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We Were Caught Unprepared: The 2006 Hezbollah-israeli War

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  • #16
    Originally posted by S-2 View Post
    "Intellectually, then, it was easier for the U.S. Army officer corps to go back to defending the Fulda Gap against imaginary Soviet tank divisions using the same tactics employed in the Second World War. In the same way, the belief that the United States might someday fight like Israel did in 2006 is being used by some to argue for a reversion back to what the U.S. military does best and finds easiest: conventional warfare."

    Didn't agree with Bigfella and I don't agree with Exum. He's dismissive by suggesting that we dashed to momma's womb in the mid-70s. Too young to draw upon personal context, he utterly failed to acknowledge the strategic imperative and operational/technical bankruptcy with which we were faced in western Europe.

    Where's his proof of doctrinal failure? Don't they call it Russia these days?

    Conversely, he's welcome to suggest that a paucity of intellect was devoted in the post-Desert Storm army addressing the evolving nature of conflict. It might be fair to say that we mimiced Tom Clancy in identifying future threats.

    Had Exum done so, I'd have applauded the proper identification of the moment in our history when we became too utterly infatuated with our bad selves to see the emerging world. From 1991-2001 (maybe 2005) we failed to adjust to the newly-evolved nature of conflict-hybrid or otherwise.

    "Guns, bombs and tactics from the Second World War are simply not enough. This has been the harsh lesson of the U.S. military’s counter-insurgency campaigns since 2001, and this is also the enduring lesson of Israel’s war with Hizb Allah."

    Yeah, well, I dunno there. I'll let that nugget stand on it's own weight.

    S-2,

    I haven't read Exum yet because I want to work out if we actually disagree or not without someone else's ideas as a distraction. I may not have expressed myself clearly in the past, so I'll do my best now.

    Here is my basic premise in - tell me if you think I am wrong:

    During 1965-68 the US military (in this case Army & airforce) essentially attempted to use its undoubted advantages in conventional warfare to defeat an enemy that was not relying on conventional tactics.

    During 1968 the new US commander finally accepted the unconventional nature of the conflict & the tactics changed. Thereafter the US was more successful than previous (yes, I know there were other factors, but the tactics worked).

    At no point in the war did the US cease its mission to prepare for a large conventional war in Europe. Not only was the institutional knowledge to perform such task retained, but so was the physical capability. This remained the case from the start of the Cold War until its end, as it should.

    During the whole period of the Vietnam War considerable institutional knowledge about COIN operations was built up within the Army & Marines (who, to be fair, already possessed some). My issue is that too much of this capability was effectively jettisoned aftre Vietnam & largely had to be re-learned when the US found itself caught up in large COIN conflicts in Afghanistan & Iraq.

    I don't see this as 'either/or'. NATO was core US military business for the whole Cold War, but there was no reason why the US military could not retain a healthy COIN capability AND face down the Russians at the Fulda Gap. The COIN capability need not have taken the form of divisions of soldiers marked ONLY for COIN. It wasn't a resource issue, it was a choice made by politicians not to get involved in 'messy' wars and by the military to assume politicians would never change their minds.

    Likewise I don't see an either/or situation now. Iraq is actually a classic example of needing both capabilities virtually simultaneously. The invasion was pure blitzkrieg, 2003 style, as it should have been. What was then needed was the application of the sort of COIN tactics that had to wait until 2006-07. The military has to be prepared to fight the wars they have, not just the ones they want. The US military has the resources to do both - it can 'walk & chew gum'.

    Do we really have a disagreement here?
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    Win nervously lose tragically - Reds C C

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    • #17
      Originally posted by Blademaster View Post
      Are you saying that Confederate General Nathan Bedford and Stuart's methods of raiding and manuever tactics would not stand up to the Boer War and Franco-Prussian armies?
      They would not stand up to the brass encased cartridge.

      Comment


      • #18
        Bigfella Reply

        "At no point in the war did the US cease its mission to prepare for a large conventional war in Europe. Not only was the institutional knowledge to perform such task retained, but so was the physical capability. This remained the case from the start of the Cold War until its end, as it should."

        The institutional knowledge was lying in stilted dormancy. The physical capability was ON IT'S ASS by 1971, bigfella. USAEUR was an absolute shell of it's 1964 self. So was our doctrine. So too, had the rest of western Europe fallen into utter conventional disrepair. Carter begged western Europe to INCREASE their defense budgets to 3% minimum GNP. THAT was the goal. It remains as unattainable for them today, btw, as then.

        Shek says it was our economy that defeated the Soviet Union. Fine. It was manifested in our tremendous buildup between 1976-1991. THERE was the point of contact by which a planned and centralized economy could neither innovate, produce, nor budget at our pace. In fact it was debilitatingly destructive when coupled witht the net effect of Afghanistan.

        "My issue is that too much of this capability was effectively jettisoned aftre Vietnam & largely had to be re-learned when the US found itself caught up in large COIN conflicts in Afghanistan & Iraq."

        "jettisoned" implies far too greatly irresponsibility. Not so in light of the overwhelming strategic threat/imbalance which we faced in western Europe because of undermanned and poorly equipped conventional forces armed with a politically unacceptable doctrine which left us utterly vulnerable to take any conventional attack of western Europe and IMMEDIATELY go nuclear for lack of a conventional deterrant.

        The threat was real and absolutely dangerously destabilizing. To suggest that anything short of our full and absolute focus on the immediate threat could have achieved the same security and, ultimately, decisive success against the Soviet Union is completely wrong.

        "re-learned", yes. Our doctrinal failure occurred in the aftermath NOT of Vietnam but Desert Storm. Here, in 1991, was the new world for applying COIN, not prior. Context had utterly changed once again. The conventional threat had receded from the horizon and Somalia, Bosnia, and Haiti had sent clear signals that there would be a new way to conduct military operations.

        NOW start to identify our neglect of dormant lessons. While you do so, I'd suggest that the rest of mankind's militaries, possessing access to the literature on COIN available from Vietnam, Malaya, and the Phillippines, ALSO were as guilty. After 1991, not before.

        "I don't see this as 'either/or'. NATO was core US military business for the whole Cold War, but there was no reason why the US military could not retain a healthy COIN capability AND face down the Russians at the Fulda Gap."

        It's possible that, smartly in 1964, we could have done both. We didn't. In the aftermath of our failure to secure neither Vietnam nor Europe your memory fails you to the massive disparity between the Warsaw Pact and our forces. This was coupled to the equally massive disparity in spending (% of GNP) by ourselves and our allies compared to the Soviet Union. That changed for us. It changed far less so for our allies. In the face of this pervasive and overwhelming threat, you'd encourage, instead, a dualist approach with strong emphasis to COIN wars not yet on our threat horizon in 1976.

        We really do hold the label of a latent omnipotent hegamon to possess that kind of unwielded power. No. Our army was undermanned and poorly trained to fight and win against the Soviet Union. Our equipment was worn-out and obsolete. Our DOCTRINE (active defense) was passive, defensive, surrendered initiative, and held no answers for the echeloned operational manuever groups (OMGs) then emerging within Soviet doctrine.

        "It wasn't a resource issue, it was a choice made by politicians not to get involved in 'messy' wars and by the military to assume politicians would never change their minds."

        Escapism. I reject it completely. I've made my case as best I can as to why. You're welcome to your view. I find it inaccurate, simplistic, vogue, and seriously lacking historical context.

        "Likewise I don't see an either/or situation now. Iraq is actually a classic example of needing both capabilities virtually simultaneously. The invasion was pure blitzkrieg, 2003 style, as it should have been. What was then needed was the application of the sort of COIN tactics that had to wait until 2006-07. The military has to be prepared to fight the wars they have, not just the ones they want. The US military has the resources to do both - it can 'walk & chew gum'."

        Fine. Let's discuss doctrinal failure where it matters, after 1991. Sometime between 1991 and 2001 we failed to identify and prepare for the near-term dominance of assymetric warfare in all it's forms and guises. THEN let's assure an equal opporturnity failure by suggesting that this negligence was spread further than just the American army. Those COIN lessons of Vietnam were there for ANY army to absorb in this emerging environment post-1991. Few updated their doctrines, to include our commonwealth friends.
        Last edited by S2; 18 Mar 08,, 18:14.
        "This aggression will not stand, man!" Jeff Lebowski
        "The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what you share with someone else when you're uncool." Lester Bangs

        Comment


        • #19
          Shek Reply

          Shek,

          "I'd agree that his dismissal is out of context, as it ignores the monumental task that the Army had to rebuild following Vietnam given the low esteem granted to it by the nation as well as doing it through a AVF in addition to having to turn to a real threat."

          The task was monumental only because of the very real threat posed by the Red Army. Yes, we had to design an AVF before it could be implemented but that needs to be seen as part of the answer to the challenge posed by the Soviet Union.

          As for our self-esteem, low or otherwise, we didn't have too much time to ruminate on our fates. We were scared shitless at the condition to which we'd fallen...

          "The proof of doctrinal failure is the need for a COIN manual to be written after four decades..."

          It wasn't a failure of the U.S. Army in 1976. If doctrine-writing is an important, carefully collected and ordered process, then FM 3-24 needed to patiently stand in line while the updated FM 100-5 was being written. THAT was the relevant and contextual doctrinal literature sadly in need of revision.

          I think guys like Emerson and DePuy had their priorities correct. Given their most relevant battlefield lessons and the arena upon which they'd made their mark on the battlefield, they should have been applauded for avoiding the myopia so common to those who run to the shelter they know best.

          Frankly, for those men, it was infantry operations in a light to mid-intensity battlefield.

          Why not 1991? As we viewed our threat horizon, what was there conventionally? The Soviet Union? Sorta, but not by that December. Beyond that?

          That's where the doctrine began to diverge from the threat.
          "This aggression will not stand, man!" Jeff Lebowski
          "The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what you share with someone else when you're uncool." Lester Bangs

          Comment


          • #20
            Originally posted by S-2 View Post
            "The proof of doctrinal failure is the need for a COIN manual to be written after four decades..."

            It wasn't a failure of the U.S. Army in 1976. If doctrine-writing is an important, carefully collected and ordered process, then FM 3-24 needed to patiently stand in line while the updated FM 100-5 was being written. THAT was the relevant and contextual doctrinal literature sadly in need of revision.

            I think guys like Emerson and DePuy had their priorities correct. Given their most relevant battlefield lessons and the arena upon which they'd made their mark on the battlefield, they should have been applauded for avoiding the myopia so common to those who run to the shelter they know best.

            Frankly, for those men, it was infantry operations in a light to mid-intensity battlefield.

            Why not 1991? As we viewed our threat horizon, what was there conventionally? The Soviet Union? Sorta, but not by that December. Beyond that?

            That's where the doctrine began to diverge from the threat.
            I don't disagree that they had their priorities straight. However, the fact that Galula et al were discovered in 2004-2005 by the United States Army means that Galula et al were jettisoned from institutional memory. How many NCOs/officers would it have taken to have stood up a COIN cell hidden somewhere in bowels of TRADOC? I suspect that we could have done this at the cost of manpower that could be counted on one person's hands in the maximum. In fact, for the same manpower, we could have had someone at Monroe, Leavenworth, and Carlisle, with the appropriate faculty member at CGSC/AWC.

            Instead, the US Army didn't just move onto the Red Army threat, but rather, turned it's back on the lessons learned in Vietnam about COIN and found itself lucky to have individuals that could provide some COIN expertise (Petraeus and Nagl not out of design, but out of luck that their dissertations involved COIN) and Sepp because he had fought COIN and created an insurgency as a SOF officer. However, they weren't placed correctly to have the immediate impact on the institutional Army in 2003, and the Army itself wasn't blued whatsoever in COIN.

            We could turn to 1991 as a potential breaking point for COIN to re-emerge. However, the attitude of "we don't do COIN" existed amongst the uniformed leadership and COIN was seen as part of the lower end of the spectrum, which was simply a lesser included case. Look at the resistance to peacekeeping ops in Bosnia/Kosovo (which because of being near the far end of the LIC spectrum, was doable as a lesser included case since it was a permissive to semi-permissive environment).

            So, while I agree that 1991 presented an opportunity for a clean break, the institutional mindset in 1991 was a product of 1972/1975 (just look at Bush 41's remarks about how ODS atoned for Vietnam and how ODS reaffirmed the Weinberger/Powell Doctrine, which by design was an implicit rejection of COIN).
            "So little pains do the vulgar take in the investigation of truth, accepting readily the first story that comes to hand." Thucydides 1.20.3

            Comment


            • #21
              Shek Reply

              "...this doesn't excuse the method in which the Army turned its back on COIN"

              "...turned its back..." implies an irresponsible choice of options, not the overwhelming imperative demanding immediate rectification which I experienced.

              "method" confuses me. It suggests a institutional tactic/technique of avoidance/obfuscation of priorities. I don't believe that was true. I don't think there was an institutional determination to consciously avoid lessons. Instead, there was the urgency of attention that the immediate threat demanded in 1974.

              "...and deprofessionalized by becoming task/condition/standards oriented - great for training, bad for institutional adaptibility"

              I prefer deconstruction. Basic soldier skills were crap. I mean CRAP. Zilch on field-craft, maintenance, basic tactics, small-unit leadership, physical conditioning.

              Total make-over, literally from scratch. Task-condition-standard was the U.S. Army's first attempt to integrate basic soldier skills right through to collective unit tasks identified within a divisional METL. If our training base is now subtle, agile, and flexible sufficient to move to higher-order training methods-more the power!! It wasn't then and this training methodology served it's purpose admirably.

              "...the insights he offers, especially in cutting through the supposed analogy to Israel becoming to COIN oriented. He found the exact same thing that a four person grad school group found - the IDF doesn't do COIN, but CT instead."

              Shek, I'm pretty sure that you issued the SAME warning about IDF over-emphasis of CT ops at the expense of COIN over two years ago at Strat Page WITHOUT benefit of July, 2006.
              "This aggression will not stand, man!" Jeff Lebowski
              "The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what you share with someone else when you're uncool." Lester Bangs

              Comment


              • #22
                Originally posted by S-2 View Post
                "...this doesn't excuse the method in which the Army turned its back on COIN"

                "...turned its back..." implies an irresponsible choice of options, not the overwhelming imperative demanding immediate rectification which I experienced.

                "method" confuses me. It suggests a institutional tactic/technique of avoidance/obfuscation of priorities. I don't believe that was true. I don't think there was an institutional determination to consciously avoid lessons. Instead, there was the urgency of attention that the immediate threat demanded in 1974.
                October 1973 scared the US Army. No doubt about that. No doubt that Army need to prioritize the Fulda Gap as the #1 mission. However, the Army as an institution consciously abandoned COIN as a "we don't do that" mission. Look at the support for Bush 43 during his first campaign when he poo poo'd Bosnia/Kosovo and stuff that wasn't warfighting. This psyche all traces back to post-Vietnam.

                Originally posted by S-2
                "...and deprofessionalized by becoming task/condition/standards oriented - great for training, bad for institutional adaptibility"

                I prefer deconstruction. Basic soldier skills were crap. I mean CRAP. Zilch on field-craft, maintenance, basic tactics, small-unit leadership, physical conditioning.

                Total make-over, literally from scratch. Task-condition-standard was the U.S. Army's first attempt to integrate basic soldier skills right through to collective unit tasks identified within a divisional METL. If our training base is now subtle, agile, and flexible sufficient to move to higher-order training methods-more the power!! It wasn't then and this training methodology served it's purpose admirably.
                Once again, T/C/S has its place for training, but it also bred a beaten path that made choosing the road less traveled a career risk. I don't disagree that it was a leap in training methodology, but it also caused bureaucratic creep that acted as a constraint on creativity by the time the system was mature. It's taken a war to jolt us out of this.

                Originally posted by S-2
                "...the insights he offers, especially in cutting through the supposed analogy to Israel becoming to COIN oriented. He found the exact same thing that a four person grad school group found - the IDF doesn't do COIN, but CT instead."

                Shek, I'm pretty sure that you issued the SAME warning about IDF over-emphasis of CT ops at the expense of COIN over two years ago at Strat Page WITHOUT benefit of July, 2006.
                http://www.worldaffairsboard.com/103529-post32.html
                "So little pains do the vulgar take in the investigation of truth, accepting readily the first story that comes to hand." Thucydides 1.20.3

                Comment


                • #23
                  Shek Reply

                  "...the fact that Galula et al were discovered in 2004-2005 by the United States Army means that Galula et al were jettisoned from institutional memory."

                  No. If true that it wasn't discovered until 2004-05 then it could never have been jettisoned. Written in 1962 or not, Galula wasn't part of our COIN experience then. Very few ever deployed to Vietnam aware of Galula's Algerian experience much less those who deployed in 1965. They also failed to note the Belgian-French Congo experience of 1964 and our own experiences in the the Phillippines in the late 40s-early 50s.

                  I was reading about Vietnam still in 1980 F.A. journal articles. I bet that I can find any number of copyrights in Combat Studies Institute about Vietnam from the eighties. Any number of published books were available and more all the time. Summers was published in 1982 as I recall.

                  A five man COIN cell in TRADOC's basement? I'd instead carry this inquisition to Ft. Bragg. School of the Americas? Special Forces H.Q? There's where the Army's institutional memory should have dug in. SOF had a vested interested in being the COIN SMEs.

                  "...but rather, turned it's back on the lessons learned..."

                  Doctrinal escapism. Disagree fully with the insinuation of irresponsibility. Assigned far too soon from my historical perspective. The knowledge base was there within the army. Collated and disseminated in a timely and ordered manner? If you think that a five-man cell in TRADOC's basement is going to do anything but collect dust for it's efforts I'd suggest that you'd be wrong.

                  I don't know. I don't see our COIN knowledge base empty nor buried between 1972-2001. Scattered throughout our institutions-absolutely. I, however, see greater and all-consuming priorities who's threats were accurately assessed and remedied correctly.

                  "...the institutional mindset in 1991 was a product of 1972/1975 (just look at Bush 41's remarks about how ODS atoned for Vietnam and how ODS reaffirmed the Weinberger/Powell Doctrine"

                  The POTUS has the amateur luxury of wallowing a bit in the past. Senior professional military leaders don't. I do see this perspective requiring re-examination by 1991. If so, then I further believe that it was an institutional failure of our Army and Marines to not, BEGINNING THEN, address the failings implicit to the Weinberger-Powell doctrine and revitalize our war-fighting doctrines and methodologies to the emerging realities.

                  In my mind, it was then and there where our doctrinal failings emerged.
                  "This aggression will not stand, man!" Jeff Lebowski
                  "The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what you share with someone else when you're uncool." Lester Bangs

                  Comment


                  • #24
                    Originally posted by S-2
                    "...the fact that Galula et al were discovered in 2004-2005 by the United States Army means that Galula et al were jettisoned from institutional memory."

                    No. If true that it wasn't discovered until 2004-05 then it could never have been jettisoned. Written in 1962 or not, Galula wasn't part of our COIN experience then. Very few ever deployed to Vietnam aware of Galula's Algerian experience much less those who deployed in 1965. They also failed to note the Belgian-French Congo experience of 1964 and our own experiences in the the Phillippines in the late 40s-early 50s.
                    The Roots of Galula's Influence on US COIN thinking? - Small Wars Council

                    Originally posted by S-2
                    I was reading about Vietnam still in 1980 F.A. journal articles. I bet that I can find any number of copyrights in Combat Studies Institute about Vietnam from the eighties. Any number of published books were available and more all the time. Summers was published in 1982 as I recall.
                    Summers book was a rejection of COIN. COIN was the red herring mission according to him that diverted us away from the real mission that was conventional in nature.

                    Originally posted by S-2
                    A five man COIN cell in TRADOC's basement? I'd instead carry this inquisition to Ft. Bragg. School of the Americas? Special Forces H.Q? There's where the Army's institutional memory should have dug in. SOF had a vested interested in being the COIN SMEs.
                    It's at Bragg, but behind fences with the SOF-conventional firewall stopping transmission en masse.

                    Originally posted by S-2
                    "...but rather, turned it's back on the lessons learned..."

                    Doctrinal escapism. Disagree fully with the insinuation of irresponsibility. Assigned far too soon from my historical perspective. The knowledge base was there within the army. Collated and disseminated in a timely and ordered manner? If you think that a five-man cell in TRADOC's basement is going to do anything but collect dust for it's efforts I'd suggest that you'd be wrong.
                    I'm not smart enough on where the most powerful levers within the beast, but if the knowledge is in the heads of veterans, it's only as effective in the amount that it gets transmitted, which is hard to do with soldiers deployed to Iraq in the summer of 2003 when GEN Abizaid contradicts the SecDef and states that we are fighting insurgents. However, if this experience is transmitted to paper in the form of a FM, it can be emailed and printed, providing a starting point instead of a blank canvas.

                    Originally posted by S-2
                    "...the institutional mindset in 1991 was a product of 1972/1975 (just look at Bush 41's remarks about how ODS atoned for Vietnam and how ODS reaffirmed the Weinberger/Powell Doctrine"

                    The POTUS has the amateur luxury of wallowing a bit in the past. Senior professional military leaders don't. I do see this perspective requiring re-examination by 1991. If so, then I further believe that it was an institutional failure of our Army and Marines to not, BEGINNING THEN, address the failings implicit to the Weinberger-Powell doctrine and revitalize our war-fighting doctrines and methodologies to the emerging realities.

                    In my mind, it was then and there where our doctrinal failings emerged.
                    Two decades of inertia working against a robust evaluation and transition to a doctrine that inculcates full spectrum operations instead of talking full spectrum ops with high intensity operations as the base case and all other ops as lesser included cases.

                    Inertia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

                    Inertia is the resistance an object has to a change in its state of motion. The principle of inertia is one of the fundamental principles of classical physics which are used to describe the motion of matter and how it is affected by applied forces. Sir Isaac Newton defined inertia in Definition 3 of his Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, which states:[1]

                    The vis insita, or innate force of matter is a power of resisting, by which every body, as much as in it lies, endeavors to preserve in its present state, whether it be of rest, or of moving uniformly forward in a right line.
                    "So little pains do the vulgar take in the investigation of truth, accepting readily the first story that comes to hand." Thucydides 1.20.3

                    Comment


                    • #25
                      Shek Reply

                      "Two decades of inertia working against a robust evaluation and transition to a doctrine that inculcates full spectrum operations..."

                      That was my generation's fault and it was worse than inert. In fact, by 1991, the institutional momentum had swung too, too far in the wrong direction. Nam vets leaving and a new age of blitz-krieg kiddies (i.e. MYSELF) coming into operational and command maturity without the benefit of experiential hindsight coupled with a hubritic disinclination.

                      I understand Summers Clauswitzian-based rejection of our Nam COIN experience though I was only illustrating that the discussion was continuing in the early eighties.

                      "It's at Bragg, but behind fences with the SOF-conventional firewall stopping transmission en masse."

                      Bummer. Same ol'-same ol' there. There lie your institutional culprits. Our high-priests are gate-keepers to the oracle. EXAMPLE- Does anybody REALLY know what's going on in the Phillippines now?

                      I don't and shouldn't but typically things creep into the public knowledge. Not there.
                      "This aggression will not stand, man!" Jeff Lebowski
                      "The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what you share with someone else when you're uncool." Lester Bangs

                      Comment


                      • #26
                        Originally posted by S-2 View Post
                        "It's at Bragg, but behind fences with the SOF-conventional firewall stopping transmission en masse."

                        Bummer. Same ol'-same ol' there. There lie your institutional culprits. Our high-priests are gate-keepers to the oracle. EXAMPLE- Does anybody REALLY know what's going on in the Phillippines now?

                        I don't and shouldn't but typically things creep into the public knowledge. Not there.
                        These firewalls don't exist so much amongst the units directly in the fight. However, I'd bet that the higher level pissing contests still exist.
                        "So little pains do the vulgar take in the investigation of truth, accepting readily the first story that comes to hand." Thucydides 1.20.3

                        Comment


                        • #27
                          Originally posted by S-2 View Post
                          "Two decades of inertia working against a robust evaluation and transition to a doctrine that inculcates full spectrum operations..."

                          That was my generation's fault and it was worse than inert. In fact, by 1991, the institutional momentum had swung too, too far in the wrong direction. Nam vets leaving and a new age of blitz-krieg kiddies (i.e. MYSELF) coming into operational and command maturity without the benefit of experiential hindsight coupled with a hubritic disinclination.

                          I understand Summers Clauswitzian-based rejection of our Nam COIN experience though I was only illustrating that the discussion was continuing in the early eighties.
                          I'm sure that there are more examples of COIN knowledge that I'm not aware of, but I guess I'll just end by stating that its existence wasn't formalized or capitalized.
                          "So little pains do the vulgar take in the investigation of truth, accepting readily the first story that comes to hand." Thucydides 1.20.3

                          Comment


                          • #28
                            Shek Reply

                            Thanks for the heads-up on Kalev Sepp.

                            Unknown by me heretofore.
                            "This aggression will not stand, man!" Jeff Lebowski
                            "The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what you share with someone else when you're uncool." Lester Bangs

                            Comment


                            • #29
                              Originally posted by S-2 View Post
                              Thanks for the heads-up on Kalev Sepp.

                              Unknown by me heretofore.
                              Really? You don't read the Washington Post do you?
                              In Iran people belive pepsi stands for pay each penny save israel. -urmomma158
                              The Russian Navy is still a threat, but only to those unlucky enough to be Russian sailors.-highsea

                              Comment


                              • #30
                                Originally posted by S-2 View Post
                                Thanks for the heads-up on Kalev Sepp.

                                Unknown by me heretofore.
                                You probably came across this article by now, but just in case:

                                http://www.worldaffairsboard.com/329257-post13.html
                                "So little pains do the vulgar take in the investigation of truth, accepting readily the first story that comes to hand." Thucydides 1.20.3

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