New Rules of War

[zenpundit]

Wilf wrote:

"Certainly not confused. The attack on the Embassy had no element of so-called "swarming" what so ever. Many hundreds of decisions and actions taken after 1968 had significantly more effect on the outcome of the Vietnam war than some news footage. Wars are won and lost because of really decisive events. Not pictures of irrelevant events.'

Most historians of the Vietnam War would strenuously disagree with your interpretation Wilf.

Sure, there are downstream decisions of greater importance but they would have been different decisions - sometimes in response to different questions -had Tet been considered a victory.

Westmoreland, of course asserted Tet was a victory for the US in military terms and technically, he was correct. It also did not matter. After being told of progress for years by high civilian and military officials, Americans watched towns, bases and the embassy in South Vietnam being overrun on television. The effect of irrelevant pictures can be profound

Point being, if War today is really "more fast moving and unbelievably complicated," why should modern War not cost more than old simple WW2?

Scale comes to mind.

Also, why would "fast" always mean more expensive than "slow"? Moreover, situations might be complex or complicated but proposed solutions might be simple. And whether the solutions are simple or complex does not automatically correlate with cost by itself.

Using large units against small, irregular, networked opponents has been very expensive. Stupidity surely adds costs but the base cost of moving large military forces around the globe ain't cheap.