General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: do people today understand what war with Russia would mean? [View all]nadinbrzezinski
(154,021 posts)you had officers questioning civilian leadership, see McChrystal. That is a consequence of the building of a praetorian guard.
You are a vet, so you will exactly understand what I am about to say. Militaries tend to prepare to fight the last war. The last war was pretty much low intensity, counterinsurgency. Why the cuts were directed in the way they were. Europe was an ex theater. What potentially we are facing right now is high intensity warfare, total war even. There are many parallels to the US before WW II. We had fought many banana wars in Central America, such as going after Sandino. The US had to relearn a lot of the lessons of high intensity war. And that it did, starting in North Africa with Operation Torch.
That included the officer corp. Many one stars were canned during the first two years of the war. The Navy went from a gentleman's club to a fighting force with many junior officers going all the way to flag. If we have another ground war in Europe COIN does not work, and all the lessons that our units have forgotten, they will have to re-learn, and that will be a problem for both treasure and blood. It gets worst. near worst case scenario we will see multiple calls, from multiple nations for a general draft.
Suffice it to say the last opposed mass landing was at Inchon. That is over fifty years ago.