The US and its military has never really gotten a grip with counter insurgency warfare we saw this in Vietnam and up until the troop surge in Iraq. The underlying idea of the War on Terror is the right one but the war has stragetically been a disaster since the invasion of Iraq. Those countries who sharing the burden of sacrifice don't have manpower or the resources to win the war in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

NATO is in danger of becoming irrelevant and my own government has limited New Zealand role in Afghanistan to an reconstruction role.

What makes Vietnam alarming is that the Viet Cong insurgency was actually part of a larger conventional military effort against the U.S. One of my future scenarios involves a conventional war with Iran, but what what complicates matters is the participation of smaller groups that are not necessarily associated with Iran, but carry so much military power they have the ability to have an effect on U.S. military strategy and national security policy. This is much the way the small guerrilla movement in Vietnam was able to bleed out the U.S. In contrast, if war broke out between NATO and the Warsaw Pact in 1987, the intensity of the war, the astronomical levels of military power on each side, as well as the extreme weakness of terrorists and smaller groups would've made a guerrilla or terrorist front both useless and meaningless. But in the post-modern world, it is almost impossible for a major conventional war to not include a significant insurgency and terrorist front.

Let me continue the original discussion by bringing in the other combatant of 4GW: the mercenary. The mercenary, contrary to popular opinion, is not the exception, but rather the rule. Prior to the formation of the modern state, what we consider the professional, highly-trained soldier was a mercenary and they have been around far longer than the uniformed serviceman who fights under the banner of his country. The most prominent of these mercenaries was the Swiss mercenaries, and the service of these men were purchased by various groups in order to wage war. In pre-modern times, military force was purchased, not produced. Go further back in history and you see guys like Xerxes I employed Greek mercenaries.

To the post-modern world. As I do with just about everything, I blame the current state of affairs on the collapse of the USSR and the end of the Cold War. The emergence and emphasis on free markets created the supply, armaments and military services availiable for purchase. Consequently, the major downsizing of western militaries, particularly that of the U.S., created the demand. The newfound power of private groups that no longer could or had to rely on the state (the reverse seems to now be the case) meant that they turned to private military companies (PMC) and security firms in order to meet their needs. The state, with its diminshing power, must also turn to PMCs in order to support national policy, just the way pre-modern European governments had to purchase military force in order to wage war. As a result, you have the mergence of a company like Blacwater USA, led by another prominent offspring of the technology-warfare marriage: Erik Prince. Blackwater USA, IMO, is the post-modern incarnation of the Swiss mercenaries. Highly-trained, from the best circles of the military, now making a killing, all the while using equipment far superior to that of the individual U.S. soldier. Like terrorists, these guys may be state-sponsored, but they have no other tie to the party to the conflict. Terrorists and paramilitaries fulfill a vendetta, mercenaries fulfill a paycheck. The fairly recent establishment of these mercenary groups (most are less than 30 years old) conincides with the shift away from the command economy to that of free markets and the end of the Cold War.

As I asserted regarding terrorists and insurgencies, mercenaries and PMCs were once useless, especially if a major conventional war broke out during the Cold War. Not so anymore. The state's loss of power, decentralization, the demand for such services, and the availiability of technology formerly unavailiable means that no future conflict will not feature emrcenaries and PMCs. If the activities of Blackwater and DynCorp are having the dire effect on the Coalition war effort in Iraq today, it will be very interesting to see what kind of effect they will have when we engage in conventional war with a country like Iran.

Sorry to be partisan to the U.S. military (actually, I'm not sorry about that), but its pretty obvious to me the U.S. military's emotional and mental collectivity will be taxed by the prevalence of these third and fourth-dimension threats.

Questions, comments, concerns (you should be concerned)?

First off, I appreciate your participation in this thread. Its good to know at least one person on ATS wants to discuss this issue.

Originally posted by xpert11
As for the use mercenary's which has become another aspect of the Iraq war that is being debated there wide spread use is due to the US military being over stretched.

IMO, the U.S. military, after its downsizing, was never capable of engaging in a war other than a small-scale contingency. The mere fact that we outsource many military jobs out to civilian contractors such as Kellogg-Brown & Root shows the military is not the self-sufficient one we saw in 1991.

When it comes to the defence sector in the US the corporate gravy train rules the day rather then the free market a lot of money is spent on pork projects or just disappears in order to continue the cycle.

Well the free market does tend to favor those who have already established a foothold in the industry. I will definitely check out the thread.

The US military is very inflexible across the board since massive amounts of fire power and high tech gadgets are of limited value in a counter insurgency war the US military often struggles in these kinds of conflicts.

I'd say the U.S. doesn't even have "massive" amounts of firepower any longer.

More to come.

[edit on 23-11-2007 by sweatmonicaIdo]

worthwhile pondering issue.

for me, i hardly find a way to annihilate those terrorists. Since i know guerrilla warfare well, it is hatred that surports them to fight to the last minute and the last soldier especially with fervent religious beliefs. So, the absolutely physical power advantage never means victory. It is willpower that decide the end of war.

the best way to alleviate hatred is making friend with your adversary rather than persuing to conquer.

The problem with fighting this type of enemy is that you never really know who you're fighting. We ran into this problem in Vietnam. You're shooting at someone, but are you shooting at the one who are against you or for you... You don't really know.

Yeah, in Vietnam we did a bunch of "carpet bombing," which has never been shown to be successful... I think it hurt us over there.

[edit on 24-11-2007 by SpeakerofTruth]

SpeakerofTruth that was well said . Debates about the US intervention aside future leaders should study the US involvement in Vietnam because it proves that politicians shouldn't micro manage wars . Sadly those who failed to learn from past mistakes have repeated them.

Originally posted by xpert11
SpeakerofTruth that was well said . Debates about the US intervention aside future leaders should study the US involvement in Vietnam because it proves that politicians shouldn't micro manage wars . Sadly those who failed to learn from past mistakes have repeated them.

You are right and wrong.

You are right about how we have yet to learn the full range of lessons to be learned from Vietnam. You are wrong about political meddling. That to me was one of the most overrated reasons for our loss in the war. The U.S. military should've succeeded whether or not President Johnson took part in the selection of military targets. The military executed its mission very poorly, regardless of how misguided that mission was.

To me, the politicians and the media are just scapegoats for what are inexcusible failures on the part of our military. I know criticizing the military is politically incorrect, but as people like David Hackworth, Carlton Meyer (both military officers), and William S. Lind and Thomas E. Ricks have shown, the military is as culpable as the political front in our failures. Until Ricks' book "Fiasco," the military has generally been off-limits and the blame has instead been shifted to the "left-wing," "liberal" media and the "politicians" (basically the Democrats, Ron Paul, and Chuck Hagel). No more.

Well I think that the media is blamed for the US failure in Vietnam because the wars supporters refused to come to grips with there country military failings in that country. Recently we have seen and are seeing the disaster caused by the likes Rumsfeld overriding good military sense because he thought he knew better and relied upon political ideology rather then good planning when it came to post Saddam Iraq. So it looks like that we will have to agree to disagree when it comes to the issue political meddling in the running of wars.

Hackworth was quoted as saying that the only people that knew how to fight the war in Vietnam were the enemy and the Australians. Of course when people like Hackworth spoke out they were probably labelled as being defeatists . Such ignorance loses wars.

Still no matter how you spin it ill advised wars get ill advised results.

I don't discount the effect that political meddling had in the war. But it usually depends on the kind of political meddling. If the civilian leadership has no idea on how to run military operations (i.e. George W. Bush, Lyndon B. Johnson, Bill Clinton, Saddam Hussein), then political meddling is a disaster. On the other hand, USSR military operations incorporated a high level of political involvement, but these were geared in a way that they did not get in the way of military common sense.

The larger point being, the military cannot use the government and the media as scapegoats for what are clearly failures on their part.

When it comes to the American Indians and other native peoples when you factor in the effects that alcohol and diseases that they had no immunity to it is like white man had used slow reacting chemical weapons.

I don't really give much thought to Iran scenarios but I think that if Russia got involved in an US - Iran it would be proxy like Iran and Saudi Arabia are involved in the Iraq war. Other then the global nature of the War on Terror that is where the comparisons to the other two world wars end. During WW2 the axis were unable replace there loses or control access to natural resources hence they lost the war. We cant defeat Islamic extremists by out producing them.

I was going to the leave the Free Market for another thread but since it fits into the topic ......

The free market can be applied to the US defence sector in the sense that there needs to be more completive market place which would lead to better and cheaper end products. But because the consumers ie US military personal are unable to influence the market by buying there own weapons e.t.c a large amount of discretion is required from military and civilian leaders. Of course this leads to the abuse we see today.

If we really wanted we could go back to a full blown war time economy's in fact I would like to see the War on Terror fought this way but it wont ever happen. Aside from the fact that most of the war time supplies would come with a made in China sticker as we have already seen at the first sign of a real war not a Hollywood film or Gulf War One style conflict the do gooders run for the hills and call for the end of the war.

Well if the US fought a war with Iran like the one you describe under present circumstances we would see the US military break under the strain. As for the logistics problems that may or have a rised if the problem didn't during the Cold War then the answer must be to rebuild the US military to Cold War levels.

Lack of of industrial capacity would be a problem should we ever become involved in another total war and Chinese imports wont be an option if the US and/or its allies are fighting a war against China. Manpower wise there would be a shortage of workers on the home front that's if the factory's are rebuild. But I don't think that the US and its allies will ever will ever fight another total war again. China might do thou because the Chinese people will do as the state tells them to.

Any build up in war material should be done to meet the needs of the war effort like was done in WW2 rather then just to meet the US and other countries economic needs. Make no mistake if we let them Islamic extremists will annihilate our demcratic way of life if we let them.

[edit on 28-11-2007 by xpert11]