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

[JMA]

"No competent and motivated opposition" did certainly kind of help.

I've got a standard example which I use to disrupt others' confidence in their nation's military - including my countries':

The Italians wiped the floor with the Abbessinians in 1936.
The British and ANZACs wiped the floor with said Italians in 1940.
The Germans wiped the floor with said British in 1941.

The invasion of Panama says about as much about the U.S. military's competence as the invasion of Denmark, and if you look very much at logistics, of Norway in 1940. The real test of competence for the German army was France, though. The U.S. military had no such test. Its major victories came to being with vastly superior, not about equal, resources.

For this reason I withhold final judgement of the U.S.ground forces' actual (relative) competence even for what's called conventional warfare. Their way of war and especially their love for gold plating and radio comms is dubious.

Bill; show me American ground troops fighting against well-armed opposition and we'll see whether this ability to destroy isn't overcompensated by an inability to survive in face of such an opposition.
I understand American army troops pride themselves in their supposedly unique quality at shattering formations, but this self-image appears to found almost entirely on fighting demoralised and 1970's monkey-model-equipped Iraqis.

Fuchs, historically the German military machine was indeed quite outstanding. Better you leave it there than to cherry pick examples to try to make your point. The end result of arrogant national politics and military strategy led to a crushing military defeat in the field of an increasingly outnumbered and logistically deprived army. German humiliation did not stop at the destruction of their once fine military but extended to the national humiliation of the rape of their women on an industrial scale (reminiscent of the middle ages).

This constant harping on about the lack or peer level opponents - meaning Germans - no longer has any meaning. The German military record is merely historical and will never be repeated. There are many valuable lessons that can be (and should be) learned from the German military history but this continuing innuendo about German military prowess - which is now long gone - serves no purpose today especially with the reported poor performance of German troops in Afghanistan.

The US remains vulnerable in terms of 'mass' coming from potentially China and to a lesser extent Russia. Other than that who could threaten a US force in conventional terms?

The US and all western armies remain vulnerable to insurgencies where the self imposed restrictions provide a level playing field for semi-trained insurgents armed with AK-47s and a few RPGs.

How to win against an insurgency? Read Edward Luttwak.

[Fuchs]

There's always the possibility that one country comes close to a perfect storm and gets very much right in the art of war for some time.

Look at the early 18th century and the French will impress, 2nd half of the same century and the Prussians will impress, early 19th century French, late 19th century Prussians, early 20 century Germans, late 20th century supposedly Americans.
Now the question is about who's going to be next and why should we pay attention to who got it right in a paradigm long gone?


It's a professional obligation of military leaders to strive for being "the next". I doubt that the NATO powers got what it takes to excel beyond what you'd expect of them due to their budgets.
People are way too content, and disappointments in small wars merely push them to the edge where they reaffirm their belief that they'd get it right if it was only about a great war.

Too bad, history tells me that many people have been wrong in such a belief already. Take Prussia after Valmy, for example.