10 years worth of worthless, do nothing but sit around eating pizza with the Pres on the Oval Office rug?
10 years when Clintooon tore apart the military, dismantled it to near extinction, pilots having to rob other planes for parts to keep a small portion of a squadron flying, caused the moral to be at all time low, with troops opting out at an unprecedented rate - promoting like minded (think Clintooon and Kerrrrry) military up the ladder - (They NEEDED to be weeded! er retired)
Why don't these armchair generals STFU...They wanted to fight at 21st cent war with 19th cent weapons and tactics -
GO AWAY
April 13, 2006
Grumbles From the Griped
Future of Warfare
Hatched by Dafydd
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Literally, the first means a soldier (of any rank) has one and only one commanding officer above him; but when combined with unity of effort, it implies not only bottom to top heirarchy but top to bottom. That is, at each level, the soldier makes only the little decisions and leaves the big decisions to his CO.
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This has more or less been standard military doctrine for centuries, from Julius Caesar through Washington, Napoleon, Eisenhower, and Westmoreland.
However, in the modern era with modern communications and intelligence technology, this doctrine sometimes leads to soldiers being "over-officered," as in Vietnam --
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And Finally
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One of Secretary Rumsfeld's reforms is, without question, to bend this doctrine without actually breaking it. Thus, rather than have one fellow ultimately directing every operation in Afghanistan and Iraq, Rumsfeld wants units to operate more or less independently and on their own initiative -- while keeping in contact with the other units around them and bearing in mind the ultimate goals. Rumsfeld believes that the lieutenant, captain, or major on the ground -- or in many cases, the first or master sergeant -- is in a better position to respond quickly and appropriately to situations that can literally change by the minute.
I'm sure the Powell Doctrine is what MG Batiste means by the principle of "enough forces."
The Powell Doctrine simply asserts that when a nation is engaging in war, every resource and tool should be used to achieve overwhelming force against the enemy. This may oppose the principle of proportionality, but there are grounds to suppose that principles of Just War may not be violated. [Emphasis in original]
Again, Donald Rumsfeld and George W. Bush reject this doctrine as outdated with today's warfare/statecraft challenges... hence, though we used a half a million troops to drive Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait in the Gulf War (Operation Desert Storm), we used a scant 200,000 troops to take over the entire country of Iraq -- though it would have been about 220,000 if the 4ID had been able to traverse Turkey and invade Iraq from the north.