes, there are so many more of them and so many more elements come into play that a very different mindset -- and equipment set -- comes into play.
The myth that "COIN is the graduate level of war" is dangerous. It does require a degree of thought and interaction that differs from conventional warfare but it does not require less thought or effort. Indeed, conventional warfare is far, far more demanding on commanders and large units even though it is not much more demanding on individuals and small units.
It is simply a matter of scale. It is also a matter of opponent mass and capability. Governments are at fault for committing their troops to poorly thought out campaigns; Armies are at fault for presuming those campaigns are the future. Every war is different, yet warfare changes little and small wars differ considerably from large ones. :wry:
The US Army picked up a number of bad habits in Viet Nam -- some of those bad habits (micromanagement and lack of trust of subordinates being two big ones, overuse of Artillery in COIN like operations and inadequate and insufficient patrolling being two more) still adversely impact the force 35 years later. In fact, the Small War in Korea still has flawed legacy problems (the one year tour, condensed and 'economical' training) 60 years later... :mad:
Micromanaging the military and other things
Ken, I'm glad to see you say that about micromanaging the military. I can't comment on lessons learned from Vietnam, and I'll leave to you where the Army picked it up. I certainly see reflections of corporate America in the Blackberries, instant access to hundreds of e-mails per day, and control over every little jot and tittle of everything that comes up all day every day with the staff level officers. I have even started a category on this:
http://www.captainsjournal.com/categ...-the-military/
Beginning with one of the most absurd instances I have ever seen in print:
http://www.captainsjournal.com/2009/...-riskless-war/
I'm sure Ken could add several thousand instances from his career. It's disappointing. One of my dislikes of the ROE in Afghanistan is not what it says, although I have my beefs. It is the very notion of a four star general issuing a tactical directive to Lance Corporals and Sergeants in the field under fire. Lord, why can't generals focus in logistics and strategy, and let the boys in the field focus on tactics?
As for the issue of the infantry half-kilometer, there is at least one interesting comment where I weighed in:
http://www.captainsjournal.com/2010/...#comment-29570
This is similar to some comments I am getting to this article via mail. No one in the Army believes that they will ever get the best weapons (or even the best training). It's a matter of making the most of what's there. The Marines do this with their rifle qualifications at 500 yards, and the fact that the Army doesn't do this has to do with strategic choices, not capabilities.
That said, I find it rather criminal that in all these years, the Army / Marines have not seen fit to invest in a replacement for the Stoner system of weapons that at least uses an open bolt system (or better yet, piston), and gives the fire team and squad a more variable choice of weapons at their disposal.
It would appear to me that Major Ehrhart's recommendations are basically correct. Other than money, what reason could there be NOT to implement both better training and more latitude in weapons selection?
I generally agree, pointing out only that
Each generation sort of gets its own war(s) and thus learns its own lessons -- which we notoriously do not analyze well or successfully pass on to our successors.
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Originally Posted by
Steve Blair
I would contend that these small wars simply solidified traits and trends that were first formed during the big wars (WW 1 and WW 2), and those traits in turn stem from some of Root's reforms and the historical American reliance on a very small standing army and mass militia in times of conflict (which translates after about 1916 to the draft).
This is not a quibble, it is important:
Each war adds its own fillips to previously absorbed bad lessons.
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Many of the bad habits the force has been saddled with came from poor planning for the next big war, not from participation in small wars.
With that I totally agree.
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The failures and omissions run deeper than "small versus big" or caliber debates.
While that is true, it should not be allowed to obscure the fact that bad lessons accrue in all wars for the next one or that small anything cannot totally prepare one for a big anything. one reason for the phenomenon as you state it is that junior leaders in one war mistakenly presume their next war will be like their last where they may be far more senior and thus able to do far more damage (See again Korea and Viet Nam. See also the Powell
Doctrine...).
It is a matter of scale and that is very important. What you say is true at the macro level; at the micro or personal level it is all too easy to base ones future plans and actions -- and thus ones responses to stimuli -- on current experience.
That is rarely wise
I think maybe we're throwing pet rocks past each other.
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Originally Posted by
Steve Blair
Agree, but we also tend to obsess on the micro level...while in fact the bigger problem remains as the elephant in the corner.
Perhaps a bad choice of words on my part; I 've noticed one can educate the young and even the middle aged. However, old Bull elephants are not going to listen or change. So you've got to get the young to think right in hopes that when they get old, they'll be in the habit. Don Vandergriff sent me a briefing he'd presented to the Chief of Staff -- of which nothing had come -- I wrote him back and suggested he edumacate the LTs and they would change the system as the grew in it and pointed out starting at the top and working down does not work, even a really smart guy like Shy Meyer discovered that.
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And now I'll put the pet rock away and stop derailing the thread...:o
It's not a derail, it's pertinent and you're correct that some obsess over inconsequentials.
However, the difference between low and high intensity war is quite far from being inconsequential. That point needs emphasis.
Kaur:
I don't see any spoiling effect. Your chart doesn't contradict a thing I've written here. In fact, if it does anything, it backs up my comment that "(Fuchs) is criticizing governments that engage in potentially fruitless nation building wars which rarely work and are terribly wasteful of people" and "Governments are at fault for committing their troops to poorly thought out campaigns; Armies are at fault for presuming those campaigns are the future." :wry: