Quote Originally Posted by Ken White View Post
No surprise there; I've been saying ten years all along. Why would you think it would be less?
Because I'm not used to U.S.forces slowness in such affairs, obviously.

Lost yes -- but why; the Army and the AF performed well; they just ran out of ammo and fuel.
Considering the minimalist logistics of he NVA in that war, I fail to see ana argument.


You need to do more homework.Trained by the CIA, not the Armed forces
OK, keep that out of the list. I do somehow doubt that the CIA trainers who taught the use of A-26 (or maybe B-26 at that time) had no previous military experience, though.

they also performed well on a really stupid mission and the promised air support (by the US) was not provided (proving yet again tha politicians are quitters whne the cost goes up).
"doing well" would have been to break through and switch to guerilla mode. To surrender in few days is not to do well.

Again, you need to do more research.So did the US army get overrun then and there initially. Again, your history's weak. Training pre-1950 was minimal to non-existent.
There was training, and they used U.S.equipment. Period. The U.S.Army embarassing itself in the same theatre doesn't really help.

It improved later and if you check out how the South Korean Army did in Viet Nam (quite well) or what it is today, it's as good as any in Asia.
It did well in killing, I know. A quarter century after the training started. Not impressive. And today's quality - two generations after the initial training - should not be credited to the U.S..
We don't credit the French for today's U.S.Army even though they taught it modern warfare in 1916/1917, do we?
By the way; check what I wrote initially. I wrote

"Well, maybe we should create a thread to identify the armies that were trained by the U.S. military and didn't afterward suck asap?"
Don't ignore the "asap". It clearly indicates that my interest was on the close time period, not decades later.

Yes to both those things. I have no problem with unfavorable facts; I do have an objection to perceptions based on lack of information and statements made that evade reality or are generally out of context.
...
That is so ludicrous I'm not sure where to start. For openers, you're applying western standards of the late 20th Century to date to several nations who were not and are not today anywhere near that state of development.
Actually, I don't. That's the failure of the U.S:Army, not mine.
I expect trained forces to be combat ready and win against forces that are comparable at most.
Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan - not a single time did the foreign-trained state army face an enemy who had significantly better conditions , not a single time were late 20th century Western standards necessary to prevail.
To win is not an invention of late 20th century.

See - your point isn't existing. You''re evading historical reality here.
You failed to tell a single army that did really well after U.S.training. Your examples were wrong, the Korean one being especially terrible.
I listed several armies/countries that failed miserably after U.S.training.

Not an excuse -- and the South Viet Namese did not and do not have the same culture as the North. Take a look at your internal Ossi situation for an example of cultural drift.
Cultural drift? Come on. That's regional difference at most, not a cultural difference that would make one part militarily inferior.
North and South Vietnam were separated for less than 20 years when Saigon fell, Eastern Germany existed for 50 years and failed to create greater cultural differences than exist between North and South Germany.

The 'experiences' aren't over yet.
Actually, lots of failures are over yet.

How you guys coming with your Police training in Afghanistan? Aren't you the lead on that? Voluntarily picked up the mission in 2003 IIRC. As good as you are, I'm sure that's miles ahead of the training of the Afghan National Army.
Decent success for Kabul, afaik. German-controlled regions are pretty good-looking on travel safety maps. But I mentioned the half-hearted political support before. Quantity of policemen is the issue.

Oh wait, I forgot. LINK-- a funny thing happened on the way to the forum. Guess who had to pick up the pieces LINK.
A poor article, with factual errors. The location of German troops is wrong, for example. Most are at Kabul. The description of 41 police officers is badly misleading - much training of Afghan policemen happens outside of Afghanistan with additional personnel.
You might note that Germany has responsibility for a specific region, and that region is almost calm today. I'm not sure - maybe it trained policemen for that region? And to lead an effort doesn't mean to do it alone, it doesn't even mean to have the greatest work share.
Either way - it looks as if the German-trained policemen are somehow working in the calm regions, whereas the U.S.-trained border guards aren't a great success?

Some things aren't nearly as easy out on the ground as they are sitting at a keyboard -- and that includes advancing 20-30km against even spotty resistance from locals.
About 45,000 locals, that's at most 10,000 combattants plus 800 Russian peacekeepers. Most of these combattants were necessarily concentrated at settlements.The region is huge in comparison to its population.
My comfortable keyboard position allows me to know that not some 'spotty resistance' would be the challenge, but the combination of mountains and forests.

Uh, matter of fact we actually deployed in 1917 and 1942 -- how'd that work out for you? Again, you cannot conflate contemporary western nations with any of those others mentioned.
It's not about nations, but about fighting. Any difficulties in overcoming the differences simply mean that the trainers failed - it's their job to overcome difficulties.
If trainers need a decade during wartime to train an army as part of nation-building, then the conclusion should be that this unacceptable.
Get better trainers or don't try to do nation-building in wartime.
This is important.
Get over the fact that this is criticism and see the relevance.
It's not OK to say "we need ten years".
Ten years break the budget. No sane politician would willingly involve his nation in an avoidable ten-year war. That's a no-plan.

Ten years might be OK in peacetime, but it's not OK in wartime.
A track record of inability to train a new foreign army to region-typical combat effectiveness in less than four years needs to have an impact on nation-building related foreign policy planning.