The one area where the US technical superiority can be evaded in a ground war is when the enemy goes underground. Witness the problems faced by Israel v. Hizbullah in South Lebanon or the situation in Gaza. The terrorists dug their underground bunkers and were able to evade and escape aerial bombardment, and the limited ground attacks meant that quite a few of the terrorists escaped unscathed.

Around the world, the Iranians, North Koreans, and other terror groups have noted the problems dealing with underground threats and the difficulty that the US has in dealing with them (building nuclear weapons facilities underground, assisting terror groups build underground caches/bunkers, and preparing for conflict with underground attack in mind. These threats will exploit this weakness most surely. That's why development of new bunker busting technologies is absolutely necessary.

After all, the US ran into the same kinds of problems in Vietnam - the Iron Triangle/Cu Chi tunnel complex proved a tough nut to crack.

That said, the military tactics don't necessarily erode because US soldiers and Marines are dealing with one set of tactics at the moment. The NTC is still teaching armor movement in addition to other scenarios.

This is indeed a puzzler. CY, a self-described "civilian blogger," says that our troops are better prepared for warfare than they were before, while others disagree. If only we could get an expert to weigh in on the issue--you know, like the Army's vice chief of staff or somebody like that. If only!

So, erm, if they aren't using their tanks, AFVs, and Strykers then why do we seem to have so many over there?

I've got to agree with Cody on this. In Iraq, they're using mech infantry, tankers, artillerymen, engineers, etc as light infantrymen and military police. These people are not practicing the techniques that won the original war - big-unit combined arms warfare. That skillset takes continuous training for a unit to be effective. If we find ourselves facing large-unit warfare again any time soon, we will do so with eroded skills. Given our history, I doubt very much that intelligence will provide enough time to retrain, and air attack will only provide a limited capability - remember that anyone with the capability to mount an armored assault will also have an air defense capability, something our air force hasn't faced since Vietnam.

If only we could get an expert to weigh in on the issue...

Be snide all you want, Doc. It does seem to be one of your few talents.

History has shown us shows us time and again that once senior military officers have ingested certain strategy and tactics and have become comfortable with them, they are loath to deviate from these in the face of new technologies. The British suffered defeats in the American Revolutionary War by using tactics from previous continental conflicts, just as ground combat in WWI, where infantrymen stood side-by-side and marched against fixed positions, is perhaps the penultimate example of generals failing to recognize how new technologies should change new tactics.

Though a career Army Aviator and Master Pilot, General Cody came up through the ranks during the Cold War, where our military trained to fight a massive armored ground campaign against divisions of Warsaw Pact armor surging through the Fulda Gap with up to 50,000 main battle tanks (and that was just the Soviet Army circa 1988, not its allies). Combine all three nations that the military views as potential threats in this article—Iran, Pakistan, and North Korea, and they have just 6,400 MBTs combined.

Cody’s entire generation was brought up to fight on massive fields of armor in Europe, and the training regimen at Fort Irwin was largely created to fight that war that never came. Cody and other generals are still apparently trying to fight that war, or perhaps the 1991 Gulf War, which featured the Battle of Medina Ridge. It was the largest tank battle in U.S. history. It lasted two hours.

Since then, the technologies I briefly outlined above meant that when the British fought in their largest armored engagement since WWII during the 2003 invasion, they killed just 14 enemy tanks. All the rest had been destroyed or abandoned because of the combined arms strategy that is becoming more refined and lethal over time.

There is certainly a place for the kind of tactics and training Cody discusses, it just remains to be seen if there is an enemy on the modern battlefield that can expect to live long enough to have these tactics used against them.

Spade, I invite you to re-read the article. They are using these armored vehicles, and nobody is debating that point at all. What is being debated are the most applicable tactics and training for our modern military considering our huge technological advances since these tactics were first developed.

Well, your damned if you do and damned if you don't. The US Army & Marine Corps have more urban combat experience, more combat experience period that than any other army on earth but apparently they're too busy fighting to keep up their mechanized warfare skills. It seems the military can't be all things to all people. I would be more concerned about the wear and tear on the equipment from it's continuous use than the skill of the soldiers who have to use it. It doesn't matter what their skill level is if they get in the tank and the treads fall of off it.

Hmmmmm. Lessee. There is no doubt, that at company level and below, US infantry, especially light infantry, is far far improved over what it was (less the Rangers perhaps) prior to 2001.

US artillery, in terms of ability to deliver fires, is probably unchanged, even with many units functioning in MP/light infantry mode. Certainly precision fire capability has improved. The ability to mass fires, however, is probably decayed somewhat. That's an open issue as to whether or not it's important. Mass is a quality all it's own, sometimes. But, on balance, we're probably okay, and of the combat arms branches, Artillery and Air Defense are probably the easiest to stand up quickly should you need them. That refers to delivery units.

Fire *planning* skills, that's different, and that gets at the heart of combined arms warfare. I suspect that is a skill that is atrophying somewhat for integrated maneuver, while improving for urban combat.

Lawhawk observes that the NTC still trains large scale maneuver - I would disagree, given how the NTC has changed significantly to reflect the Current Operating Environment. With 54 rotations as an O/C and a player, I'll suggest that what goes on there now is *not* nearly the same thing that went on there back in 2000. Nor should it be - but to just note that sometimes a battalion of tanks maneuvers out there is not the same thing as two weeks of combined arms attack and defense.

General Cody's real point is uncertainty.

In July of 1990, we had no idea we'd be fighting the war we'd be fighting in February of 1991. The same is true for Afghanistan, and, to a lesser extent, Iraq.

General Cody is concerned that we're building the Army to fight the current fight and designing the future army to fight this fight... and we've usually been wrong about what that future fight would be, in the event.

The whole transformation process is trying to reshape the forces to fight with less stuff, fewer people, and lighter vehicles - all made possible by the network.

Heaven help us if the network falls apart. Ask the Israelis.

Bob's critique makes some good points - but one reason there are seemingly no on-the-horizon threats out there to the Armored Force is precisely because most people know they can't stand up to it. General Cody would like to keep it that way.

Reality is, we're going to have to make some choices, and General Cody feels it's easier to flex from the 2000-style force to what we're currently doing than it will be to flex from a light fighter force to a heavy-punch force.

The real trick is trying to keep the core skillset for both. That's General Cody's challenge.

I'm an old fogey from the old days, and I make a living studying the new days - and I don't share Bob's faith in precision fires throughout the depth of the battlefield.

And what works on flat sandy pool tables doesn't work that well in cross-compartmented woody terrain. Can you spell Air Campaign in Kosovo?

Just because counterinsurgency operations require a finer level of skills than open warfare, doesn't mean soldiers cannot fight. You can't do surgery with a sledgehammer, but you can certainly kill someone with a scalpel.

I think one of the biggest overlooked facts is the new doctrine of combined arms warfare. I don't think large tank formations would ever survive the watchful eyes of drones, followed by bombers loaded with swarms of smart weapons.

I wouldn't want our guys out in the tanks.

What's need is more high speed agile weapons systems with better protection, like stryker. Calling in a bomber is far more effective than trying to hit the enemy with a formation of loud clanking tanks. The Israelis found this out with Hezbollah in Lebanon. Save the tanks for mop up.

Times change.

Another PC general promoted in the 90's. Put in charge and he'll probably bomb the Chinese embassy like the idiot Clark. Light mobile forces has been the thing for the past 6 years.

Um... if the good General's problem is the erosion of tanker and arty skills when tankers and arty troops are used as infantry, why isn't he suggesting either recruiting more infantry or having those specialist troops cross-trained as infantry?
And don't I remember a problem early in the invasion... something having to do with a convoy of track mechanics getting lost, ambushed, and captured because they had no infantry skills but instead were soley "specialists" like General Cody desires?

The problem is once they plug the mechanized guys back into the Matrix they have to delete the mechanized skills and install the infantry ones. But that damn Bill Gates hits you with another a licensing fee when you try to re-install the mech skills.

To make it worse, the instructor package is even more expensive so we can't even train!!!! Might as well just roll up Ft Irwin.

"Another PC general promoted in the 90's."

When you don't know what you are talking about, you would be best advised to say nothing. GEN Dick Cody is far from a PC officer. I've known Cody for many years and you will find no officer more committed to his nation, his mission and most improtantly his Soldiers.

Yes, Dick came up through Army Aviation, but do not try to out think him in any other area of Army skills; you will only embarrass yourself.

It is imperative that our soldiers prepare and finely develop the skills necessary to be successful in their current engagement. To that end they train for desert and desert urban insurgent warfare. Their core skills used in mid to high intensity battlefields take a back seat and rightfully so. As we adapt our tactics, so does the enemy and so must we and on and on. Vietnam was a constantly changing tactical operation (with no mid to high intensity armor fights).

It is not just armor that has to adapt to being policemen... aviation operations changes significantly, too. There are no deep attacks or deep air assault operations. Attack helicopter ops is denegrated to escort and guard duty. Assault helicopter ops becomes ash and trash and transport. Heavy helicopters are not involved in conducting deep strike artillery raids, and so on. These are mid to high intensity conflict core skills necessary for the Army to be successful in larger engagements.

Gen Cody's concerns are not alarmist and are not meant to indicate that we cannot readapt. I believe he wants the nation's leadership to understand that we cannot fill all missions at once with the size of the current force.

In Vietnam we deployed units with equipment to the theater and rotated soldiers in an out. In Iraq and Afghanistan we are rotating units with equipment in and out of theater. The desert theater is much harsher on equipment requiring extensive maintenance downtime when the units return. The equipment downtime does not support continued core training. Battle labs and simulation devices enable some training, but cannot accomodate large unit formations, etc. Although staffs can pretty much stay trained, individual weapon system crews cannot.

Partial combined arms responses as CY points out is most surely part of the tools that our tacticians plan to use to hold off an attack until the cavalry can arrive. That''s what "combined arms" is all about.

I guess my main point is - do not sell General Cody short. He is not some narrow minded antiquated unchangeable dinosaur who is on active duty way past his usefulness. Dick is one of the sharpest minds the Army has had in a long time. If anything, he is probaly frustrated because the Army is not being resourced to the level necessary to meet all the mission demands being placed upon it. Yet he is Soldier enough to salute the falg and do the impossible with little resources.

There is absolutely nobody the Right will listen to when it comes to problems in Iraq. It doesn't matter how dialed in or how high up they are--if they bear bad news, they must be screwed in some way. They "weren't in the loop," or they were only speaking out to increase book sales, or they're trapped in the past.

The Right isn't speaking out about these people when they're doing things that promote the Rightist agenda, but when they break ranks, baby, they better not bend over in the shower to pick up the soap.

This suggests to me that the key for the Right is uniformity of message at all costs, no matter what the facts are out here in the reality-based community.

"There is absolutely nobody the Right will listen to when it comes to problems in Iraq."

C'mon, you can't really mean that. Tactics are adjusted to the current threat all the time. You're position is insane. And what's all that garbage about male rape. Please join in the adult discussion.

I'm really impressed with most of the comments here. CY was right though. The title of that article was pretty absurd. "Warfighting skills eroding..." . So urban combat isn't "warfighting"? Thanks a bunch, Baltimore Sun.

The concept of how our military should train, trying to anticipate future conflicts is a great discussion, because there is a lot of gray area, however we are currently in a fight, therefore current training should reflect the current situation.

Brando:

Don't tell me what I mean or don't mean. Give me an example of a time when a bearer of bad news about how the GWOT is being carried out has not been pilloried.

Also: I was using a metaphor. Higher level thinking: it does a body good.

"There is absolutely nobody the Right will listen to when it comes to problems in Iraq."

And when it comes to Iraq, there is no news or information that the left cannot turn into an attack against Bush.

Nowhere is the general suggesting that our policy in Iraq is wrong, or that we are losing the fight. All he is doing is making the observation that one skill set (battalion level and higher mechanized combat operations) is being neglected for another (counterinsurgency). As a general in charge of training, I am not suprised in the least that what he really wants is MORE TRAINING.

Oh and here's my second analogy:
You can have Michelangelo paint your house, but you can't have Sherman-Williams do the Sistine Chapel.

Give me an example of a time when a bearer of bad news about how the GWOT is being carried out has not been pilloried.

Right off the top of my head, Michael Yon is seen by many on the right as having a great amount of credibility, and he has been speaking about problems in both Iraq and Afgahnistan for quite a while, speaking of problems with both tactics and strategy, and also with the military's apparent aversion to allowing embeds such as himself to take the field.

He of course isn't the only one, just one with a lot of on the ground experience that is seen is far more credible than those journalists hiding in the al Rashid Hotel uncritically "reporting" whatever stringers bother to bring them.

Yon doesn't fall into the same category as Administration members or high military brass. Is there a member of the GWOT Establishment, like Richard Clark or the general under discussion, who has not been discredited by the Right when he has spoken out?

No one is discrediting him. I think its just a stupid comment. There is no doubt the Army is cross-training soldiers into different functional areas. Many field artillery guys are becoming MPs, Convoy Security, and Truck Drivers. Does that mean that they have forever and ever lost thier skills as Artillerymen?

No. The Army right now needs MP's, Convoy Security, and Truck Drivers. The Army does not need Artillerymen in as great of numbers as we have them. So what do we do? Do we enlist more MP's and Truck Drivers to free up our artillerymen for desert warfare training in Ft Irwin?

The most ridiculous part of this conversation is the ommission of the follow-up question: "What's your point?"

Is he saying that America is less safe because our tankers are engaged in more mission essential activities in the actual war that we are fighting rather than training for a war that may, and probably won't, ever come? If so, what is his proposal? Should we draft more tankers? More MP's?

I get the impression he is he saying that North Korea's tankers are now more proficient than US ones. How much additional train-up will our tankers need to catch up to the vaunted Starvation Army? I'm very interested...what is his point in talking about this?

The end of the article states his concern is that we will only have an army capable of fighting a counter-insurgency. Ok. Before this we only had an Amry capable of fighting a conventional war. My argument, being a soldier and knowing how well we train, is that we now have an Army capable of fighting both...the beauty of cross-training. The tankers may be unpracticed, but they are not untrained. And get this, no matter how much practice a unit had, before they were sent to war, they got to practice more! Train, train, train, that is what the Army does.

The important part of the article that should be discussed (rather than the looming incompetence of our soldiers) should be this quote:

"Some units have the time to train but find their tanks are either still in Iraq or in repair depots." That is the real problem. We don't need more troops or less cross-training, we need more stuff. Lets have that discussion instead.

Please Doc, there's no reason to be defensive. When I said "You can't possibly mean...", I was giving you the benefit of the doubt. I was giving you a gift. Lashing out doesn't count as intelligent discourse. You may have been raised to think so, therefore I forgive you. Lying and metaphor are not the same thing, please try harder.

CY, this is slightly off topic, but you mentioned the al Rashid Hotel, and I was there once. You're absolutely right. The place is pretty darn nice, and reporters who live there basicly have expert knowledge of catered food and a swimming pool. They'd be hard pressed to say that they're in Iraq.

Brando, I was trying to find a way to contact you privately, but, when I go to you site (linked above), I find no email address. I guess I'm left with doing this here.

I've managed to avoid namecalling in the time that I've been reading and posting on Confederate Yankee, but your idiocy has pushed me past my limit. I've read your last two posts and have come to the conclusion that you have to be one of the stupidest lumps I've ever encountered on the Web.

If you seriously, honestly think that my "don't bend over in the shower" line is lying--LYING, mind you--and not metaphor, then you seriously, honestly believe that all these guys--the generals and the mucky-mucks on the Joint Chiefs and the national security advisors--all actually shower together on a regular basis, and that I've impugned someone's honor (whose is not clear) by suggesting that he actually, factually tried to anally rape one of these other guys when they were all in this enormous shower. (And where might this imaginary shower be, I wonder?)

You poor sod, I'm talking about the metaphorical shafting Administration members get when they go off-message. It's a figure of speech. Nobody is actually forcing his wang into someone's bunghole. There is no actual shower that these guys climb into together.

Go ahead and try to give me what-for about metaphors if you'd like. I've been teaching metaphor for the past seventeen years, but please share your vast knowledge with the rest of us.

I forgive you for that too.

Doc, I see how you got confused. Despite your rage, I still hope that you can learn that you're accountable for what you say and do. I can't "push you" to anything. Like I said, I forgive you. I'm not trying to give you the "what for". I'm just trying to communicate. Simmer down.

The lie was the statement "absolutely nobody the Right will listen to ..."

It's such an extreme and absolute statement that it has no chance of being true. When CY mentioned Michael Yon, you basically said he didn't count.

"Absolutely nobody", remember?

Michael Yon is a person. He's a somebody.

All encompassing extreme statements that are false, just end up being polarizing, which is what I think you were looking for. You weren't looking for truth, you were looking for a fight. I was giving you a mulligan, and I still am. You can redeem yourself, but either way it's still no sweat.

Doc,

One more personal attack and you're gone.

Brando has been relatively civil, and you're here suggesting your anal rape metaphor is "higher level thinking"?

Final warning.

CY:

Whatever. In the couple of months I've been reading and posting, I have been relentlessly attacked by the right-wingers here. I've been called names--"stupid" being the least objectionable of them--my sexuality has been questioned, and my honesty has been impugned.

Throughout all of that--all of it--I have kept my cool and stayed on topic despite the best attempts of folks like SouthernRoots and Scrapiron to get me to do otherwise.

Throughout all of it you have done nothing. Not once have you stepped into the message board to threaten them with expulsion.

Then, the first time I indulge in the pastime of so many others at this same site, I'm threatened with expulsion.

So, again, whatever.

Brando:

"There," as Reagan used to say, "you go again." In a previous post, you wrote, "Lying and metaphor are not the same thing, please try harder." When you write that, there is no other interpretation possible than that you are calling a lie the statement that I called a metaphor. The metaphor was the prison-shower riff. There is no other interpretation available.

Finally: the discussion about who the Right would listen to in re: problems in the GWOT was focused specifically on high-level Administration or military types. I know that to be the case because I'm the one who started the discussion and I set the direction. There are people who are off the table--that is, for the sake of this discussion, they don't count. For example, CY would probably listen to his mother if she had reservations about the GWOT--we have to listen to what our mothers say, after all--but he wouldn't be foolish enough to bring her into this discussion.

When I made my charge in a previous post, I wrote, "It doesn't matter how dialed in or how high up they are--if they bear bad news, they must be screwed in some way. They 'weren't in the loop,' or they were only speaking out to increase book sales, or they're trapped in the past." It is clear that I'm talking about those who were, in fact, "dialed in" or "high up"--people who are in the loop. That is the universe of people I defined.

Michael Yon is not a member of that universe. He is neither dialed in nor high up. He's a guy with a blog. For the sake of the discussion as I defined it when I began it, he does not exist. Neither does my wife. Nor does my boss. Nor do the guys in my band. They're not part of the discussion. If they spout off on the GWOT, nobody cares.

My original charge remains. Of people who are dialed in and high up, nobody who questions the progress of the GWOT escapes unscathed by the Right.

My original charge remains.

No, it hasn't. You've significantly moved the goalposts from "absolutely nobody" on the Right, which is 111 million people give or take, to "Administration members or high military brass," perhaps a few hundred people at best.

As for those few hundred, specifically those in the "high military brass," they've had it with dishonest liberal media bias, and have started their own web site to combat it, and several top counterterrorism experts often at odds with the Adminstration are coming down strongly against Demcratic plans to cut and run in Iraq. Simply put, the experts think if Democrats win on Nov. 7, that the terrorists win the War on Terror.

As for Mike Yon, he is incredibly "dialed in," spending more time in both Iraq and Afghanistan than any American politician I'm aware of, and he has contacts throughout the military. Even while stateside, his network of contacts gives him better eyes on the ground than most major news organizations.

You can tell yourself there is an echochamber on the right, but I think it is readily apparrent to any honest observer that there isn't.

CY:

Interesting info about Michael Yon. Remind me again of the Administration policies he has been in charge of developing or executing--you know, like Joe Wilson, Clark, this general we're discussing, and any other higher-ups who have been smeared by the Right.

I just reread that article again, and like I said before, I think this topic is worthy of discussion. The thing is, this is always discussed in the military. Changing training methods for predicted future conflicts has been a big deal in the military for as long as we’ve had a military. Just because some journalists have never thought about it before, doesn’t mean that it hasn’t been thought about. It’s almost an un-story, but the article is written as though they are pointing out an Iraq problem, that our stupid, stupid military needs to be alerted to. The headline is just flat-out goofy. For the next 15-20 years were going to have a lot of combat experienced veterans to draw from, and the article makes it sound as though more experience equals less experience.

What makes for relevant and safe military training is very open to debate, however the article writer has reported it as though the debate is over, and he’s obviously right. Maybe we should have him teach at a War College, or literally be an oracle.

Since when has Joe Wilson developed or executed policy during this Presidency? He hasn't. He's tried to undermine policy it with thoroughly discredited pablum, but he he certainly hasn't developed any during this Administration, having retired from diplomatic life in 1998.

As for Clark, are you referring to Wesley, the retired General and Democratic Presidential Candidate, or are you referring to Richard Clarke, the counterterrorism official that once stated in 1999 that "old wily Usama will likely boogie to Baghdad," only to later change his tune and ship home the bin Laden family on 9/14/01?

Irregardless, all of these men made their most famous statements regarding Iraq after they were no longer serving this nation, and unless the freedom of speech is allowed to only work one way (and after the Columbia University Free Speech Massacre, that might be precisely what liberals prefer), their conclusions, reasoning and methodology in arriving at their conclusions can certainly be challenged.

As for General Cody, the post I wrote disagree with his apparent analysis if he was quoted properly--my exact phrase was "if that is indeed the assertion he was trying to make"--and at the very worse part of my post, I mentioned that his comments as I understood them, "seem to me to be the complaints of the kind of stereotypical general wedded to past tactics, guilty of always fighting the past war."

I laid out a case of why I thought that what I took away from him comments did not seem to mesh with what I know of evolving military technologies and expected enemies. That is called a difference of opinion, not a smear.

The overwhelming majority of commentors to this post, whether they agreed with Cody's assessment or not, only agreed or disagreed with his position. They didn't smear him. Only one commentor said anything purposefully derogatory.

On the other hand, you accuse "the Right" of being a monolithic horde that reflexively strikes out to strike down anyone who isn't 100% on message.

I'll have to refer that to Joe Lieberman. He might get a laugh out of that.

He is neither dialed in nor high up.

He seems more dialed in than you though. Just saying...