The Roles and Weapons with the Squad

[Fuchs]

My exact point is a combination between the above, this
http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...ead.php?t=9841
(especially the suppression thing) and a third phenomenon:

Imagine you've got a very irritating itching. That can annoy a lot and easily be considered an urgent problem, ruining your day.
Now imagine you get a gunshot wound in a leg. I bet you forget the itching immediately.
Well, WW2 was a gunshot wound, AFG is the itching. AFG is being taken seriously, TB are (only) being taken seriously for lack of a greater (and sufficiently obvious) problem.

The Taliban would not have been considered to be a noteworthy power in WW2, ranking perhaps below the Filipino guerrilla's level. Taliban small units wouldn't have been considered as serious force or even a tactical challenge either in 1940-1945.

The Taliban have been suppressed to a marginal degree of effectiveness (they have almost no usable repertoire and options left), and were smart enough to avoid destruction and maintain recruiting (their political activities are likely more interesting than their primitive efforts in combat).



Again, the worst thing that could happen is that we allow these marginally effective skirmishers with their marginal harassment capability to coin our mental image of a serious enemy!

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In regard to Western competence in Afghanistan:
I'd like to see a statistic how many KIA and WIA were likely avoided by hard body armour alone (even before taking into account the consequences of a KIA/WIA on small unit actions and performance).
The reports don't seem to offer much good news about the performance of troops in absence of air or heavy weapons (arty/mortar) fire support.

We're in my opinion in a '1911' situation. Our understanding of modern ground war is based on theory, fashions, obsolete military history, small wars and too specific small modern wars. We might experience disastrous surprises in the next great war.