Hey, shut up about being the best military in the world, because we might not be (A)

Let's see. We've spent the last 12-14 yrs fighting a insurgency and COIN. Now we're trying to get "back to the basics" of our doctrine/tactics. Probably the wrong time to try and make a comparison isn't it?

If you've read Poole's books The Last Hundred Yards and The Tiger's Way, you may get the impression that we neglect training our fieldcraft and squad level abilities; other nations are definitively stronger in these areas. True "light infantry".

Two opposing wills seek each other's weaknesses, if an opponent cannot achieve parity in certain environments they will attack us in others, seeking low cost solutions to our high tech military-an opponent with more resources adopting the strategy and tactics of the our opponents in Iraq could achieve strategic goals that compromise ours. Military force is an instrument of foreign policy.

Some in the American military seem to act like combined arms at the company level was invented by us-simply not the case. Read Infantry Attacks, by Rommel or Panzer Leader by Guderian.

I'd say that our military is the "best"(most able?) in the world, if we are measuring size, most institutional experience, geographical position, industrial ability, and amount of training. But all those factors can be negated in say-a ten year war with other key players. I'd use Iraq-Iran war as an imperfect example because of the leverage that Iraq had at the end of the war with its chemical weapons, but essentially you had a small military with lots of technology vs a large nation starting with a technologically weak military.

To some degree I believe that it's a lack of exercise: we had significant numbers of Armor officers in company command in my Airborne BCT. Almost none of them had any real experience as armor leaders, but they could all hold up their respective ends of the conversation when discussing COIN/FID.