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.
Quote Originally Posted by Steve Blair View Post
I would contend that these small wars simply solidified traits and trends that were first formed during the big wars (WW 1 and WW 2), and those traits in turn stem from some of Root's reforms and the historical American reliance on a very small standing army and mass militia in times of conflict (which translates after about 1916 to the draft).
This is not a quibble, it is important:

Each war adds its own fillips to previously absorbed bad lessons.
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.
With that I totally agree.
The failures and omissions run deeper than "small versus big" or caliber debates.
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 Powell
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