Trump, Pentagon differ on Mosul fight's success

I don't agree with Trump on this issue, but it is consistent with many other previous election for the challenging candidate to be critical of the opponent's military strategy, and then to make little if any changes to it once elected.

Eisenhower was elected in 1952 on a promise to "go to Korea" and implicitly straighten out the stalemate there. Then he just adopted the Truman plan all the way to the armistice. Nixon in 1968, pretty much the same thing with Vietnam. In 2004, Kerry was openly critical of the Bush strategy in Iraq (even though he didn't really seem to understand it when asked specific questions about what he would change). In 2008, Obama was going to shift our resources from the bad war (Iraq) to the good war (Afghanistan), gaining support from generals, such as McCrystal (to his ultimate sorrow). However, he ended following the Bush strategy in Iraq all the way to withdrawal (with the glaring exception of not leaving a viable TAA element, of course), and failed to live up to his campaign promise of reinforcing the effort in Afghanistan in any serious way.

Ultimately, should Trump win, history suggests that none of us in the military should expect a dramatic change in strategy either against ISIS or in Afghanistan. It's all just political posturing, and we professional military folks should not take anything either candidate says seriously until they are actually in office.

interesting...

Trump can teach the military a few things!!