Quote Originally Posted by William F. Owen View Post
So why doe the US Army consistently choose not to maintains the required expertise across the full spectrum of operations?

The failure to be ready to fight an Irregular Threat was a failure of training. Almost all US Officers knew they should be doing it. They just CHOSE to ignore it, because no one forced them to study their profession in an objective sense.

Failing to admit this has left the door wide open for the "COIN Club" and stuff like FM32-4, which are failures of exactly the same nature. Until the US Army understands that their job is WARFARE, then all the other sophistry and pontificating will make no difference. Being skilled at "fighting" - in it's broadest sense, is what counts. All else is rubbish.

....and let us not fall back on the idea that the US Army was "good at fighting regular threats." There is no evidence that they were. They managed to beat the Iraqi Army. That did not required great skill. They were 4th rate in 1991 and 10th rate in 2003.
Well said. Simply put we are pretty good but not as good as we think we are.

William you are getting at a core failure of our profession. We have managed to muddle through the last nine years not because the profession was expert in warfare or even adapted to areas where expertise lacked; but, rather any success came on backs of individuals who maintained personal professionalism in war.

It is a failure of imagination to attribute the professional success of individuals to the profession of arms. Part of being a profession is seeing ourselves clearly enough to recognize our failures and then fix them.