RE: http://www.military.com/NewsContent/0,13319,164334,00.html


Unfortunately Mr. Richards is an ex fighter jock who would not know ground warfare if it jumped up and bit him in the a**.

"Our defense establishment has suffered some 4,000 fatal casualties, forced the Army into offering enlistment bonuses of $40,000 to raw recruits, begun a program of buying armored jeeps that cost a million dollars each, and run up a generational spending obligation" likely to top $2 trillion, writes military theorist Chet Richards, a retired Air Force colonel.

Chet Richards is not a "military theorist," He spends his time writing business books based on Sun Tzu's "Art of War." Yawn, bookstores will pay you to take them off of their shelves, they are a dime a dozen. See http://www.chetrichards.com/c2w/

Let the real soldiers play out the war on terrorism, not some wannabees. Our men and officers on the ground know when to use a light touch and when to come down like a 10,000 lb sh**hammer.

I have to agree that some of his ideas don’t hold water, if we do not have the boots on the ground to provide security, waste of time and resources and they are already complaining about the money spent in Iraqi for schools, hospitals, infrastructure and so forth, and while some may not have been built some were and a small hospital does not do well if a car bomb goes off next to it.
God bless and protect all our people in harms way where ever they are.
Pro Deo et Patria

quote:

Originally posted by SSG_G_Conner:
RE: http://www.military.com/NewsContent/0,13319,164334,00.html


Unfortunately Mr. Richards is an ex fighter jock who would not know ground warfare if it jumped up and bit him in the a**.

"Our defense establishment has suffered some 4,000 fatal casualties, forced the Army into offering enlistment bonuses of $40,000 to raw recruits, begun a program of buying armored jeeps that cost a million dollars each, and run up a generational spending obligation" likely to top $2 trillion, writes military theorist Chet Richards, a retired Air Force colonel.

Chet Richards is not a "military theorist," He spends his time writing business books based on Sun Tzu's "Art of War." Yawn, bookstores will pay you to take them off of their shelves, they are a dime a dozen. See http://www.chetrichards.com/c2w/

Let the real soldiers play out the war on terrorism, not some wannabees. Our men and officers on the ground know when to use a light touch and when to come down like a 10,000 lb sh**hammer.

I have no idea about Chet Richards, but most of the article doesn't deal with him, but a comprehensive study by the RAND Corporation called War by Other Means .

quote:

In early 2006, the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) asked RAND’s National Defense Research Institute to conduct a comprehensive study of insurgency and counterinsurgency (COIN), with a view toward how the United States should improve its capabilities for such conflicts in the 21st century. This is the capstone report of that study, drawing from a dozen RAND research papers on specific cases, issues, and aspects of insurgency and COIN. The study included an examination of 89 insurgencies since World War II to learn why and how insurgencies begin, grow, and are resolved. It also analyzed the current challenge of what is becoming known as global insurgency, exemplified by the global jihadist movement, as well as lessons about both insurgency and COIN from a number of cases, including Iraq and Afghanistan.

http://rand.org/pubs/monographs/2008/RAND_MG595.2.pdf
It runs over 500 pages and makes an excellent read.

quote:

Originally posted by oldmole:

... the [RAND study] included an examination of 89 insurgencies since World War II to learn why and how insurgencies begin, grow, and are resolved. It also analyzed the current challenge of what is becoming known as global insurgency, exemplified by the global jihadist movement, as well as lessons about both insurgency and COIN from a number of cases, including Iraq and Afghanistan.

That's oldmole for ya ... always "thinking" and "learning from history" ...

Geez, oldmole, why not *skip* all that tedious "learning and adapting"?

Just embrace a short-sighted political - economic - religious ideology!

That's what most American politicians do ... in both parties.

Which IMHO is why things are so fubar'd in the War *and* at home.

quote:

Originally posted by usmc_family:

quote:

Originally posted by oldmole:

... the [RAND study] included an examination of 89 insurgencies since World War II to learn why and how insurgencies begin, grow, and are resolved. It also analyzed the current challenge of what is becoming known as global insurgency, exemplified by the global jihadist movement, as well as lessons about both insurgency and COIN from a number of cases, including Iraq and Afghanistan.

That's oldmole for ya ... always "thinking" and "learning from history" ...

Geez, oldmole, why not *skip* all that tedious "learning and adapting"?

Just embrace a short-sighted political - economic - religious ideology!

That's what most American politicians do ... in both parties.

Which IMHO is why things are so fubar'd in the War *and* at home.

DOES THAT SOAPBOX EVER GET TIRED? The way it was once done, the 'host nation footed at least a portion of the bill.. US noncoms who commanded native troops were given officer's commissions in the host army and double dipped noncom pay from the US and officer's pay from the host gov't.. and of course there were greedy/evil american capitalists, or in the case of China, evil, ethno-pathic missionary zealots swarming in to set up administration of corrupt american institutions like schools, paved roads and plumbing.. but back then we hadn't the money nor desire to buy the moniker 'Uncle Sugar'....

Monty Python's comedy Life of Bryan has a hilarious sketch that describes how Roman nation-building tactics effectively quenched Middle East insurgency:

quote:

REG: The Romans have bled us white, the bastards. They've taken everything we had, and not just from us, from our fathers, and from our fathers' fathers.
LORETTA: And from our fathers' fathers' fathers.
REG: Yeah
LORETTA: And from our fathers' fathers' fathers' fathers.
REG: Yeah. All right, Stan. Don't labour the point. And what have they ever given us in return?!
XERXES: The aqueduct?
REG: What?
XERXES: The aqueduct.
REG: Oh. Yeah, yeah. They did give us that. Uh, that's true. Yeah.
COMMANDO #3: And the sanitation.
LORETTA: Oh, yeah, the sanitation, Reg. Remember what the city used to be like?
REG: Yeah. All right. I'll grant you the aqueduct and the sanitation are two things that the Romans have done.
MATTHIAS: And the roads.
REG: Well, yeah. Obviously the roads. I mean, the roads go without saying, don't they? But apart from the sanitation, the aqueduct, and the roads--
COMMANDO: Irrigation.
XERXES: Medicine.
COMMANDO #1: Education.
COMMANDOS: Ohh...
REG: Yeah, yeah. All right. Fair enough.
COMMANDO #2: And the wine.
COMMANDOS: Oh, yes. Yeah...
FRANCIS: Yeah. Yeah, that's something we'd really miss, Reg, if the Romans left. Huh.
COMMANDO #3: Public baths.
LORETTA: And it's safe to walk in the streets at night now, Reg.
FRANCIS: Yeah, they certainly know how to keep order. Let's face it. They're the only ones who could in a place like this.
COMMANDOS: Hehh, heh. Heh heh heh heh heh heh heh.
REG: All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?
XERXES: Brought peace.
REG: Oh. Peace? Shut up!

It's pretty amazing that the above movie dialog was written in 1979, by comedians instead of counter-insurgency specialists. Because everything the Pythons say has since become American counter-insurgency doctrine.

Summary: the Romans won in the Middle-East by doing well what America has (so far) done poorly in Iraq and Afghanistan. That is the plain lesson of history.

We can follow the Roman strategy and win, or stick to the present strategy and lose.

That's my 2¢ ... and what America's military commanders are saying too.

Keep in mind, the romans put whole cities to the torch and killed/dispersed entire populations that were unruly, and the 'nation building was done by roman soldiers.. forts, roads, aquaducts, the lot.. the world's best infantry, the world's best engineers.. imagine that.. the brain-dead grunt stereotype definitely didn't start with the romans...

quote:

Originally posted by godawgz:
Keep in mind, the romans put whole cities to the torch and killed/dispersed entire populations that were unruly, and the 'nation building was done by roman soldiers.. forts, roads, aquaducts, the lot.. the world's best infantry, the world's best engineers.. imagine that.. the brain-dead grunt stereotype definitely didn't start with the romans...

Brain dead grunts generally have the first idea that something isn't working or there's a cluster-**** in the works. Romans were good, but some of their failures were spectacular ... particularly in Iraq. The Parthians and Seleucids didn't give them the time or opportunity to lay on the fruits of empire.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: popsiq,

A cautionary tale in that, pops, it could be said that in the end the Romans were undone by their successes moreso than their failures...

Well, a lot of you don't agree with this - but it appears that our application of the hard stuff hasn't worked so well. It's killed a lot of people, destroyed a lot of property, and eaten up a lot of capital, but we keep applying more. Why?

When your strength is no longer respected, you lose your power. That's part of the game.

We have the strongest military in the world, but it was misapplied. Why do we need so many troops to put down what might be, at best, a few thousand jihadis? We're not fighting the Sunnis any more, are we? We aren't fighting the Shi'a, are we? So when we speak of victory, it has to be against the jihadis. And if we need six figures' worth of troops to take them down, there's a problem.

If we are there to keep the Sunnis and Shi'a off each other, then we aren't fighting, and there will be no "victory."

So, what's next?

quote:

Originally posted by mcgreer:
Well, a lot of you don't agree with this - but it appears that our application of the hard stuff hasn't worked so well. It's killed a lot of people, destroyed a lot of property, and eaten up a lot of capital, but we keep applying more. Why?

When your strength is no longer respected, you lose your power. That's part of the game.

We have the strongest military in the world, but it was misapplied. Why do we need so many troops to put down what might be, at best, a few thousand jihadis? We're not fighting the Sunnis any more, are we? We aren't fighting the Shi'a, are we? So when we speak of victory, it has to be against the jihadis. And if we need six figures' worth of troops to take them down, there's a problem.

If we are there to keep the Sunnis and Shi'a off each other, then we aren't fighting, and there will be no "victory."

So, what's next?

Logical conclusions, but everybody knows somebody's doping something to stop he 'nice' part. Who stands to gain anything out of a broken Iraq?

There is more to the effort that I am seeing lambasted here. One we had to use military force to defeat the regular Iraqi Armed Forces. This we did with precision. So our military technology worked very well.

Second we had to begin to organize a legitimate goverment from what was left. This we didn't do well, because we took the vote away from former Baath party members, dispersed the army and had nothing to fill in for the lack of government. So Tribal power enacted what they thought was best for them and Iraq and we now have one hundred or more separate militias or entities that have been allowed to think they have replaced the government. Basically, we didn't have nough troops on the ground to divide Iraq into political districts where we could work with the tribal leaders and smooth over small differences. This being said, we had the sectarian killings and the infiltration of Al Quaida to stir the pot.

Then after struggling for a few years and making matters worse, we found that being nice to your former enemies actually won them over to you and they began to cooperate with you better. So there were less sectarian killings, reversals against Al Auaida and other radical elements.

Special Forces (USA) had been doing this style of work for more than forty years. It has helped create democratic goverments and make things safer for other countries. It has not lost sight of their special training to prop up and not destroy the internal structure neecessary to build a nation.

I can remember during the phase down during Vietnam that they got rid of more than 2/3rds of the 9,000 Special Forces they trained. They became civilians and we drained a very costly element of interpreters, intelligence specialist and Counter Insurgency experience. Our intell network today is no where near what it use to be and we are suffering for it.

Nation Building - Counter-Insurgency is dependent on specially trained troops to quell the dissent diplomatically/Quietly not neecessary without violence.

We will succeed if we follow the counter-insurgency doctrine and allow our allies to learn how to maintain it as well. Thus they accept a greater role and we can pull out some of our bigger units. We have to learn to trust Iraqi Army units if we are to leave Iraq in a timely manner.

God bless our Troops and May their tours be safer than the day before. May they come home alive and enjoy their families.

It is time to increase our Military by approximately 1 million troops (Army, Navy, Air Force, but especially adding another three divisions to the Corps). This way the Navy can practice its diplomacy and be more of an aid to the Ground troops. Joint ops are the best for all services involved.

De Oppresso Liber!!!

Dear SSG Conner,

Actually, according to the bio on chetrichards.com, Richards is a former intel analyst and reserve air attache to Saudi Arabia. He confesses to being a fighter jock groupie, though, but when he went in, the AF wanted pilots who could see with their real eyes.

And his books aren't so much regurgitations of Sun Tzu as interpretations of John Boyd. Get somebody to read one to you sometime.

By the way, he was commissioned in the Army.

-- Chet Richards (of course)