I love this article-- having served under GEN Milley while in the 10th MTN DIV, I can tell you he is a leader who walks the walk. Overall, I feel this article is a change in vision from the COIN fights in Iraq and Afghanistan, to now focus on near-peer possibilities.
I particularly liked the last myth--"Armies fight wars". It takes an entire nation's soul to fight and win, especially in a peer-to-peer fight. I think about WWII compared to recent wars. WWII had the commitment of not just America's military, but every citizen was making sacrifices to win (victory gardens, scrap drives, rationing, etc) and we were unstoppable. I'm shocked by how often I'm asked by family and friends, "do we still have Soldiers in Afghanistan?". These are two totally different wars, but it seems there is a big gap between the current conflicts and the average American's involvement/sacrifices. If we were to get into a war with a near-peer, this gap would absolutely need to be closed.
There is an unprecedented attitude emanating from this (our) generation that 'things' are easy. Considering that 18-45 year olds account for about 68% of our demographic, it's a significant number. 'Things' such as: getting a job, earning a degree, finding a high paying job, dating, getting promoted, traveling, being social, and so on. With the ubiquitous nature of information readily available at our beck and call, it may appear to be seemingly 'easy' to do anything. Need to get a job? - Post on LinkedIn. Need a date? - Choose your app. Need to be spun up on the news? - Check out Facebook. Going to war? - There's an app for that.
Sure, point four, addresses the preconceived notion that a nation and drum up bodies at ease, but I reckon that sentiment is rooted in something much deeper. On the whole, we ought to realize that things are not as 'easy,' more efficient perhaps, but ease doesn't set the right expectation.
I would echo CPT Doan's comments about it being "easy" to create an Army. It is certainly a myth that a nation can simply conscript/enlist soldiers and the sheer number of them is going to be any sort of deterrent to another nation. It is all about the professionalism of those soldiers, along with the technology they are afforded, and the will of the political leaders of that nation.
This myth resonated with me because there is a certain expectation of us as Soldiers from the American society, and I'm not sure we always live up to what they just assume we are. It is essential that we professionalize ourselves and our Soldiers to really be the elite force that we are expected to be.
The point I found interesting was that war cannot be won from a distance. This seems fairly accurate with conventional warfare, but warfare itself is constantly changing. As countries develop and industrialize, I think warfare will become almost exclusively fought from a distance. Cyber, for example, will likely be one of the more important battlegrounds of the future, along with economic and geo-political warfare. We've already seen the latter work to some success with North Korea agreeing (at least to some degree) to put denuclearization on the negotiating table. This outcome was achieved through economic and political pressure, without risking any Soldiers on the ground. As the future unfolds, the country needs to recognize shifts in tactics and adapt appropriately.
Perhaps myth number three resonates most for me. Not because I believe it, but because I believe the SF believe it. I know they can't win a war by themselves, but come hell or high water, they will win the battle. While attached to a SF unit during my recent deployment in support of OIR, the SF was facilitating the culminating training event for some trainees to prove their mettle. I won't forget the obstacles that continuously arose and the number of opposing friendlies that suggested the US forget the mission, pack up, and make a different plan. As a translator, I was caught in the middle. "He says you can't do it. They won't provide the resources to do what you want to do." The SF didn't respond. They just did. They overcame the obstacles and the training mission was a success. So, no, the Special Forces will not win the wars by themselves but they play a special role--as each branch of the military does--to accomplish the mission. I think this ties in really well with myth five as well, that nations not only fight wars, but they are what wins them.
The myth I found most compelling was that armies don't fight wars, nations do. Recently, with the government shut down(s), budgetary fights or even VA issues, I think that we as a nation need to rewire our thinking when it comes to the national defense. As private citizens, it's incredibly easy to compartmentalize defense activities into something that will never directly impact you. It appears that wars are fought and felt far away, affecting only those with immediate family members in the service. Or that budgets are simply figures multiplying national debt. For this reason I believe our role in the National Guard is paramount; through the NG, communities are tied to conflicts and campaigns. The general public realize that the defense budget isn't some line item in legislation, but rather a force multiplier for their neighbor or friend. And as wars are not short, communities that are tied to their guardsman ensure there isn't a scarcity of support, war weariness, or worse, apathy.
Myth four, that armies are easy to create, is a point of interest and one that is easy to overlook. Not only is standing up a military a Promethean task in and of itself, maintaining and strategically evolving an existing army’s function and purpose in a dynamic and rapidly changing world requires considerable time, resources and foresight.
It is also a challenge to synchronize a collective moral vision among the more individual components that comprise a military. This point, I believe, is what delineates highly professional and respected organizations like the US military from other collective groups calling themselves an army, but who are in reality little more than armed thugs representing state or non-state actors. Therefore, effective armies utilize both highly trained personnel, as well as justified end states, to achieve a nation’s vision for enhanced global stability.
Myth two: You can win wars from afar. I get questions about this all the from time from people I know. The idea that strategic drone strikes can win wars is very appealing, but I think many people don't even realize war, at least from the modern United States perspective, is not simply about killing enemy forces. Ideologies and philosophies, both good and bad, live on throughout history after a war has ended. We don't win wars by killing just enough so the other side will declare defeat and give up. We win wars by changing the hearts and minds of the people, and we can't do that from a distance.
A buddy of mine who at the time was an active duty Green Beret MSG was talking to me about the infantry, okay, okay he was yelling at me his point of view about how the infantry is the most important branch of a military. He explained how we can never eliminate the need of the infantry or boots on the ground. His main point was that all wars throughout history have 1 thing in common. The victor before they can claim victory has to make clear they have the upper hand and there is no chance of survival if their enemy intends to continue fighting. The victor at some point has to have had their weapon/s (whatever weapon it may have been that gave them the upper hand in forcing defeat) pointed at their enemy with the intent to kill or give up, before taking the actual ground the enemy was standing on. In the past few hundred years the weapon typically has been a barrel of some sort with or without a fixed bayonet. To me this is the same argument against myth two, because you cannot do this from afar.
Related, in one of my political science classes in college, probably 10 years ago, a professor posed an open ended question to the class to debate, while he simply listened and moderated when he felt appropriate. The question was basically, can we win in Iraq and Afghanistan by removing ground forces from the battlefield and utilize unmanned aircraft to patrol the skies and strategically strike the enemy from above? The underlying idea to the question was that we are losing too many U.S. and Iraqi and Afghani lives and need a more diplomatic process than warfare.
Everyone in the class knew I was in the Army and immediately turned to me to lead the discussion. I made a girl cry in this discussion. Her father was an Air Force pilot and she fully believed that the U.S. could implement this type of warfare and claim victory, and not just in Iraq or Afghanistan, but in any war. I was taken back by her idea and I passionately explained my position that we could not win by just implementing strategic drone strikes and that the Air Force and all other air commands only exist to support ground forces. I may have also said the Chair Force should also fall back under the Army where it belongs just like the Marine Corps is technically under the Department of the Navy. But I made the point that war is about people and their philosophies and how both are extremely resilient. Just as General Milley explained about the Japanese at Iwo Jima, I explained virtually the same point but about the British in WWII being bombarded by the Germans on British soil. At some point a bombardment or a siege will win out, but even when it does, in order to truly verify the victor has won, there must be a way to truly confirm victory. As great as the Air Force is at what they do, at the end of their offensive operations, ground forces must still comb through the bombarded impact zones to verify one of three things: 1) enemy forces have all been killed; 2) determine to continue offensive operations against surviving enemy forces still fighting; or 3) capture surviving enemy forces as POW's.
I completely agree it is a myth. It will always be necessary to have boots on the ground in order to win wars. To me, this is becoming more and more apparent because our recent conflicts not in spite of how we implement technology into recent conflicts.
I have been reading a lot of books on wars lately…mostly by Jeff Shaara. I really enjoy the way he makes the war feel real for me and the people that were involved. The reason I mention this is that the myth that resonates with me the most comes from all the comments that are made by Soldiers in the books; wars will be short.
It seems that that is always the statements of the media, the sentiment of the civilians and the young Soldiers getting ready to fight. At the beginning of the Civil War, people came from DC, just to watch the first battle because they anticipated the Union forces running over the Confederates and the war being over by the end of the week. Maybe it is the hopes of all that are involved, but as pointed out in the article, it is rarely the case.
Wars are long, they take extreme tools on us, our families and the country. We must as leaders ensure that this is not a myth that infects our troops.
Myth two resonates most since my time in the at,y.
At first I wasn't sure I wanted to say anything. I thought whose myths are they? I was looking for more evidence on their existence. Should I prove or disprove them based on whether they were familiar to me. I realized that I propagated the first one, stating something to the effect "well be home by Christmas". After that I thought I do have comments.
Myth two I don't agree. I've always believed it takes boots on the ground. I'm not familiar with the next two myths. I never thought the SF was designed to win a war. And after our nation drew down it's military it was never easy to rebuild. It took time. I read armies are a product of societies. I don't see our society as fit for duty. I do believe our military contains the "cream of the crop". Most of the best people I know served or are serving in the armed forces. I wouldn't want to be among any body else. And last, Nations fight wars. Society has a stake in the outcome. We saw what happened with Vietnam.
Now I'm left wondering what other myths are there? GTS (google that s). "It's impossible to eliminate war." "It's a 'just' or 'good' war." "War is good for the economy."
All of these myths tie into this overaching myth that war, or anything, is easy.
The SF can fix it because that would be easy and tv and movies say that's how it works.
We can fight and win long distance because that's easy, because it should work the way my video games do.
The war will be quick, because Amazon has same day shipping and that's easy so why can't the war be the same.
We live in a detached society with immediate gratification of what used to be difficult. It's been argued sufficiently already, but the market, the country, is demanding more humane, more detached, and more immediately concluded wars. We absolutely need the support of the nation, the patience of the nation, to engage in a long struggle.
However, the other position that could be had is to give the market what it wants. Develop the technology that can do more. More that targeted drone strikes. More than massive ordinance. More than embedded SF.
The problem there is the idea that it's easy to raise an army and it is not. Military knowledge and military technology is not a water tap that can be turned on and off.
In the age of technology the military has fallen behind. It's easier and more efficient to communicate by Gmail than by .mil mail or by cell phone than by SINCGARS. It's easier to collaborate with Google Docs or MS Office 365 than with CPOF... And with the proper plugins they can function the same.
In peace time we, as a nation, have neglected the military. Or hubris has assumed that it would be easy to develop new tech when we needed it. We assumed that because it may not have been necessary to cover the world with US Soldiers and develop more and bigger bombs (looking at you MOAB) that there was no other resource worthy of focusing on.
We left securing the nation, and preparing to match and defeat (or to out tech and out think) our enemies to nearly no one. We have known about the growing cyber threat for a long time. We've theorized on a better way or an entirely new way to we war for over a decade, but we waited until the battle was nigh at our door.
It won't be easy to build the new army, but we've done it in the past. And as with the past, many lives will be lost and the war will be battled eye to eye until we catch up with the innovations required of the times.
If I could change just one myth it would be that raising an army that can think and innovate and fight takes time and resources and focus.
Growing up in a small town, I often heard people talk about war, and if they were in a position of power, they would just bomb that degenerate country to smithereens. We’ve all heard these kinds of statements and chuckled to ourselves or laughed out loud, but we all know it’s not that easy. Yes, having the most technologically advanced military in the world has afforded us the opportunity to dominate our enemies from thousands of miles away, but we all know that this technology is just one of the many tools we have in our tool box. History, has shown us that this tactic does not guarantee us victory. Looking back over the last 15 years in Iraq, what gave us the biggest advantage over our enemy? Our ability to blow everything up in sight or our troops on the ground; rebuilding, training & equipping the Iraqi police force/army to rebuild their own country after a tyrannical dictator. That is defiantly an object question that could be answered in many ways, but it's something to chew on while we ponder these myths.
This is a great article that lists out the realities that need to be addressed prior to any engagement the American people face. We’re in this together and we all must understand the realities of war and what it takes to win.
The myth that resonates with me most is that the military services don't fight wars, nations do. All we and our parents have known are limited wars as opposed to total war. Limited ends, tied to limited ways and means. Given the nature of the conflicts in our lifetimes, our nation hasn't had to go "all in". There are only two examples of the U.S. engaging in total war in our nation's history; the Civil War and WWII. Both were literally existential threats to the country and required everything from our nation
When we talk about limited wars requiring the support of a nation, it becomes very challenging given those don't involve an existential threat. Vietnam is the classic example. It shows that even in limited war, national support is what makes or breaks the outcome. National support can also make or break the military fighting the war as it did in Vietnam.
We in the military enjoy a level of national support in the fights we're currently in that is really unprecedented. Think about how different it was for the veterans of Vietnam in their limited war. We've been at war for more than 17 years straight and support of the military is astoundingly high. We can't lose sight of that.
On one of his visits to Draper, ADM Mullen, the Director of the NSA, responded to a question about the challenges associated with all of the training requirements to conduct a SIGINT mission. His response stuck with me. He said, in effect, that if that training fosters the trust of our country to continue to conduct that SIGINT mission, then it's all worth it. Once our nation has lost trust in those who have volunteered to defend it, we stand to lose not only our ability to operate, but ultimately our nation itself because we can no longer defend it.
I love this article-- having served under GEN Milley while in the 10th MTN DIV, I can tell you he is a leader who walks the walk. Overall, I feel this article is a change in vision from the COIN fights in Iraq and Afghanistan, to now focus on near-peer possibilities.
ReplyDeleteI particularly liked the last myth--"Armies fight wars". It takes an entire nation's soul to fight and win, especially in a peer-to-peer fight. I think about WWII compared to recent wars. WWII had the commitment of not just America's military, but every citizen was making sacrifices to win (victory gardens, scrap drives, rationing, etc) and we were unstoppable. I'm shocked by how often I'm asked by family and friends, "do we still have Soldiers in Afghanistan?". These are two totally different wars, but it seems there is a big gap between the current conflicts and the average American's involvement/sacrifices. If we were to get into a war with a near-peer, this gap would absolutely need to be closed.
MAJ Roger Mulholland
BN XO
142 Staff
There is an unprecedented attitude emanating from this (our) generation that 'things' are easy. Considering that 18-45 year olds account for about 68% of our demographic, it's a significant number. 'Things' such as: getting a job, earning a degree, finding a high paying job, dating, getting promoted, traveling, being social, and so on. With the ubiquitous nature of information readily available at our beck and call, it may appear to be seemingly 'easy' to do anything. Need to get a job? - Post on LinkedIn. Need a date? - Choose your app. Need to be spun up on the news? - Check out Facebook. Going to war? - There's an app for that.
ReplyDeleteSure, point four, addresses the preconceived notion that a nation and drum up bodies at ease, but I reckon that sentiment is rooted in something much deeper. On the whole, we ought to realize that things are not as 'easy,' more efficient perhaps, but ease doesn't set the right expectation.
I would echo CPT Doan's comments about it being "easy" to create an Army. It is certainly a myth that a nation can simply conscript/enlist soldiers and the sheer number of them is going to be any sort of deterrent to another nation. It is all about the professionalism of those soldiers, along with the technology they are afforded, and the will of the political leaders of that nation.
ReplyDeleteThis myth resonated with me because there is a certain expectation of us as Soldiers from the American society, and I'm not sure we always live up to what they just assume we are. It is essential that we professionalize ourselves and our Soldiers to really be the elite force that we are expected to be.
The point I found interesting was that war cannot be won from a distance. This seems fairly accurate with conventional warfare, but warfare itself is constantly changing. As countries develop and industrialize, I think warfare will become almost exclusively fought from a distance. Cyber, for example, will likely be one of the more important battlegrounds of the future, along with economic and geo-political warfare. We've already seen the latter work to some success with North Korea agreeing (at least to some degree) to put denuclearization on the negotiating table. This outcome was achieved through economic and political pressure, without risking any Soldiers on the ground. As the future unfolds, the country needs to recognize shifts in tactics and adapt appropriately.
ReplyDeleteLt Mike Manookin
BN S-1
142 Staff
Perhaps myth number three resonates most for me. Not because I believe it, but because I believe the SF believe it. I know they can't win a war by themselves, but come hell or high water, they will win the battle. While attached to a SF unit during my recent deployment in support of OIR, the SF was facilitating the culminating training event for some trainees to prove their mettle. I won't forget the obstacles that continuously arose and the number of opposing friendlies that suggested the US forget the mission, pack up, and make a different plan.
ReplyDeleteAs a translator, I was caught in the middle. "He says you can't do it. They won't provide the resources to do what you want to do." The SF didn't respond. They just did. They overcame the obstacles and the training mission was a success.
So, no, the Special Forces will not win the wars by themselves but they play a special role--as each branch of the military does--to accomplish the mission. I think this ties in really well with myth five as well, that nations not only fight wars, but they are what wins them.
CPT Johnson
The myth I found most compelling was that armies don't fight wars, nations do. Recently, with the government shut down(s), budgetary fights or even VA issues, I think that we as a nation need to rewire our thinking when it comes to the national defense. As private citizens, it's incredibly easy to compartmentalize defense activities into something that will never directly impact you. It appears that wars are fought and felt far away, affecting only those with immediate family members in the service. Or that budgets are simply figures multiplying national debt. For this reason I believe our role in the National Guard is paramount; through the NG, communities are tied to conflicts and campaigns. The general public realize that the defense budget isn't some line item in legislation, but rather a force multiplier for their neighbor or friend. And as wars are not short, communities that are tied to their guardsman ensure there isn't a scarcity of support, war weariness, or worse, apathy.
ReplyDeleteMyth four, that armies are easy to create, is a point of interest and one that is easy to overlook. Not only is standing up a military a Promethean task in and of itself, maintaining and strategically evolving an existing army’s function and purpose in a dynamic and rapidly changing world requires considerable time, resources and foresight.
ReplyDeleteIt is also a challenge to synchronize a collective moral vision among the more individual components that comprise a military. This point, I believe, is what delineates highly professional and respected organizations like the US military from other collective groups calling themselves an army, but who are in reality little more than armed thugs representing state or non-state actors. Therefore, effective armies utilize both highly trained personnel, as well as justified end states, to achieve a nation’s vision for enhanced global stability.
-LT Woodin
Myth two: You can win wars from afar. I get questions about this all the from time from people I know. The idea that strategic drone strikes can win wars is very appealing, but I think many people don't even realize war, at least from the modern United States perspective, is not simply about killing enemy forces. Ideologies and philosophies, both good and bad, live on throughout history after a war has ended. We don't win wars by killing just enough so the other side will declare defeat and give up. We win wars by changing the hearts and minds of the people, and we can't do that from a distance.
ReplyDeleteA buddy of mine who at the time was an active duty Green Beret MSG was talking to me about the infantry, okay, okay he was yelling at me his point of view about how the infantry is the most important branch of a military. He explained how we can never eliminate the need of the infantry or boots on the ground. His main point was that all wars throughout history have 1 thing in common. The victor before they can claim victory has to make clear they have the upper hand and there is no chance of survival if their enemy intends to continue fighting. The victor at some point has to have had their weapon/s (whatever weapon it may have been that gave them the upper hand in forcing defeat) pointed at their enemy with the intent to kill or give up, before taking the actual ground the enemy was standing on. In the past few hundred years the weapon typically has been a barrel of some sort with or without a fixed bayonet. To me this is the same argument against myth two, because you cannot do this from afar.
Related, in one of my political science classes in college, probably 10 years ago, a professor posed an open ended question to the class to debate, while he simply listened and moderated when he felt appropriate. The question was basically, can we win in Iraq and Afghanistan by removing ground forces from the battlefield and utilize unmanned aircraft to patrol the skies and strategically strike the enemy from above? The underlying idea to the question was that we are losing too many U.S. and Iraqi and Afghani lives and need a more diplomatic process than warfare.
Everyone in the class knew I was in the Army and immediately turned to me to lead the discussion. I made a girl cry in this discussion. Her father was an Air Force pilot and she fully believed that the U.S. could implement this type of warfare and claim victory, and not just in Iraq or Afghanistan, but in any war. I was taken back by her idea and I passionately explained my position that we could not win by just implementing strategic drone strikes and that the Air Force and all other air commands only exist to support ground forces. I may have also said the Chair Force should also fall back under the Army where it belongs just like the Marine Corps is technically under the Department of the Navy. But I made the point that war is about people and their philosophies and how both are extremely resilient. Just as General Milley explained about the Japanese at Iwo Jima, I explained virtually the same point but about the British in WWII being bombarded by the Germans on British soil. At some point a bombardment or a siege will win out, but even when it does, in order to truly verify the victor has won, there must be a way to truly confirm victory. As great as the Air Force is at what they do, at the end of their offensive operations, ground forces must still comb through the bombarded impact zones to verify one of three things: 1) enemy forces have all been killed; 2) determine to continue offensive operations against surviving enemy forces still fighting; or 3) capture surviving enemy forces as POW's.
I completely agree it is a myth. It will always be necessary to have boots on the ground in order to win wars. To me, this is becoming more and more apparent because our recent conflicts not in spite of how we implement technology into recent conflicts.
I have been reading a lot of books on wars lately…mostly by Jeff Shaara. I really enjoy the way he makes the war feel real for me and the people that were involved. The reason I mention this is that the myth that resonates with me the most comes from all the comments that are made by Soldiers in the books; wars will be short.
ReplyDeleteIt seems that that is always the statements of the media, the sentiment of the civilians and the young Soldiers getting ready to fight. At the beginning of the Civil War, people came from DC, just to watch the first battle because they anticipated the Union forces running over the Confederates and the war being over by the end of the week. Maybe it is the hopes of all that are involved, but as pointed out in the article, it is rarely the case.
Wars are long, they take extreme tools on us, our families and the country. We must as leaders ensure that this is not a myth that infects our troops.
Myth two resonates most since my time in the at,y.
ReplyDeleteAt first I wasn't sure I wanted to say anything. I thought whose myths are they? I was looking for more evidence on their existence. Should I prove or disprove them based on whether they were familiar to me. I realized that I propagated the first one, stating something to the effect "well be home by Christmas". After that I thought I do have comments.
Myth two I don't agree. I've always believed it takes boots on the ground. I'm not familiar with the next two myths. I never thought the SF was designed to win a war. And after our nation drew down it's military it was never easy to rebuild. It took time. I read armies are a product of societies. I don't see our society as fit for duty. I do believe our military contains the "cream of the crop". Most of the best people I know served or are serving in the armed forces. I wouldn't want to be among any body else. And last, Nations fight wars. Society has a stake in the outcome. We saw what happened with Vietnam.
Now I'm left wondering what other myths are there? GTS (google that s).
"It's impossible to eliminate war."
"It's a 'just' or 'good' war."
"War is good for the economy."
All of these myths tie into this overaching myth that war, or anything, is easy.
ReplyDeleteThe SF can fix it because that would be easy and tv and movies say that's how it works.
We can fight and win long distance because that's easy, because it should work the way my video games do.
The war will be quick, because Amazon has same day shipping and that's easy so why can't the war be the same.
We live in a detached society with immediate gratification of what used to be difficult. It's been argued sufficiently already, but the market, the country, is demanding more humane, more detached, and more immediately concluded wars. We absolutely need the support of the nation, the patience of the nation, to engage in a long struggle.
However, the other position that could be had is to give the market what it wants. Develop the technology that can do more. More that targeted drone strikes. More than massive ordinance. More than embedded SF.
The problem there is the idea that it's easy to raise an army and it is not. Military knowledge and military technology is not a water tap that can be turned on and off.
In the age of technology the military has fallen behind. It's easier and more efficient to communicate by Gmail than by .mil mail or by cell phone than by SINCGARS. It's easier to collaborate with Google Docs or MS Office 365 than with CPOF... And with the proper plugins they can function the same.
In peace time we, as a nation, have neglected the military. Or hubris has assumed that it would be easy to develop new tech when we needed it. We assumed that because it may not have been necessary to cover the world with US Soldiers and develop more and bigger bombs (looking at you MOAB) that there was no other resource worthy of focusing on.
We left securing the nation, and preparing to match and defeat (or to out tech and out think) our enemies to nearly no one. We have known about the growing cyber threat for a long time. We've theorized on a better way or an entirely new way to we war for over a decade, but we waited until the battle was nigh at our door.
It won't be easy to build the new army, but we've done it in the past. And as with the past, many lives will be lost and the war will be battled eye to eye until we catch up with the innovations required of the times.
If I could change just one myth it would be that raising an army that can think and innovate and fight takes time and resources and focus.
I resonate with myth 2, winning wars from afar!
ReplyDeleteGrowing up in a small town, I often heard people talk about war, and if they were in a position of power, they would just bomb that degenerate country to smithereens. We’ve all heard these kinds of statements and chuckled to ourselves or laughed out loud, but we all know it’s not that easy. Yes, having the most technologically advanced military in the world has afforded us the opportunity to dominate our enemies from thousands of miles away, but we all know that this technology is just one of the many tools we have in our tool box. History, has shown us that this tactic does not guarantee us victory. Looking back over the last 15 years in Iraq, what gave us the biggest advantage over our enemy? Our ability to blow everything up in sight or our troops on the ground; rebuilding, training & equipping the Iraqi police force/army to rebuild their own country after a tyrannical dictator. That is defiantly an object question that could be answered in many ways, but it's something to chew on while we ponder these myths.
This is a great article that lists out the realities that need to be addressed prior to any engagement the American people face. We’re in this together and we all must understand the realities of war and what it takes to win.
CPT Bringhurst
Love the comments! Fantastic!
ReplyDeleteThe myth that resonates with me most is that the military services don't fight wars, nations do. All we and our parents have known are limited wars as opposed to total war. Limited ends, tied to limited ways and means. Given the nature of the conflicts in our lifetimes, our nation hasn't had to go "all in". There are only two examples of the U.S. engaging in total war in our nation's history; the Civil War and WWII. Both were literally existential threats to the country and required everything from our nation
When we talk about limited wars requiring the support of a nation, it becomes very challenging given those don't involve an existential threat. Vietnam is the classic example. It shows that even in limited war, national support is what makes or breaks the outcome. National support can also make or break the military fighting the war as it did in Vietnam.
We in the military enjoy a level of national support in the fights we're currently in that is really unprecedented. Think about how different it was for the veterans of Vietnam in their limited war. We've been at war for more than 17 years straight and support of the military is astoundingly high. We can't lose sight of that.
On one of his visits to Draper, ADM Mullen, the Director of the NSA, responded to a question about the challenges associated with all of the training requirements to conduct a SIGINT mission. His response stuck with me. He said, in effect, that if that training fosters the trust of our country to continue to conduct that SIGINT mission, then it's all worth it. Once our nation has lost trust in those who have volunteered to defend it, we stand to lose not only our ability to operate, but ultimately our nation itself because we can no longer defend it.
LTC Strong