Absolutely.
I think so too, even now and back in the early 2000s, very much more so. There are over 300 million people in this country and the right types would be found in sufficient numbers.
How beautifully and cogently stated by Cloete. Sometimes I think, Ken alludes to this, that the Americans are stuck with an early 20th century industrial view of human beings. We view them as just parts in a machine. Other countries seem to understand better that people are people and have be treated as such.
Could you view the Taliban as doing the same thing you guys did but in an informal manner? They get tired or stressed, and they just don't do missions or they go to Pakistan for a while to chill out. Then when they feel better, back they go.
Yes x 3. I remember your talking about how handling replacements. I cut that one out (so to speak) because it is an excellent example of recognizing that you are dealing with people, not parts.
Leadership cadre in for the duration and promotion from within would result, I think (in my civilian bookish way), in a unit like this getting better and better during the course of its 3 year deployment.
I think a volunteer unit like this could work but it would require at least 3 mainly cultural adjustments that the American military might not be able to make. The first is recognizing that small wars are really honest to goodness different and have to be handled differently. I know we've been at this for 11 years but I still don't think that has really been accepted. The second is that people are people, not parts and have to be handled as such. The third comes from the first sort of in that just because you make changes to handle something unique, doesn't mean you are locked into those changes forever. You can switch back again...and people being people, not parts, they will be able to handle the adjustment.
That is all part of being adaptable. We used to be able to adapt. Chesty Puller and his contemporaries could adapt. He started out leading local constabulary. Then Pacific island battles against the Japanese then winter rough country fighting with a great large combined arms unit. He was adaptable. i don't see guys now being any less so, if given the chance.
The American troops would be, I would bet, be quite enthusiastic about something like this. American leaders no, because there would be no high tech involved and they would be afraid they would have to have mounted units forever.
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