Not Again!

Please. This constant reference to the Gulf War 1.0 is nauseating. It is Al Bandy's four touchdowns in the game for his Polk High school. 

It is not just strategy, however important it is, it is a combination of many factors, including foundational ones, the cultural DNA of the US confabulated military history turned into mythology based primarily on a very cautious choice of weak enemies. Here is a reminder from Atkinson about US major hero, who was nothing more than an average army commander. 

The creeping arrogance, the hubris, which would cost the American Army so dearly in Vietnam. Summing up the achievements of his troops in crushing the German counterattack of December 1944, Patton with pardonable pride claims to have “moved farther and faster and engaged more divisions in less time than any other army in the history of the United States—possibly in the history of the world... No country can stand against such an Army.” These memoirs are valuable not least in showing, however unwittingly, that a disastrous presumption of invincibility took root in the ranks of officers who led the American military after World War II. 

Nothing changed since then, period. In fact, things got worse, much worse. Especially in educational level of the US officer corps and very low level of operational planning and execution. The problem is manifold and it is vertical in nature--from lowest tactical level way up to the political top and, in the end, technological obsolescence of the US military, especially when compared to Russia. But Mearsheimer knows very little about it.