Wars Are No Longer Easy

U.S. Army 2nd Lt. Michael Sardinas, foreground, patrols back to Forward Operating Base Torkham after visiting an Afghan border police checkpoint in Afghanistan's Nangarhar province, Nov. 18, 2013. Sardinas, a platoon leader, is assigned to 10th Mountain Division's Company C, 2nd Battalion, 30th Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team. U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Eric Provost

No More Easy Wars -- Scott Gerber, Foreign Policy

America is resurrecting the same strategy that failed in Iraq -- and ground troops will pay the price.

Why is the myth of easy war so appealing to American strategists?

Over the last decade, the United States spent more than a trillion dollars and the lives of thousands of American troops unlearning the tenets of network-centric warfare, the 1990s-vintage belief that precision strikes by coordinated, high-tech forces would allow the country to obliterate critical nodes in enemy defenses. Hostile forces would collapse under such punishment, and opponents would rapidly bow to American desires, making the capability to execute protracted ground wars unnecessary -- or so the theory went.

By 2003, as the United States prepared to invade Iraq, a military-intellectual bubble had built up around these ideas, manifested in the doctrine of Shock and Awe. And for a few short weeks that spring, as U.S. forces launched their first salvos against Saddam Hussein and rolled toward Baghdad, this plan seemed to work -- until it failed catastrophically. No one had planned what to do after U.S. forces threw that first spectacular punch and our enemies decided not to surrender. For the next eight years, the story of Iraq became a story of a U.S. strategic establishment overcoming its own denial, wrestling with the natural consequences of "easy war." Ultimately, it learned that war is not about target lists and networks. It remains an unpredictable, dynamic human endeavor.

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My Comment: I completely concur .... wars are never easy and should only be used in self defense .... and when the military/political objective has been reached .... quickly implement a plan to "get out".