I think we deviated from this in Vietnam. Powell started his career in a theater where it seemed that we were never quite willing to commit the resources necessary to decisively win the conflict. Too much piecemeal execution, which I believe make a big impression on Powell ... either you commit a force large enough to win or you don't get involved.
That said, "massive force" today does not necessarily mean what it did a few years ago. History is filled with a lot of examples where the military prepared to fight the last war, and failed to fully appreciate the implications of new technologies and techniques. (Billy Mitchell is a classic example of someone who had a vision of what was possible in the future yet paid a major price for thinking "outside the box".)
I think we have some leaders in place now that have truly thought about new ways to convincingly win. We are going to deploy massive force -- just a new definition of massive force.