Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!att!cbnews!military From: jhamilto@ics.UCI.EDU (John Scott Hamilton) Newsgroups: sci.military Subject: Re: Low tech warfare Message-ID: <12572@cbnews.ATT.COM> Date: 23 Dec 89 06:05:26 GMT References: <12539@cbnews.ATT.COM> Sender: military@cbnews.ATT.COM Organization: University of California, Irvine - Dept of ICS Lines: 28 Approved: military@att.att.com From: John Scott Hamilton In article <12539@cbnews.ATT.COM> bxr307@csc.anu.oz writes: [Much fine argument deleted] > >I was not so much interested in what the US learnt politically as what >it had learnt militarily. We have been seeing for the last 15 years that >the US government failed to learn any real lessons from it Vietnam experience. >What I was trying to find out was whether the US Army in particular, and the >rest of the US military in general, had learnt any *tactical* lessons from >Vietnam. What I find incredibly ironic about this tactics issue, is that Americans fought their Revolutionary War based on guerilla tactics. Even though outnumbered and outequipped by a highly regimented British Army, the wanabee Americans managed to win. I don't think the original question should be how much has the US learned from Vietnam, but how much has it forgotten from its past, and how much has it learned from fighting in two world wars. Now the question in my mind is, why are we trying to engage in warfare with the wrong tactics and equipment? As the drug war in Colombia has pointed out, the US military does not even comprehend the needs of small scale conflict (by sending equipment that was of little use to the Colombian effort). Is this not only a serious flaw in military policy, but a basic ignorance of the "art of war" (ala Sun Tzu).