Originally posted by S-2
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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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