Krepinevich was right in points, and Summers was right in points. Neither of them has a corner on the whole truth, because they are in essence looking at different aspects of the same war. But this whole discussion does point out the flaws of an "either/or" approach to history. I'm not sure what level of blunt force trauma it will take to knock people out of this mindset, but I'm certainly willing to run some tests...

Disagreeing with Krepinevich's conclusions does nothing to blunt the impact that the book can have on a person's learning and thought process, which (to me) is what Neil was writing about. If we're going to start dredging out historical periods to consult, I'd argue that neither Galula nor Callwell are good choices: given the mix of tribal politics and media reactions we meet I'd say that our own Indian Wars might repay more study. But given the American need to validate ideas through foreign confirmation, it's much more likely that we'll stick with outside sources.

I do believe that history can be used to inform future courses of action. Context is important, but it can be used to understand (or at least illuminate) why certain things happened (or did not happen) and what impact certain actions might have on a similar situation. It's not an exact thing, and given that human reactions are involved I don't think it ever will be. But to dismiss the value of history is foolish in the extreme. You shouldn't necessarily template from it, but ignoring it is equally dangerous.

Ken: History is just as imperfect as the memory of the participants it often draws upon. Good history draws in a variety of perspectives and then attempts to make some sense of the whole. Vietnam threw much of that off track because too many people who lacked training in that synthesis process (I'd single out reporters, but there are others as well) starting writing what they called history when it fact it was little more than a series of political polemics. I've seen just as many "first person accounts" that contained wild errors as I have "solid historical studies," so I take either with a large grain of salt. True history is a synthesis...it's not an "either/or" proposition in most cases. Everyone brings their biases to the table (the researcher, the oral history interviewee, the author of documents being consulted, the reporter who covered the event, and so on).