The Future of the U.S. Armed Forces

<b>Gian:</b>

Sorry about the link, here's a good one:
<a href=http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pubs/summary.cfm?q=58>LIN…;.

I'm sure you'll call it secondary sourcing as well. It's difficult to find primary sourcing on an effort that was designed to be below the radar and to flank DoD and the WH -- as you knew ;) -- so I provided some quite good and telling secondary sourcing from reputable people. It's only refutable if it must be to suit ones purpose.

Nope, do not have such access because they were smart enough not to say that publicly. They made no bones about it privately and while I heard some conversations among Bull Elephants that still, alas, renders me as, really, a secondary source also. :(

Unimpeachable but still secondary...

I take everything you say on Iraq as fact. I do take exception to some of your comments on other wars, though.

Luck is finding an empty parking space; I don't do luck...

Ken:

Not exactly what I was asking for, you missed my point. Your first reference was a secondary source, and I could not open the link to the other reference but it reads as a secondary source too.

Perhaps what Starry and others were saying was to not fight another war with a failed strategy, rather than explicitly stating something like "no more counterinsurgencies and only big wars against the Soviet Union" and hence the point that I was making. Do you have access to a primary source from General Starry or Abrams or any other that states something like the Army should not do counterinsurgencies again and only fight a big war against the Soviet Union?

No matter, I defer to your oracle knowledge since as you state you are a "primary source."

Sheesh, for that matter Ken anything I state on Iraq should be seen as fact since I am a primary source from it.

good luck to you

gian

<b>Gian:</b>

Ask and you shall receive...<blockquote>""Powell made avoidance of another Vietnam his lifes mission. "Many
of my generation, the captains, majors, and lieutenant colonels seasoned in that war, vowed when our turn came to call the shots, we would not quietly acquiesce in half-hearted warfare for half-baked reasons that the American people could not understand or support. If we could make good on that promise to ourselves, to the civilian leadership, and to the country, then the sacrifices of Vietnam would not have been in vain." Powell believed the greatest fault of the senior military leadership was its failure "to talk straight to its political superiors or to itself. The top leadership never
went in to the Secretary of Defense or the President and said, 'This war is
unwinnable the way we are fighting it. "5"</blockquote> <a href=http://www.au.af.mil/au/ssq/2007/Fall/Record.pdf>LINK</a><br&gt;

And...<blockquote>"Though Abrams motivation might be unclear, some of his gifted subordinates fully realized the limitations the new force structure would place on the Executive Branch, <b>though they were careful not to admit that publicly until a decade later</b>.12."(emphasis added /kw)<br>
...<br>

Colonel Donald Vought quoted Starry justifying his approach with "After getting out of Vietnam, the Army looked around and realized it should not try to fight that kind of war again." That mind-set has not served the service well in peace operations, and might have more serious consequences in the future.42"</blockquote><a href=http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CBIQFjAA&url=http%3…
eengine%2FFiles%2FRESSpecNet%2F47370%2Fipublicationdocument_singledocument%2F9823D89D-5701-4DDD-A572-AB89FB46E6E5%2Fen%2FAvoiding_Vietnam_US.pdf&ei=Q7JdTJuZIoOB8gboqoS5DQ&usg=AFQjCNG45rV6A1Ofa07JFe1TZOQ76rdPcA>LINK</a><br>
I added the emphasis because to avoid upsetting the civilian masters, a lot of the military action was under the table.

There's plenty more out there if you're willing to look. Berny Rogers and John Wickham were both really slick but DePuy was very instrumental in fostering the mindset that it was not only okay but desirable to attempt to flank the problem...

Not surprised you missed it, no one was pitching that at LTs and CPTs back then for obvious reasons -- just quietly working to insure that it, hopefully, would not happen again. Thus the Powell doctrine (as opposed to the Wienberger doctrine)...

Oh, and, uh, Gian -- <i>I'm</i> a primary source. ;)

Colonel Lacquement said this about the army of the 80s:

"The Armys response to Vietnam was to declare as a matter of institutional preference that it should not have to fight that sort of war in the first place."

I dont ever remember being told that as a company grade officer in a tank battalion in Germany in the late 80s. And I also remember having a significant portion of the curriculum of the infantry officer advanced course in 1990 devoted to what was called then Low Intensity Conflict (LIC), and in those blocks of instruction I dont remember our small group instructor telling us that this LIC stuff was a bunch of crud and that the American Army had no business doing them.

Is there primary source evidence that supports Colonel Lacquements claim? That is to say are there documents that show army leaders in the 80s explicitly stating to civilian leaders that "we should not have to fight another Vietnam but only big wars like World War III with the Soviet Union," or something along those lines. I think not. Sadly this again is the tired old saw that the Army completely rejected small wars and counterinsurgency in the 80s which led to failure in Iraq from 2003 to 2007 until rescued by the Surge.

Which gets to my second question. Colonel Lacquement's piece contains an implicit counterfactual (or hypothetical) that if the American Army would have seen the error of its way earlier in the 80s and had embraced Counterinsurgency and small wars then Iraq and Afghanistan would have turned out much differently. Do folks really think that to be the case? Do folks think that better Counterinsurgency tactics can rescue failed policy and strategy?

gian

These articles all seem to blame the problems on a lack of war expenditure; indicating that the military hasn't checked the news on wall street for a while.

Having an endless wish list with limited cash, is not a good strategy.

It all comes down to having an overly ambitious strategic posture, in a time where the rest of the world is finally catching up, and realizing that 'uncle sam' can't really use that ol' stick on everyone at once.

Ironically though, it seems there's a bit of Obama bashing, in some of these articles, for making his national strategy: focusing on forging alliances, giving America a nice face, and not trying to rule the world alone.

The fact of the matter is...even if it wanted to, America just can't keep up the previous level of domination.

Something has to give.

Thanks Damir, correcting now, either too little, or maybe too much coffee this morning...

Thanks for the link! It's <em>The American <strong>Interest</strong></em>, though!