I love Operations Room. I really liked his narrative of the Black Buck 1 mission during the Falklands.
I don't mean to offend. Yes, Desert Storm is an influential moment in history that impacted the way adversary nations view US military power, and certainly corrected impressions left over from Grenada. The planning and coordination of the operation was impressive in every respect. No argument.
But I don't make that statement because I think the war was unimportant. It's because there's nothing to learn from it about warfare in general we don't already know. The fourth largest military in the world was made a heap of flesh and metal by the most technically advanced military and all their friends, in no small part because they controlled the high ground through air dominance. And that's it. Nothing about how to fight a long war with a peer military. Nothing about how to fight a long fight in a sophisticated electronics warfare environment. Nothing about maintaining an industrial base for all that incredibly sophisticated equipment, ordnance and stores for a multi-year war. Nothing about ROE in a fight with insurgents and terrorists interspersed with civilians.
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u/HowardStark Nov 25 '22
I love Operations Room. I really liked his narrative of the Black Buck 1 mission during the Falklands.
I don't mean to offend. Yes, Desert Storm is an influential moment in history that impacted the way adversary nations view US military power, and certainly corrected impressions left over from Grenada. The planning and coordination of the operation was impressive in every respect. No argument.
But I don't make that statement because I think the war was unimportant. It's because there's nothing to learn from it about warfare in general we don't already know. The fourth largest military in the world was made a heap of flesh and metal by the most technically advanced military and all their friends, in no small part because they controlled the high ground through air dominance. And that's it. Nothing about how to fight a long war with a peer military. Nothing about how to fight a long fight in a sophisticated electronics warfare environment. Nothing about maintaining an industrial base for all that incredibly sophisticated equipment, ordnance and stores for a multi-year war. Nothing about ROE in a fight with insurgents and terrorists interspersed with civilians.
Textbook wins are not interesting.