Quote Originally Posted by Fuchs View Post
Iraq (5 years and still not capable enough for troop withdrawals)
No surprise there; I've been saying ten years all along. Why would you think it would be less?
Afghanistan (6 years and deteriorating civil war situation)
Same answer -- I make that about 2012 or 2013.
South Vietnam (clearly lost after about a decade of training by the U.S.)
Lost yes -- but why; the Army and the AF performed well; they just ran out of ammo and fuel. You need to do more homework.
exile Cubans (Bay of Pigs)
Trained by the CIA, not the Armed forces -- 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). Again, you need to do more research.
South Korea (which got OVERRUN in 1950 after being equipped & trained by the U.S. for several years)
So did the US army get overrun then and there initially. Again, your history's weak. Training pre-1950 was minimal to non-existent. 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.
Even a infantry-heavy, but competently executed assault of well-trained battalions should have gained 20-30 km ground in SO before the Russian advance guard arrived. There were many flanking opportunities through the forests.
Don't know, wasn't there -- and I'm rather leery of putting any stock in war second guessers who also haven't been there particularly if they're only fairly well read and ground combat inexpereinced.
"Lack of knowledge", "bias"? How about not closing the eyes when I see unfavorable facts?
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.
The U.S. forces have failed to train foreign armies properly in time spans that were longer than the American Civil War or the First World War. That's outright failure. Such training missions should be expected to train foreign troops in a year up to junior NCO and in two years up to medium-rank officers. That's the speed of training demonstrated by national armies after mobilization.
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. You're smarter than that.
There's no such excuse like cultural problems. The South Vietnamese had the same culture as the North Vietnamese. It was not on part of the Vietnamese if a cultural problem was prohibiting a successful 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.
It's a joke that the occupiers still cannot be satisfied with the training standard of most Iraqi and Afghanistan units after 5-6 years.
Imagine the U.S.Army had been ready to deploy to Europe in 1923 and 1948 for its participation in the European theatre of both world wars!
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.
And yes, I sniped at these training programs because reality and the expectations that some people expressed somewhere else were so far apart. Some equaled U.S. training with excellent competence. as if the Green Berets somehow handed out silver bullets. The experiences look differently.
The 'experiences' aren't over yet.
The problem is btw quite relevant for the small war topic in general. There's no way how to build nations during an armed conflict if your military needs a decade or more to properly train that nation's ground forces.
Depends on where one starts and at what level the raw material happens to be...

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.

Oh wait, I forgot. LINK-- a funny thing happened on the way to the forum. Guess who had to pick up the pieces LINK.

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.