Quote Originally Posted by William F. Owen View Post
The nature of the conflict is defined by who is fighting and how they fight. That's it! Why do we seek to make it all way more complicated?
In the US, I assume to teaching war to the slow-moving, complicated beast that is procurement and training for a force of 3 million active and reserve spread across God knows how many specialties. You can untangle the mess greatly by picking one or two ways to fight and choosing your enemies accordingly, but that's obviously not an option. An infantry without artillery generally won't stand against a peer who has it, a static line won't stop the mechanized airland force from maneuvering around it, and the mechanized army can't do COIN without dismounting with style, grace and a smile. And nothing gets done if you can't control the sea and the air between tail and tooth. The US at least has reason to prepare warriors for all these tasks, and to do so in every terrain imaginable, and absent a Swiss Army knife replacement for the man, his equipment, or both, isn't this trend towards more and more categorization inevitable?