I agree with you, John, and have commented many times here about the similarities I feared (and am seeing) between what the Army (and military generally) did after Vietnam and what they're doing now. It's been something of a historical pattern for the US, and one that is concerning (or should be, at least). Information, knowledge, discussion, and historical context for small wars are all things that need to be preserved and continued. If not us, who?
"On the plains and mountains of the American West, the United States Army had once learned everything there was to learn about hit-and-run tactics and guerrilla warfare."
T.R. Fehrenbach This Kind of War
The pattern which irritates me is that the U.S. returns into the wars of choice business again and again, no matter how poor an investment it is.
I don't care about whether it's a very poor or skilled and thus simple poor investment. Neither should be done.
Institutionally yes, at the individual level I still see a high level of interest. Those of us in the SW community have to take some responsibility also, because we have a number of amateurish articles that claim all future wars will be small wars, and there has been too much non-critical comments on our COIN doctrine within our own community. In many ways the Small Wars tribe isn't that much different than the Big Wars tribe.Originally Posted by Steve Blair
If we were more self-critical and receptive to non-doctrinal ideas instead of being perceived as COIN doctrine Kool-Aid drinkers (doesn't apply to all, or even most, but it does to many of our most vocal and well known SW advocates), and we provided options that supported achieving the balance between capabilities that SECDEF Gates advocated we may be in a different place. I too share your concerns that we'll throw the baby out with the bathwater, based on the past decade of far less than successful small wars. If our community provides options for future defense policy makers that address all security concerns (and hopefully our diehards in SWJ realize there are more security concerns than Small Wars) then maybe we'll bring the more rational and deep thinkers on war back into the community? SWJ has provided a great service to the national security discussions from the tactical to strategic levels, we just need to realize where our nation is at now and find a way to contribute to that dialogue in way that keeps small wars in the discussion.
Bill,
One of the problems I've seen historically is that this topic is usually viewed as an "either/or" sort of statement. There's too often a tendency to shove one of the topics off the table to make room for the other (or the "flavor of the month"). Obviously there are more security concerns than Small Wars, but small wars are the problem that just doesn't want to go away. I don't vocally advocate for one over the other: obviously they're equally important in a sense, with one or the other getting priority depending on the international situation. But I do worry that (yet again) we'll shed any number of hard-learned lessons (or learn the wrong ones) in our rush away from the current situation. We've done that so well too many times in the past.
"On the plains and mountains of the American West, the United States Army had once learned everything there was to learn about hit-and-run tactics and guerrilla warfare."
T.R. Fehrenbach This Kind of War
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