Each generation sort of gets its own war(s) and thus learns its own lessons -- which we notoriously do not analyze well or successfully pass on to our successors.This is not a quibble, it is important:
Each war adds its own fillips to previously absorbed bad lessons.With that I totally agree.Many of the bad habits the force has been saddled with came from poor planning for the next big war, not from participation in small wars.While that is true, it should not be allowed to obscure the fact that bad lessons accrue in all wars for the next one or that small anything cannot totally prepare one for a big anything. one reason for the phenomenon as you state it is that junior leaders in one war mistakenly presume their next war will be like their last where they may be far more senior and thus able to do far more damage (See again Korea and Viet Nam. See also the PowellThe failures and omissions run deeper than "small versus big" or caliber debates.
Doctrine...).
It is a matter of scale and that is very important. What you say is true at the macro level; at the micro or personal level it is all too easy to base ones future plans and actions -- and thus ones responses to stimuli -- on current experience.
That is rarely wise
Bookmarks