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2008-12-06 Home Front: WoT

Gates calls for more emphasis on non-conventional warfare

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Posted by Fred 2008-12-06 00:00|| || Front Page|| [2 views ] Top

#1 I suspect that he is trying to teach Obambi that such a thing exists, and it works, so don't cut it, stupid.

Posted by Anonymoose 2008-12-06 08:46|| 2008-12-06 08:46|| Front Page Top

#2 File under - History [human behavior] repeats itself.

For insightful reading of events which have meaning today may I recommend, Frontier Regulars: The United States Army and the Indian 1866-1891 by Robert M. Utley. The perspective of a small and overtaxed military establishment conducting operations in a demanding environment, physically and politically, while bringing 'civilization' to the vastness of the west can be related to the contemporary operations on the world stage today. Of particular note would be chapters three: The Problem of Doctrine, four: The Army, Congress, and the People, and eighteen: Mexican Border Conflicts 1870-81.

Some excerpts:
"Chapter 3: The Problem of Doctrine. âThree special conditions set this mission apart from more orthodox military assignments. First, it pitted the army against an enemy who usually could not be clearly identified and differentiated from kinsmen not disposed at the moment to be enemies. Indians could change with bewildering rapidity from friend to foe to neutral, and rarely could one be confidently distinguished from another...Second, Indian service placed the army in opposition to a people that aroused conflicting emotions... And third, the Indians mission gave the army a foe unconventional both in the techniques and aims of warfare... He fought on his own terms and, except when cornered or when his family was endangered, declined to fight at all unless he enjoyed overwhelming odds...These special conditions of the Indian mission made the U.S. Army not so much a little army as a big police force...for a century the army tried to perform its unconventional mission with conventional organization and methods. The result was an Indian record that contained more failures than successes and a lack of preparedness for conventional war that became painfully evident in 1812, 1846, 1861, and 1898.

Chapter 4. The Army, Congress, and the People. Shermanâs frontier regulars endured not only the physical isolation of service at remote border posts; increasingly in the postwar years they found themselves isolated in attitudes, interests, and spirit from other institutions of government and society and, indeed from the American people themselves...Reconstruction plunged the army into tempestuous partisan politics. The frontier service removed it largely from physical proximity to population and, except for an occasional Indian conflict, from public awareness and interest. Besides public and congressional indifference and even hostility, the army found its Indian attitudes and policies condemned and opposed by the civilian officials concerned with Indian affairs and by the nationâs humanitarian community."

Posted by Procopius2k 2008-12-06 09:44|| 2008-12-06 09:44|| Front Page Top

#3 It seems our opponents have found several cheap and effective methods. Perhaps the Mandarins in Washington could consider deploying some of their own.

Posted by ed 2008-12-06 10:46|| 2008-12-06 10:46|| Front Page Top

#4 Proc2K, we learned about those things in the Regimental history -- 2ACR had a long (and well recorded in terms of ops logs, etc) history of operations in the Indian Wars.

Posted by OldSpook 2008-12-06 11:43|| 2008-12-06 11:43|| Front Page Top

#5 (finishing comment above)

...

And that's where they came up with some of the counter-strategies in Iraq. BG (then Col) McMaster pioneered these, and its no mere coincidence that he served in the 2 ACR (Cavalry) and earned his spurs there, and had to read up on regimental history. Its the oldest continually operational combat regiment in the US military, so it, unlike most other units, actually has "historical memory" similar to the USMC's way of recording and teaching their own history.

Posted by OldSpook 2008-12-06 11:44|| 2008-12-06 11:44|| Front Page Top

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