The Best Trained, Most Professional Military...Just Lost Two Wars?

[Entropy]

Not sure who expected a lesser result? The smart people knew it was going to be a walk over (especially because of US control if the seas allowing safe and secure LoC).

Yes, I agree the smart people knew we would soundly defeat the Iraqis (I was in college at the time and ignorant on military topics, so I certainly wasn't one of the smart ones). My point is one of degree - I don't think many of those smart people thought the defeat would be as decisive as it turned out to be. I think this is reflected in the casualty numbers. The degree to which we bested the Iraqis says something about our competence at that time (I think a lot of that competence is gone thanks to ten years of fighting insurgents).

How might things have looked had the U.S. been allowed five weeks rather than five months for the buildup?

I'm sure we could come up with a multitude of "what-ifs" and counter-factuals, but in this case I wonder where a five-week limitation would come from?

There certainly was a danger that Iraqi forces could have pressed into Saudi when there were only the Saudis and (if I remember correctly), the 82nd and some aircraft there to stop them.

[Surferbeetle]

The Rolling Stones -- Doom And Gloom (Lyric Video), http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPFGWVKXxm0


...the mechanics of the global kill chain continues to evolve and although Mars may take a breather or change weapons from time to time, he isn't going anywhere...

SAC, ICBM, Trident , and...

[Ken White]

Contrary to some assertions here, we have a history of doing just that -- the Pols and the Generals screw it up and the Kids pull their fat out of the fire. That was true in times past, that was true in WWI and WW II, in Korea, in Viet Nam, in DS/DS and in Afghanistan and Iraq. We ain't great; we are adequate.

The degree to which we bested the Iraqis says something about our competence at that time (I think a lot of that competence is gone thanks to ten years of fighting insurgents).

True dat...

I'm sure we could come up with a multitude of "what-ifs" and counter-factuals, but in this case I wonder where a five-week limitation would come from?

There certainly was a danger that Iraqi forces could have pressed into Saudi when there were only the Saudis and (if I remember correctly), the 82nd and some aircraft there to stop them.

As one thoroughly involved at the time, admittedly personally all stateside, DS/DS would've been a bit more difficult, we would've had a few more casualties and it would have taken a bit longer but the result would've been pretty much the same.

As is and has often been the case, we're far from perfect -- but our opponents historically and over 200 plus years -- have always been either militarily or politically even less competent. It is no particular accident that our own Civil War was one of our longer wars and produced more casualties and losses than any others.

[Bob's World]

America is a nation with many competitors. In fact, arguably everything not American, be it state or non-state, is in competition with the US. That is as it should be. Competing with powerful states possessed with a sense of "right" and "righteousness" to rule or dominate wide areas beyond their borders is how America herself rose to power. When our competitors stubbornly clung to obsolete positions and expended their waning strength in the process it served to accelerate our rise.

Today it is America clinging to obsolete positions, and it is America that expends its waning (relative) strength in the process. We have grown so used to the idea that competitors can be "contained" or simply directed (backed by the force of our wealth and military power) to act in the manner we deem appropriate that we appear to find it beneath us to simply roll up our sleeves once again and compete.

To blame the military for "losing" wars that are not truly wars (we easily won the war parts, it was the subsequent policy aspects of clinging to old policies and refusal to recognize change, while employing the military to somehow enforce such inappropriate positions to work that challenged our forces. The largest failing of the military was their dog-like loyalty to continue to play, to continue to chase that ball, until they collapsed in exhaustion. Good dogs don't tell their masters to stop throwing the ball, and good masters don't need to be told.

What are the existential threats to the US today and into the foreseeable future?? By and large, these are not military problems. We need to reframe how we see ourselves and how we see the world. We need to stop resisting the resistance, and decide once again to compete.

But first we must tone down the ideological mantra that shapes our current policies and that hinders the ability of US citizens, companies, as well as our official policies, to compete effectively in the current environment. This not all that hard, after all, it is primarily a return to what got us where we are, and an abandonment of what we have adopted to stay there. The ideas and motivations that fueled our rise are far superior to those that we have applied to stifle the competition of others to stay on top.

The principle of the right of self-determination of governance for all is far superior to the belief that all should embrace some form of US-like democracy.

Appreciate that values are rooted in history and culture, and that while the US history an culture is not evil, to push the values born of it too aggressively onto others certainly is.

Look hard at corruption laws that drive US business to either stay home or simply abandon the US altogether to avoid harsh rules and penalties that no other nation emposes upon their citizens that dare to go out and seek international opportunities. (Watch an episode of "Jungle Gold" about the raw world of gold mining in Ghana for a glimpse at just one aspect of this as armed Chinese operations dominate the scene)

We are in a confused place as a nation. Just listening to the rhetoric of the current Presidential contest gives clear evidence of that. One candidate calling for a doubling down on the perceived successful approaches of a past that no longer exists, while the other recognizes change must happen, but has yet to map out for anyone what our approach to that might actually look like. In the mean time we rely heavily on CT, sanctions and excessive military postures to attempt to slow the change until we figure things out.

To frame this as our military "losing two wars" is far too narrow and symptomatic of a viewpoint to help us truly fix what ails us.

[Surferbeetle]

...hang on....

Creative destruction, From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_destruction

Creative destruction, sometimes known as Schumpeter's gale, is a term in economics which has since the 1950s become most readily identified with the Austrian American economist Joseph Schumpeter,[1] who adapted it from the work of Karl Marx and popularized it as a theory of economic innovation and the business cycle. The term is derived from Marxist economic theory, where it refers to the linked processes of the accumulation and annihilation of wealth under capitalism. These processes were first described in The Communist Manifesto (Marx and Engels, 1848)[2] and were expanded in Marx's Grundrisse (1857)[3] and "Volume IV" (1863) of Das Kapital.[4]

At its most basic, "creative destruction" (German: schpferische Zerstrung) describes the way in which capitalist economic development arises out of the destruction of some prior economic order, and this is largely the sense implied by the German Marxist sociologist Werner Sombart who has been credited[1] with the first use of these terms in his work Krieg und Kapitalismus ("War and Capitalism", 1913).[5] In the earlier work of Marx, however, the idea of creative destruction or annihilation (German: Vernichtung) implies not only that capitalism destroys and reconfigures previous economic orders, but also that it must ceaselessly devalue existing wealth (whether through war, dereliction, or regular and periodic economic crises) in order to clear the ground for the creation of new wealth.[2][3][4]

In philosophical terms, the concept of "creative destruction" is close to Hegels concept of sublation. In German economic discourse it was taken up from Marx's writings by Werner Sombart, particularly in his 1913 text Krieg und Kapitalismus:[14]

Again, however, from destruction a new spirit of creation arises; the scarcity of wood and the needs of everyday life... forced the discovery or invention of substitutes for wood, forced the use of coal for heating, forced the invention of coke for the production of iron.

It has been argued that Sombart's formulation of the concept was influenced by Eastern mysticism, specifically the image of the Hindu god Shiva, who is presented in the paradoxical aspect of simultaneous destroyer and creator.[1] Conceivably this influence passed from Johann Gottfried Herder, who brought Hindu thought to German philosophy in his Philosophy of Human History (Ideen zur Philosophie der Geschichte der Menschheit) (Herder 179092), specifically volume III, pp. 4164.[1] via Arthur Schopenhauer and the Orientalist Friedrich Maier through Friedrich Nietzsches writings. Nietzsche represented the creative destruction of modernity through the mythical figure of Dionysus, a figure whom he saw as at one and the same time "destructively creative" and "creatively destructive".[15]

[Fuchs]

America is a nation with many competitors. In fact, arguably everything not American, be it state or non-state, is in competition with the US.

I'll tell him once I meet the next farmer from Malawi.


Seriously, you added a lot to the more usual US-centric view here.
Your statement would be trivial if true, for it could then just as well be said that everything not Turkish is in competition with Turkey.

[Bob's World]

I'll tell him once I meet the next farmer from Malawi.


Seriously, you added a lot to the more usual US-centric view here.
Your statement would be trivial if true, for it could then just as well be said that everything not Turkish is in competition with Turkey.

Fuchs,

Somehow I doubt you spend much time chatting with farmers anywhere, yet alone in Malawi. But you miss my point. It is not that everyone is out the get the US, it is that everyone everywhere is in competition with each other. We are part of that competition.

The US didn't shed any tears for the UK when we nudged past them during WWII, nor would the UK shed any tears for the US if the situation were reversed. This is not about "allies" and "enemies," or "friends" and "threats." It is about competition. Those in power tend to set up systems to suppress the competition of others and to provide advantages to themselves. Spain did this, France did this, the UK did this, and the US has done this in its own way as well. Just as an example. Same applies to all nations. Increasingly their are major players who are not nations at all, and who have a flexibility of loyalty that is particularly frustrating to an American approach to foreign policy that is so emotional rather than pragmatic.

My point is that we need to stop whining and lashing out at those seeking their own best futures in ways that circumvent, by-pass or ignore our carefully crafted systems of obstacles that have been rendered as obsolete and irrelevant as the Maginot line by the emerging global geo-economic / political reality. Instead we need to put on our big boy pants and come up with a new understanding and new approaches for competing more effectively in the world as it is, not as we wish it was.

[Bill Moore]

Posted by Bob's World

Today it is America clinging to obsolete positions, and it is America that expends its waning (relative) strength in the process.

Some are, but it seems most of our national policy statements address the significant strategic level geopolitical changes taking place beneath our feet, but perhaps they fail in describing how we should adapt to them? The author of the article that starting this thread pushed for a U.S. military capability to conduct "population-centric" COIN, which in my view equates to your comment:

Appreciate that values are rooted in history and culture, and that while the US history an culture is not evil, to push the values born of it too aggressively onto others certainly is.

Of course we can't see past ourselves so we don't understand why there are so many strong antibodies against us pushing our values. Yet when the communists, many of them sincere in their belief they had the best system, pushed and often imposed their system upon others we clearly saw that as an evil that needed to be fought.

What are the existential threats to the US today and into the foreseeable future?? By and large, these are not military problems. We need to reframe how we see ourselves and how we see the world. We need to stop resisting the resistance, and decide once again to compete.

There is some truth to this, and I think that is the way we're drifting towards. OEF-A and OIF were aberrations that took off this path (at least the way we conducted them), which is why I'm strongly opposed to transforming the military to fight these types of wars. The return on investment is negative to the extreme.

But first we must tone down the ideological mantra that shapes our current policies and that hinders the ability of US citizens, companies, as well as our official policies, to compete effectively in the current environment.

What ideological policies prevent us from competing at the business level? The only one I can think of is our outdated policy concerning Cuba. The ban on doing business with Iran is not ideological, but defensive in nature. There are a number of ideological policies that prevent us from competing effectively for influence at the government level.

We are in a confused place as a nation. Just listening to the rhetoric of the current Presidential contest gives clear evidence of that. One candidate calling for a doubling down on the perceived successful approaches of a past that no longer exists, while the other recognizes change must happen, but has yet to map out for anyone what our approach to that might actually look like. In the mean time we rely heavily on CT, sanctions and excessive military postures to attempt to slow the change until we figure things out.

Generally agree, but this also ties into Surferbeetle's comment on creative destruction. We are a strong and resilient nation, and in some ways that can be negative because most realize we need to change, but because we're so strong we don't have to change. It may come down to either a soft landing (if we effectively get in front of the needed change and direct it), or a hard landing if wait until the current system fails.

[Bob's World]

The example of a value-based law that absolutely cripples the ability of US business to compete overseas is the anti-corruption laws. The rules are incredibly vague and impossible to ensure compliance with, and the penalties are so severe as to risk a death penalty on a business found out of compliance.

State Department has a zero tolerance position on "corruption." Very well intended, but as a successful business owner pointed out in a discussion with State officials I attended last year "that in many places corruption is how many places do taxation where formal taxation does not exist." He also pointed out that "I don't see US business people when I go overseas. I see them from every other country, but by and large US capital is too fearful of being nailed for corruption to even participate at all." Unsaid, of course, was that to strike a deal in many places, what is seen as corruption under US law is simply seen as a standard business practice by many others.

When US entrepreneurs outmaneuvered the UK for rights to develop Saudi oil there were no such constraints in place. Today more pragmatic countries are cutting deals and moving forward, while US capital is either fleeing or to too scared to be employed.

We need to get off of our moral high-horse and stop expecting everyone else to play by rules designed by us, for us. They are playing by their own rules now, and the only ones being truly hurt by our rules now are ourselves.

[JMA]

We need to get off of our moral high-horse and stop expecting everyone else to play by rules designed by us, for us. They are playing by their own rules now, and the only ones being truly hurt by our rules now are ourselves.

Come on Bob this is silly.

The US had its chance force moral conditions on the world when the Soviet Union collapsed but failed.

The rapacious greed of US corporations needed to be tamed and to the credit of the US it has done well in that regard. But leaving the back door open for the scum of the earth to enter was not smart. You had your chance and you blew it.

[JMA]

To blame the military for "losing" wars that are not truly wars (we easily won the war parts, it was the subsequent policy aspects of clinging to old policies and refusal to recognize change, while employing the military to somehow enforce such inappropriate positions to work that challenged our forces. The largest failing of the military was their dog-like loyalty to continue to play, to continue to chase that ball, until they collapsed in exhaustion. Good dogs don't tell their masters to stop throwing the ball, and good masters don't need to be told.

Yes, these losing wars claims are quite provocative hence my comment to the author that he should not run to mommy if he gets an aggressive response when he posts this sort of nonsense.

So where in your opinion does moral courage or the lack thereof play a part in all this?