Quote Originally Posted by davidbfpo View Post
I keep on reading the posts and so far have refrained from posting. The questions and answers appear so American. One day I might.

Meantime via Twitter this short article landed which IMHO fits, even if painful: Why the worlds biggest military keeps losing wars, by a combat photographer:http://www.pieria.co.uk/articles/why...ps_losing_wars

So what is his argument?
Um? Why does this conversation sound American?

Of course we won't hear Europeans discussing war, because they have failed to invest in their national defense and prefer to pretend that war now is little more than peace keeping. When Russia bared her horns Europe started to wake up, but instead of spending more on defense to prevent/deter further aggression it chooses to depend upon the country they always criticize to provide their security. It has been the same old story for years.

The combat photographer didn't identify why we lose wars, he identified why our operations are excessively expensive and ineffective.

Too much logistics, not enough combat;
True, GEN McCrystal tried to fix this in Afghanistan, by closing down the Burger Kings and pushing more troops into the fight, but unfortunately he was relieved before it could be implemented. People got the same combat pay whether they hung out on base their entire tour, our lived in a combat outpost getting shot at daily. We incentivized people to become rear area pogs that often didn't continue squat to the overall war fighting effort. Despite the gross waste of money, we didn't lose any wars because of this.

Learn the Language;
Sounds good, but this isn't practical for an entire Army that has global responsibilities. His claim that 95% of the Iraqis locked up were innocent is a gross exaggeration, but there were certainly problems in this regard. Assuming we lost the war (I would argue we didn't, we removed Saddam and installed another government, that government failed), it wasn't due to a lack of linguists.

Fear of Casualties;
It depends upon the operation how much risk the politicians will be willing to accept. I have seen no evidence this caused to lose any war.

War as Symbol;
A symbol of what? How did cause it to lose? I love the politically left interpretation of Vietnam. We left Vietnam after North Vietnam signed an agreement (after our military pressured them to do so), two years after we left North Vietnam invaded South Vietnam with superior conventional forces (not an insurgency) and seized control. We were too weakened politically to respond due to a combination of things happening at the time.

Assuming the U.S. lost any wars, who beat us? Then tie how the four items above resulted in our loss. We will lose future wars by not realizing we're at war, and the character of the wars we're in.