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

[Dayuhan]

Winning is achieving your objectives. If the selected objectives are not achievable through armed force, or if mission creep shifts the goalposts to a point not achievable by armed force, no military mission will succeed, no matter what level of training and equipment are employed.

The US military is trained and equipped to defeat an opposing armed force. This it has done in the recent wars. When it was asked to build nations and install self-sustaining governments, success was a lot harder to find. These are not tasks that the US military is trained and equipped to pursue, and they are not tasks appropriate for a military force in the first place. Even the world's best hammer makes a very lousy screwdriver.

Not that the training and equipment are perfect (nothing ever is), but IMO the failure to fully achieve goals (call it "defeat" if you must) in recent wars was less due to military deficiency than to the selection of impractical and unrealistic goals that were not achievable by military force in the first place.

[tjmc]

If "...the failure to fully achieve goals (call it "defeat" if you must) in recent wars was less due to military deficiency than to the selection of impractical and unrealistic goals that were not achievable by military force in the first place." then why didn't anybody say so in the first place?
Was it foreseeable that goals were unacheivable?

[Dayuhan]

If "...the failure to fully achieve goals (call it "defeat" if you must) in recent wars was less due to military deficiency than to the selection of impractical and unrealistic goals that were not achievable by military force in the first place." then why didn't anybody say so in the first place?
Was it foreseeable that goals were unacheivable?

I recall believing - and writing - before the Iraq war that while defeating Saddam's military forces would be relatively easy, installing a new government and bringing it to a functional level was likely to be a very formidable task for which the US had little effective capacity. I think a fair number of people pointed out that mission creep in Afghanistan and the emergence of "nation-building" roles was handing the military a role that is not trained or equipped to perform.

Obviously nobody listened, but that doesn't mean we can't learn from those mistakes. To learn from them, though, we have to recognize them, and that means recognizing that the root problem is not lack of capacity in the military but the decision to assign the military a set of tasks that are simply not suited to achievement by a military force. The whole concept of "armed nation building" was fatally flawed from the start. My opinion only, of course.

[Bill Moore]

Dayuhan correctly framed the issue, but to add when it comes to military capability there isn't any other military that comes close. Population centric COIN is a failed approach that the author of the article thinks would work if the military just adapted to it. The fact is the military did adapt to it and results are telling. When it comes to military activities to include engaging with civilians there is no better, but rightly so our core competency is waging and winning battles. In short we do have the world's best military, there is no other military who could have done better in either war (neither of which were lost) given the same policy objectives.

[OfTheTroops]

Idiot should check the scoreboard. It's a sure sign of ignorance to place these things in a win loss paradigm. Everyone loses its war. But there is a little less evil in some dark corners due to our efforts. We hear this too much. If you don't know keep your mouth shut.

[Fuchs]

Everyone loses its war.

Not sure what you mean because of grammar, but the Swiss will want to disagree if my suspicion about what you mean is correct.

@Bill;
he's easily a top tier military affairs analyst if "highly naive" is the worst that can be said about his articles. There's not much shining competition...


I personally don't agree with his idea to about the direction to go (pop-centric COIN) and would if at all rather treat this as a political fight (=deal with those who have influence, don't try to influence millions of people directly).

I do believe he's more right about the "losing" thing, and consider your and dayuhan's position as rather reflexive partisan - especially in the case of Iraq, where the troubles were started more by occupation mistakes than in Afghanistan.

Furthermore I wouldn't place so much trust in the core competence of winning battles. The American way of warfare works well against near-defenceless opposition (at least superficially) and it works well with overwhelming resources. Competence is yet to be demonstrated in battle, and especially so in crisis. The 101st in Bastogne was probably the only U.S. Army ground forces formation that prevailed in a crisis with inferior resources - ever!
That's not much to show for. Too many Kasserines to contrast this with.

The current doctrine and near-total radio comm dependency of the entire army still needs to be proved to be an effective system in a conflict against a great power. I've got my doubts about the viability of the entire concept in such a scenario.

[Ken White]

...he's easily a top tier military affairs analyst if "highly naive" is the worst that can be said about his articles. There's not much shining competition...

Agree there's little competition but believe that naivete is dangerous. Being intelligent, articulate and passionate does not bestow competence.

I personally don't agree with his idea to about the direction to go (pop-centric COIN) and would if at all rather treat this as a political fight (=deal with those who have influence, don't try to influence millions of people directly).

Agreed.

I do believe he's more right about the "losing" thing, and consider your and dayuhan's position as rather reflexive partisan - especially in the case of Iraq, where the troubles were started more by occupation mistakes than in Afghanistan.

Also agree. We are victims of our own propaganda and are not nearly as good as we could be or should be.

It should be noted though that we are as competent as most want us to be -- and allow us to be. Fortunately, that's generally been adequate and competitors have all had their own problems -- political and military...

Furthermore I wouldn't place so much trust in the core competence of winning battles. The American way of warfare works well against near-defenceless opposition (at least superficially) and it works well with overwhelming resources. Competence is yet to be demonstrated in battle, and especially so in crisis. The 101st in Bastogne was probably the only U.S. Army ground forces formation that prevailed in a crisis with inferior resources - ever!

That's not totally correct. Just in the past century from WW I's 'Lost Battalion' and Belleau Wood to the failed defense of Bataan and numerous smaller actions in WW II -- the 101st may be the most notable in the Ardennes but there were other units that did well at the time against the odds. Add the 1st Marine Division at the Reservoir in Korea to dozens of smaller battles in both Korea and Viet Nam as well as some more recent examples. That said, while your statement omits a bunch of successes, it is broadly correct -- like all Armies, we've had more failures than successes. Thus OfTheTroops comment; no one wins -- and even the Swiss lost a few, not least Bicocca...

The current doctrine and near-total radio comm dependency of the entire army still needs to be proved to be an effective system in a conflict against a great power. I've got my doubts about the viability of the entire concept in such a scenario.

Me too. Doubts that is; we are far too technology, mass and firepower reliant. That's mostly due simply to the fact that we can provide those things (currently, anyway...) and accordingly have been unwilling to properly invest in, train and educate our forces. Dumb way to do business but Congress likes it.