What if the Military Has Been Focusing on the Wrong Thing the Whole Time?

Droshki · Nov 26, 2014

Interesting article in Small Wars Jounal today:

"We are investing hundreds of billions of dollars in training our allies, so how is our enemy able to achieve so much success when no major power is training them?"

http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/what-if-the-military-has-been-focusing-on-the-wrong-thing-the-whole-time

Little Jack · Nov 26, 2014

thanks for the post.

Short version...

"no amount of training can replace the determination and the willingness to fight for a cause"

FrankT · Nov 26, 2014

we are attempting to train illiterate goat farmers..no schooling, no tactical training ever, it would take a generation to train them properly but they must be able to read and write first..

Marquezj16 · Nov 26, 2014

I was an embedded trainer with the ANA. It was tough going. Different mindset altogether. No sense of urgency and lack of discipline. Convoys are like herding cats.

Droshki · Nov 26, 2014

Companion article here:

http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/who-knows-what-time-will-buy-two-documents-on-%E2%80%9Cshaping-minds%E2%80%9D

That asks "But what if the U.S. military hasn’t been focusing on the wrong thing the whole time? What if the Army has been asking itself the same questions that Weiss is now asking for at least 50 years and still finds it difficult to wage wars successfully?"

FrankT · Nov 26, 2014

The Military is great at waging and winning wars, it is when the politicians get involved in nation building that there is a disconnect.

Crazydoc68 · Nov 26, 2014

Marquezj16 said:
I was an embedded trainer with the ANA. It was tough going. Different mindset altogether. No sense of urgency and lack of discipline. Convoys are like herding cats.

What he said!

Snow Bird · Nov 26, 2014

Viet Nam should have told us something(IT DIDN'T) Now 2 more wars and will it teach us anything? NOPE. You can't win those kinds of wars. At best you will just fight to a draw.

JBryan314 · Nov 26, 2014

It is a myth that our enemies are achieving tons of success. In the media, our enemies will always win, because the media is also our enemy. But make no mistake, we kicked ass in Afghanistan and Iraq. The reason those people fail to help themselves now is because they couldn't to begin with. That part of why we went in the first place.

Another note, when we train people and they succeed, it stays quiet that we trained them or people ignore that we trained them. The Northern Alliance did a good job for years in Afghanistan and nowadays, no one seems to care that we trained them. The Kurds in Iraq are kicking ass and have been great fighters for decades. We trained them, no one cares. The South Korean military is pretty decent as far as militaries go. We built them from scratch after the Korean War. No one remembers.

JBryan314 · Nov 26, 2014

Vietnam should have taught us that politicians should stay out of wars once they start. The US Army kicked ass in Nam. The politicians and idiot hippies are why we "lost".

You ABSOLUTELY CAN win those wars. But you HAVE TO let loose the killers and be willing to be as ruthless as the enemy.

Ross7 · Nov 26, 2014

JBryan314 said:
You ABSOLUTELY CAN win those wars. But you HAVE TO let loose the killers and be willing to be as ruthless as the enemy.

No doubt in my mind that politically correct Rules Of Engagement hamper our forces.

Snow Bird · Nov 26, 2014

Maybe I should have said you can win those wars if you want to stay in those countrys for the next 50 years. South Korea.

Ric-san · Nov 26, 2014

I said this since day one when we were all spooled up training the Iraqi troops back from the beginning of Gulf War II...Our forces would give some future date to train 'x' amount of troops...and the damn taliban were training as they go, kinda like the opening scene from 'Enemy at the Gates'. Its a farce. You either fight for a cause or you wont fight. Chesty Puller said it best...

" Our country won't go on forever, if we stay soft as we are now. There won't be any America—because some foreign soldiery will invade us and take our women and breed a hardier race."

That's why we fight like hell

Medic · Nov 27, 2014

FrankT said:
The Military is great at waging and winning wars, it is when the politicians get involved in nation building that there is a disconnect.

Exactly. The military focuses on the orders given by the politicians appointed to govern them.

FrankT · Nov 27, 2014

That is how we lost Vietnam...

donr101395 · Nov 27, 2014

The American public doesn't have the stomach for war, the politicians and the conventional military has zero clue how to run FID/COIN operations and hampers efforts at every turn. I spent the last 13 years(98-2011) of my career doing FID/COIN and it was both the most rewarding and the most frustrating 14 years of my life.

Khaot1c · Nov 27, 2014

Marquezj16 said:
I was an embedded trainer with the ANA. It was tough going. Different mindset altogether. No sense of urgency and lack of discipline. Convoys are like herding cats.

In training our Air Force maintainer counterparts, it's pretty much the same scene. The folks that were supposed to get training didn't come in until they felt like it, stop when they feel like it for breaks and then head home by 2 in the afternoon. That's before all the mandatory prayer sessions. It takes the better part of 6 months to get through an 8 week training syllabus.

I especially like the reference to determination. It seems there may have been more of a WILL SURRENDER attitude in place of a CAN DO mentality.

moron1 · Nov 27, 2014

Droshki said:
Interesting article in Small Wars Jounal today:

"We are investing hundreds of billions of dollars in training our allies, so how is our enemy able to achieve so much success when no major power is training them?"

http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/what-if-the-military-has-been-focusing-on-the-wrong-thing-the-whole-time

We have also invested hundreds of billions of dollars training our enemies that once were our allies.

Jerry · Nov 27, 2014

Snow Bird said:
Viet Nam should have told us something(IT DIDN'T) Now 2 more wars and will it teach us anything? NOPE. You can't win those kinds of wars. At best you will just fight to a draw.

^ That ^

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