It was well reported that The Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman was one of JFK's favorite books. But it was also reported in David Halberstam's The Best and the Brightest that JFK may have sent those 18,000 "advisors" to Vietnam as a direct result of the bullying treatment he received from Nikita Khrushchev in Vienna. It's as if he didn't lean anything from Tuchman's book.
"Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it." - George Santayana
I've also long held that much of the tragedy of WW I was because military leaders failed to learn from the lessons of the American Civil War where trench warfare had it's seeds.
I think all of us who have any background reading history and war share he belief that the bureaucracy is incapable of dealing with facts or changing streams. Consider the Franco Prussian War and the Civil War in the same time window. One was over in months the other lasted for years. The average French general in 1913 could have fought in the Franco Prussian War.
ReplyDeleteThe men advising Kennedy were roughly the same caliber as those advising Biden and Trump in the first term. They learned nothing and their contribution consisted almost entirely of 'stay the course.'
Agreed but hopefully any claims from any general or "expert" who says "the boys will be home by Christmas" or that they see a light at the end of a tunnel should immediately be cashiered.
ReplyDeleteAnd don't get me wrong I am not against either "muscular Christianity" or no boots on the ground strategy.