Current US Military

[Smitty-48]

It's like I had this OC Major, and he was like a Beckwith fused with a McChrystal, he wrote his own rule book, and he liked to party, he moved up the ranks, all the way to General, but he always came and found me, no matter where I was, no matter what I was doing, here comes the General, looking for his boys

He'd come right up in the field; "hey, Smitty, what'cha doin?" I'd be like "oh you know, sir, same ol' chickenshit different day, I think I'm in the soup, this new Sar'Major is out to get me", and he'd just be like "ah, don't worry about that, I'll take care of that, come with me, I got something fun for you to do".

Just like that, some Captain was like "where the fuck you goin', Smitty?!" and the General cut in "he's with me, I'm gonna borrow him for a bit, if you don't mind..." and the Captain was all "oh, sorry, sir, I didn't see you there, gobble-gobble, gobble-gobble" lol.

Likes to party, always takes his boys along for the ride, that's my kind of General, too bad they're only one in a million...

[ssu]

Stanley McChrystal upended the standardized Pentagon model to fight AQ in Iraq. So there are still innovations coming from the US armed forces.

Not really, Creighton Abrams had the exact same program, it was called the Pheonix Program, and it worked the same way, but still wasn't enough, didn't work in Vietnam, same as it didn't work in Afghanistan neither, and really, didn't even actually kill the Baathists off in Iraq.

The difference is that the VC was tightly under the control of North Vietnam. Nothing of the sort happened in Iraq. With the Sunni awakening you had the US armed forces simply choosing what insurgents were bad ones and which were not, and then negotiated with them and turned them to oppose Al Qaeda. Nothing of the sort happened in Vietnam: you could have ex-VC fighters, but they didn't change sides in large formations.

The artificiality of the VC is evident just how simply the "liberation front" evaporated after North Vietnamese victory. Old School Communist Proxy.

[Smitty-48]

Just another version version of Desert Storm, avoid the fight, to keep the casualties down, Creighton Abrams tried that too, it was all tried in Vietnam, there's nothing new under the sun, America just keeps bringing the same programs back, it just keeps going back to 1970 all over again.

That's all this "Rapone effect" is, that's just the Echo-Boomers pulling the pin as their Boomer progenitors did, America is just not a warfighting nation anymore, when they went into Vietnam, that was the best warfighting army America has ever put in the field, but Vietnam broke it, and it ain't never coming back, no sense lamenting about it, can't go back to 1965, last of the warfighters, into the Central Highlands, never to return.

[ssu]

Just another version version of Desert Storm, avoid the fight, to keep the casualties down, Creighton Abrams tried that too, it was all tried in Vietnam, there's nothing new under the sun, America just keeps bringing the same programs back, it just keeps going back to 1970 all over again, that's all Rapone effect is, that's just the Echo-Boomers pulling the pin as their Boomer progenitors did, America is just not a war fighting nation anymore, when they went into the Vietnam, that was the best Warfighting army America has ever put in the field, but Vietnam broke it, and it ain't never coming back, no sense lamenting about it, can't go back to 1965, last of the warfighters, into the Central Highlands, never to return.

It's not their military, it's their politicians.

No matter how Americans study just how the British were victorious fighting many insurgencies, the Americans simply don't get it that in the end it's about shrewd politicians and true leadership that you need. Not clueless idiots that simply can forget that their country is fighting a war and can blabber senseless objectives that don't make any sense or then assume an insurgency goes away by killing some number of people.

Overall, Americans cannot understand that you truly have to have a strategy to win, an objective, which likely is so goddam politically incorrect in the ears of American voters that you simply don't say it. The natural answer would simply not to utter it then. But as everything is so easy for a Superpower, then you can go on with an indefinately ongoing war. One thing Americans simply cannot do when fighting an insurgency: a political solution with their enemy.

[Smitty-48]

It's not their military, it's their politicians.

Nah, that just a cop out, same cop out they invoke over Vietnam, but the polticians just put their fingers up to feel which way the wind is blowing, and then they do what the masses want them to do.

"It's the politicians!" That's what Bacevich calls "Blaming Leviathan", in America, it's always somebody else, no American can ever take responsibility for their own shit, they always have to have a Leviathan to blame, because they just can't bring themselves to turn and look it in the face, who knew?

On the one hand they're arrogant, but on the other hand, they're fragile, America has a huge ego, but that just makes them brittle, soon as things don't go their way on easy street, they throw in the towel, and then start rummaging around for fabricated scapegoats to blame. If they can't find one, they'll make one up out of whole cloth.

[DBTrek]

All the chicklets in the bleachers chirpin' at the players in the game.
That's all I'm hearing.

Peeep! peeeeep! peeep!

[Smitty-48]

See, the thing is, that army which America sent into Vietnam, they were totally commited, they were absolutely going for broke, they were the fittest, toughest, smartest, best trained, best equipped, most highly motivated and determined army, America has ever put in the field, and they got beat, they got beat by a better army, the best army America had ever built, and it ran into someone better, and after that, America's confidence was shattered, the whole idea of building a better army, became warped, they didn't go out to build a better army to fight wars, they went out build an army which wouldn't have to fight them, at which point, America as a warfighting nation was no more, and there's no going back, it's the Desert Storm Army now, doomed to defeat forevermore, because it can't actually fight, and that ain't the politicians, there's just no fight left in America, except for fighting with each other over whose to blame.

[DBTrek]

You know that conscript US army which large portions of the populace scurried off to Canada in order to avoid serving in - man, they were totally like commited, they were absolutely going for broke, they were the fittest, toughest, smartest, best trained, best equipped, most highly motivated and determined army, America has ever put in the field



Right on, alternative history man.
Thanks for the levity.

[Speaker to Animals]

So if we go back to the draft, the democrats will flee to Canada? Seems like a win to me.

[Smitty-48]

Well, first of all, nobody was scurrying off to Canada in 1965, they don't start scurrying off to Canada until the NVA had broke the American will to fight, the NVA broke the army, and then Americans started to flee, but, out of 2.5 million, only 30,000 ran to Canada, and actually, 30,000 Canadians volunteered to replace them, serving in the Army and Marines in Vietnam, so that was -30,000 Americans, +30,000 Canadians, and so a net zero in terms of effect on the American war effort overall.

From 1965 to 1969, best army America had ever put in the field, when it charged up Hill 937 in the A Shau, that broke the back, and then it unravelled from there.