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Thread: How long does it take to train an Army?

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  1. #38
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    I don't get your argument here Fuchs. There is much more to making an Army than training and the most important factors are beyond the control of the trainer, no matter who that may be. Culture and training cannot be separated and culture is more important to the vast majority of people - when training and culture come into conflict, culture usually wins.

    Also, with regard to time required to train an Army, and to use an analogy, it seems to me you're argument is like complaining that the education system sucks because 12 year-olds have not yet graduated college.

    As for Germany in Afghanistan, two points. First, the German areas are peaceful because the Germans were given the most peaceful areas to begin with - the provinces north of the Hindu Kush. The relative calm there has much more to do with local conditions than superior skill by the Germans.

    Secondly, the Germans did fail in their police efforts, but they failed for the same reasons the US has "failed" to train an Army in six years. You can teach "Joe" Afghan all the law enforcement skills you want, but no amount of training is going to get Joe to think in terms of law enforcement the way we do - certainly not six weeks or a few months. Joe Afghan will take those police skills and use them to more effectively hound the enemies of his tribe or clan while protecting his own - in other words their concept of law enforcement, justice and the role of "police" in society are decidedly different than ours. That is a cultural thing and it's why German police training efforts failed.

    So Fuchs, training is not the problem. The US and Europeans can train like mofo's, but it's the trainee who ultimately gets to decide when, if, where and how to apply that training and a lot of that decisionmaking process comes from culture. If you can figure out a way to overcome those cultural barriers to create Armies and police forces in a few short years then write a paper and SWJ would probably publish it.
    Last edited by Entropy; 08-17-2008 at 04:35 AM.

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