directly to any other -- I won't. I will point out that lessons of Arab-Israeli wars are very narrowly applicable and we have not done ourselves any favors by trying to adapt Israeli TTP which are quite successful for their missions, opponents and terrain. Survival concentrates the mine quite nicely...

We do not as a nation get pushed into that survival mentality and we have to do many things the Israelis do not -- and we have to do them worldwide against a host of far different opponents and non-supporters.

I will also agree that Donn Starry was aggressive and a self starter. Period. Tom Tarpley was known as the "Ghost of Building Four" for some reason...

Bottom line is that Starry, DePuy and Tarpley were all part of the post Viet Nam problem and they had a lot of company in the upper ranks. The and the Army were pushed in that direction by then Chief of Staff Bernie Rogers who was a Rhodes Scholar, a smart guy and as Eurocentric as it was possible to be. The one guy that tried to fight it, Shy Meyer, who succeeded Rogers as CofSA, was ganged upon because he threatened too many rice bowls. The bureaucracy just waited him out..

John Wickham learned from Meyer's experience and tried to take smaller bites of the Elephant when no one was looking, he was fairly successful. Following Wickham were several non-entities who accomplished very little...

All that said, there is little doubt in this long term infantryman's mind that Infantry is the most hidebound and conservative branch though I will mention that Knox has it's laid back and unproductive cycles. All that leads to on point:

It's not the branch, it is people.

Put the wrong guy in a job and that organization will go through a bad period until he rotates out. Our personnel system is really our worst enemy. Until we learn that -- or rather accept and change it because most people know it -- we are doomed to mediocrity. Get used to it, it's a fact of life in the US Armed Forces.