Replies

.... I'm going to have to read Corbett .... clearly West Point likes Mahan.

One of Corbett's teachings, in contrast to Mahan's doctrine to seek out the enemy for a decisive encounter, was that chasing around the Globe trying to bring your enemy to a decisive battle often results in striking a "blow in the air" or finding the enemy in a place of his own choosing.

Instead, Corbett advised occupying a place of high strategic value and forcing the enemy to come to you.

"It should be borne in mind that if you seek it (the enemy fleet) out with a superior force, you will probably find it in a place where you cannot destroy it, except at very heavy cost. It is far better to make it come to you..."

That strategy is now in effect in Iraq.

I don't think Nelson would agree with your post .... if I remember correctly he was "blowing in the air" after Napoleon for nine months until the Battle of the Nile ..... I've got to go to bed .... to be continue....besides doesn't Rumsfeld still think there is no insurgency? Stumbling into that strategy by accident is not strategy....

trying to bring your enemy to a decisive battle often results in striking a "blow in the air" or finding the enemy in a place of his own choosing.

Which is what the Cast Iron right is advocating with their "take out Syria and Iran right NOW" mindset. As I keep asking those who scream "GW is letting them have sanctuary".

What are your targets? What are your goals? Really easy to scream "hit the pipeline thru Syria" lot harder to actually do that with a foe that is indistinguishable from the civilians around them. So what then? Since their bases and sources of supply are covert there is no "Haiphong Harbor" or "Ho Chi Min" trail to hit to stop up the pipeline. Strike into Syria or Iran and all the Terrorist need to do is fade back into their civilian lives until we are forced by time and cost to move on to the next hot spot. To fight terrorist we need to have a battlefield that they HAVE to come fight on. Death Ground as Sun Tze calls it. Iraq, part of the "holy" Arabina peninsula, currently is that death ground.