With the experience we’ve gained in Iraq is the US Army a more formidable fighting force today than it was 4 years ago?
This time, when we lose an insurgency, don’t plug our ears, close our eyes, and refuse to try to learn from the mistakes because we just don’t want to face them?
-Joe
I doubt it. We are wearing out equipment, we’ve lowered recruitment standards, and screwed over morale. I expect that our military is quite a bit less capable now.
I honestly don’t think so. After about the first month, the armed forces have been forced to attempt to perform an action they are neither suited for nor meant for. The lessons of Iraq will be useless in a real war.
Oops, misread the OP. Stupid sick baby!
My point stands, however.
As for the OP, no. We’re lowering our standards, stretching our units thinner, and not giving them the downtime they need. I believe the troops are getting worse due to long-term fatigue and a lower class of recruits being shuffled in.
-Joe
What the hell is a “real” war? Everything seems to be pointing towards the Iraqi style “asymmetrical” warfare becoming the norm rather than the exception.
More effective against what?
That really is the crux of the question.
Undoubtedly, once the army fully freshens up by replacing worn equipment and boosting the morale of troops (which, as far as I can tell, is really pretty good at this point-the Hummers will give out way before the infantrymen), the army would be much more capable of fighting in Iraq.
The generals will always have learned how to have won the last war fought.
But that’s the problem. There’s no telling what the next major conflict after Iraq will be. If we decide to go back into Somalia, or The Sudan, etc., then yes, we’ll probably be much better as a counter-insurgency force. Perhaps we’d be capable of finally winning in Afghanistan or clearing out Waziristan and the Pakistani Tribal zones.
But what if it’s some sort of horrific drag-out brawl with China? Well, we’ve probably curtailed naval and air-superiority capabilities and upgrades if anything because of Iraq, so the lessons of Iraq might prove actively detrimental to our ability to wage war with China.
So, on balance, I think that asymmetrical wars akin to Iraq and Afghanistan will far outnumber the later type of major conflict, so yes, it will probably be helpful, but I suppose one could argue that avoiding these conflicts in the first place is a far superior strategy overall.
Regardless of wear and tear etc, the US army has definitely learned how not to do things.
I reckon that if they did a replay of 2003, then they would handle things very differently.
Hell, we didn’t learn the lessons in past wars to apply to Iraq. The looting of Bagdad came as a surprise? Hello. Panama City is one off the top of my head and I’m sure there are more examples I’m too lazy to look up. Certainly in WW2 we learned that (at least my combat vet father talked about the looting he witnessed starting apx. 12-36 hours after a power vacume).
Christ, people talk about some of the Iraq mistakes like they haven’t been done before in the past 50 years. And we’re supposed to learn these lessons for next time…
I heard that in WWII the looting was mostly by the invading troops, one story I heard was that the SAS went ahead of the lines, blasting safes in banks and businesses. I often wondered how one of my uncle’s friends managed to buy huge tracts of land in South Africa.
I also heard that the Russians were particularly thorough, down to door knobs and lavatories.
Heck, by WWII standards the USA and UK troops were totally incompetent, they let the civilians get the loot.
The lesson that has been learnt is that destabilization is easy, trying to occupy a state is stupid. The maxim ‘Boots on the Ground’ is obsolete.
So… the UK covert services looted banks in WWII war zones and kept the money for themselves? Interesting I’d never heard that before. I would have thought they would have had more discipline than that.