re: US Marine captain writes stinging op-ed: 'We lost the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan'

In 1940, the French army was both numerically and technologically superior to the Wehrmacht. On paper, they should have beaten the Germans easily. However, the problem was that the French had built their army with the idea that future wars would be fought in the same way as the Great War. Thus, when war came, the Wehrmacht defeated the French in stunning and embarrassing fashion. War had changed, and the French had failed to foresee that and change with it.

We find ourselves in a similar position today. Our military is still structured around fighting the Soviets in World War 3, which we expected to be like World War 2, only more so. However, today's battlefield is not one between industrialized states where the rules and norms of regular warfare apply. It is a war of minds and hearts, of ideologies and shadows. Our military is absolutely not equipped to fight such a war. Vietnam should have taught us that, and this present "war on terror" is even more indistinct than that one was. At least in North Vietnam there existed an enemy state that we could conceivably defeat. Now we fight an enemy which is completely organic, with no organizational structure to speak of. Yet we still think and talk in the old ways, saying, "We defeated Iraq/Afghanistan/Syria in the field. We won the war. We just lost the cleanup," apparently never realizing that the "cleanup" is the actual war. We will never defeat terrorism by defeating a state, or group of states. We could engage, defeat, and occupy every Muslim nation on the planet, and the problem would only worsen.

The only victorious endgame of a war on terror is one in which Muslims no longer want to become terrorists. We send the military - an organization whose existential purpose is to kill people - to fight this war. How effective can we honestly expect them to be? If someone is willing to kill themselves in order to hurt you, the threat of violence is no deterrence to them, but that threat is the only tool in the military's toolbox.

Author's note: I started this post, got called away in the middle of it, and came back to finish it an hour or two later. It's possible in the meantime someone else has already made all of my points for me. If that's the case, sorry, I'm not trying to steal your thunder.

Naw. It is just tactics, no strategy. Just moving around deck chairs on the Titanic.

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You obviously did not spend much time traveling in a tactical vehicle all across RC-East. We were bullet, RPG and IED magnets. I give you that right now there are only big bases over there, but before the withdrawal it was not candles and fine dining at most COPS and FOBS.

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Ive never been to Afghanistan, but I did more than my fair share of time outside the wire in Iraq. You guys are missing the forrest for the trees in my post. The problem isn't necessarily the large bases, it's the large bases at the expense of the real mission. I don't give a shite if the guys eat fricking steak and lobster every day if they can still conduct their missions, which they can't because they're conducting the wrong missions in the first place.

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In 1940, the French army was both numerically and technologically superior to the Wehrmacht. On paper, they should have beaten the Germans easily. However, the problem was that the French had built their army with the idea that future wars would be fought in the same way as the Great War. Thus, when war came, the Wehrmacht defeated the French in stunning and embarrassing fashion. War had changed, and the French had failed to foresee that and change with it.

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Every military is horribly guilty of doctrinally "fighting the last war".

You certainly can't say Germany was guilty of that in 1940. But, regardless, you're right. We can be forgiven for continuing to prepare for WW3 - to a point. But after Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan, it should be clear to us by now that war has changed, and our tools and approach need to change with it. M1A1s, F-18s, and aircraft carriers are vital components of our national defense system, but they are not going to solve terrorism, no matter how many of them we employ in the attempt.

To put it simply, a hammer is a great tool. If you need to drive a nail, there is nothing better. And we, the USA, have the world's largest hammer. No nail is safe from us. But, it will avail us nothing when what we really need to do is tighten a screw.

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Ya, because a fricking O-3 has the experience and visibility at the strategic level to be an authority on whether we won the war or not.

GTFO of here. And I say that as an O-3.

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That was my first take....a captain??? Since when did anyone listen to a Marine Captain?

There is some truth to what he has written though...we would best any traditional military in short order....but fighting a bunch of desperate frickers dedicated to an idea on their turf is not what aircraft carriers and tanks are meant for UNLESS the citizens are willing to unleash the hounds...which we categorically are not...hell our president just struck a sovereign nation because of the beautiful babies and almost all of us think he was right to do so...but to defeat the enemies we face today means killing truck loads of beautiful babies 'cause the frickers use them as shields....


It ain't our military it is our nature...we just aren't hard enough to destroy an enemy...we have always simply turned them into trading partners....

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Two front war. Ask Hitler how that worked out for him.

The US did fine the last time we fought a two front war (hint: Europe and the Pacific)

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The government was serving the people then.

We are fighting the war we want to fight, not the war we need to fight. We are squandering the bravery and sacrifices of those who are serving. And we do not have the courage to end this.