Quote:
Originally Posted by Vulcan
One of the things that handicapped the Americans in Viet Nam was they were fighting a defensive war and not fighting to win. The American bombing of Isis reminds me of the same strategy that just leads down the slippery slope of a little more involvement day by day but no real plan to defeat the enemy.
If it was up to me, I'd do what the Young Turks suggest and give them enough rope to hang themselves.
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I would restfully disagree.
the thing that handicapped the Americans were that the war was run and planned by the politicians who decided that they wanted to fight a limited engagement war. There were never clear objectives, this wasn't a war about gaining and holding grounds, but built around body counts and no inherent military objectives.
The American Military Leadership was shockingly weak considering that a lot of their senior officers were built in the forges of WW2 and Korea.
On top of that the American's didn't have a professional army, Vietnam was the end of the conscript or drafted military, because of that the NCO core which is the heart of any army was weak.
The Americans fought the wrong type of war, and flailed around uselessly. If you look at the individual battles there weren't a lot of them that were lost. but when you look at the cohesive picture on a map you'd ask yourself the question "What were they thinking".
The other thing was that the whole strategy of winning the hearts and minds was a abject failure and again a strategy that was created in the State Department and in the offices of the President and Vice President.
You would hope in this current situation that ISIS who are incredible butchers aren't winning the hearts and minds and forces on the ground could exploit that, but the best way to achieve that is if the forces on the ground were from the Middle East Nations. But unfortunately the Middle Eastern militaries aren't exactly professional or known for their gentle treatment of the civilian populations.