"I think the Vietnam experience is relevant. U.S. ground forces are not as trained and capable as they were during the Vietnam War. And the U.S. lost that war. Moreover, the Afghan Guerillas are just as determined if not more so than the Vietcong."
B.S. But let me qualify. Usually, and up to the time of Vietnam, US preparation for war has been woefully inadequate. From 1776 to the Vietnam, the US policy has been ad hoc military preparation. Troops have been untrained or poorly trained because that was the thinking of the lawyers who ran government in those day. Infantry were bullet catchers. During the civil war, Northern politicos and pseudo generals thought they would walk over the south. They got creamed by better generals and better soldiers. Basically the south ran out of money, and having to bring the fight a long way to the enemy, ran out of gas too.
They did not lose in Vietnam however, they won what kind of war they were willing and able to fight. The rules of engagement prevented running a real war, so they tried a police suppression in the rainforests. McNamara's famous body count S&D. It worked to keep the Vietnamese north of the DMZ. They could kill them by the boatload. Never before had an army such a kill ratio, better than 20 to one. Lots of ammo and bucks won the day. But the Americans learned, as they had in Korea that their technological advantages over the lowly Russians was miniscule. In a real war they would take it on the chin as SAC had over Germany. It was their thinking that this was unavoidable. In Korea, as in WWII with McArthur's lousy foresight and poor to no use the the airforce, they threw away their tenuous advantage in the air. But their far more preponderant and mobile logistics saved their ass. Only the marines had the engineering, deployment and discipline to stand their ground. With 200,000 marines they could have chased the Chinese into the Sakhalins in 3 weeks.
It takes about one year to train a soldier and get him in top shape. You cannot use a draftee. They tried that in Vietnam. Worse than useless. No will and no skill. You are better off with 25,000 trained volunteers over 250,000 draftees. A 12 week basic training goofball is a liability, not a soldier.
Things have changed. The US learned a bitter lesson. They had to bring their basic weaponry up to snuff. They had to have a technological advantage and had to be able to fight anywhere. Time after time their thinking has been that this or that war would be fought and this or that weapon was becoming obsolete. The Harrier and the A7 almost got trashed. But what was the Star of the Falklands? The Harrier. And the Gulf? The A7. The lesson is not to think, or at least not to think like the Pentagon at least. The lesson is to think like your enemy. (As an aside the Russians thought their T-82 tanks invincible. When they went into cities in Chechnya they found out that they were so much iron scrap, as they were quickly reduced to that by professionals with rockets hiding behind them.)
Afghanistan is not Vietnam. There is nowhere to hide. The Afghanis do not have US weapons fed them by Pakistan. The US troops are way better trained than Vietnam, a war they tried to run on conscripts that were way unwilling. They have demonstrated that they can use their weapons in the Gulf. They are not yet house to house fighters, but I think that sort of thing is over rated. Better to surround the city and wait for the Mud-yahs to come out for a glass of water and a ham sandwich.
There is only one way to fight a war. That is to win. Let the enemy make the rules. It only has to escalate as much as he wants it. The ability of the US to escalate is not bounded. There is also and old saying that is very true. "When you have the enemy by the balls, his heart and mind will naturally follow."
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