A Little Military History

[placton]

The time: the Civil War
The general: Ulysses Grant
The plan: concentrate overwhelming force and material vs the enemy (unlike earlier strategies against the Confederacy)
the result: Union wins

For the next 100+ years, the Grant approach has been US military doctrine. It worked in vs the Plains Native Americans (Custer ignored it, and died), the Spanish, in WWI, WWII, Korea (until the Chinese came in), and on to Gulf War I.

But Rummie & Georgie knew better, over-ruling their generals who argued we'd need more troops.

Oops, their bad. But, then, the Bushies won't be doing the bleeding & dying.

[RobertSeattle]

1. Same for the "Powell Doctrine"

How Colin let this be ignored while he was Secy of State is beyond belief.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powell_Doctrine

Is a vital US interest at stake?
Will we commit sufficient resources to win?
Are the objectives clearly defined?
Will we sustain the commitment?
Is there reasonable expectation that the public and Congress will support the operation?
Have we exhausted our other options?

[placton]

2. exactly

The Powell Doctrine was merely what he learned in the US Army.

[Dunedain]

3. I think the Powell Doctrine was shaped by

the lesson of Viet Nam

[thebaghwan]

4. Have you noticed how the repuke leaders always phrase the idea of adding

more troops to Iraq? It is always like up to the Generals there. They do this probably so they canot be blamed.

[sangh0]

5. Very simplistic

that I don't even know where to start except to say that the idea of overwhelming your enemy is the goal of EVERY nation. That's why they compete - to accumulate enough money to fund a superior military force.

In addition, overwhelming force has NOT been used in a large number of the US's military interventions, particularly in South and Central America, where oftentimes, a symbolic show of force was enough to achieve our goals.

Remember how Bush* sailed a few ships off the coast of Liberia? Remember how Clinton sent an aircraft carrier group through the Straits of Taiwan?