Strategy Without Politics Is No Strategy: A Lesson of World War I for the Trump Era

SSgt (Join to see) - My point- we've been at it for 18 years, 3 Presidents. A piece a paper can't and will not fix this colossal FU period. POTUS doesn't need a piece of paper, just will.

LTC (Join to see) - Agreed. I think he has the right people in charge of the places that need to take this bull by the horns. At this point, the politicians just need to step aside and let warfighters be warfighters. They can step in once the enemy has begged us to please stop annihilating them (twice for good measure).

SSgt (Join to see) - I point the finger of blame and shame upon the GO Corps more so than the Politicians. We have not gone in there to win and our GOs are addicted to technology that allows the Politicians to demand lower collateral damage. Afghanistan could be won today if we had the will. But we have allowed 18 years to erode our military, erode the effective of our Soldiers, and erode the importance of what a military is used for with the People of America. So we have spread our forces thin in the M.E. Relied upon a drone strategy for our heavy lifting. See the Europeans fail to maintain their own militaries. We now see a new military at our southern border and we have no answer on how to repel them. We do have a formal document and yet the Politicians ignore it as well. So, I don't think a piece of paper will save us.

LTC (Join to see) - Valid points, sir! Ever since the 60s, the politicians got afraid to fight a war the way it is supposed to be fought - hell, maybe even earlier than that. The bloodshed and devastation can't be sugarcoated to the constituents. Well, when we have an invasion (and, let's face it, that's what it is - a large group of outside members illegally crossing another sovereign border w/o permission) on our homeland, we don't have the testicular fortitude by those "in charge" because of the optics. Too many people in the multi-sided building that were too concerned with their career advancement to be bothered by such things, and on the hook to those in the domed building to be brave enough to fully speak up.