Posted on Oct 23, 2019
What the Mosul Study Group Missed - Modern War Institute
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"More importantly, Mosul demonstrates that how an army wants to fight is not nearly as important as how an army will have to fight. While doctrine describes how a force wants to fight, many factors—from policy and national caveats to terrain and the enemy’s location—dictate how force will have to fight. With positional battles of attrition on the rise, the US Army must understand that phenomenon and be prepared to survive, fight, and win under such conditions. Therefore, as we look to the future, we should expect to see a rise in the urban defense, characterized by a positional contest of attrition in which victory is not guaranteed simply by having the best-trained soldiers or most high-tech equipment, but by being most able to muster the resources and resolve to weather the attritional slog.
The discussion of decisive battles is not complete without a mention of squandering victory. The effects of a decisive battle can be squandered if not followed by actions that preserve its military and political consequence. In the case of Iraq, for example, the Islamic State is slowly creeping back into previous strongholds—the result of insufficient and ineffective constabulary forces, inadequate reconstruction effort, and misbalanced representation of various factions in the government."
The discussion of decisive battles is not complete without a mention of squandering victory. The effects of a decisive battle can be squandered if not followed by actions that preserve its military and political consequence. In the case of Iraq, for example, the Islamic State is slowly creeping back into previous strongholds—the result of insufficient and ineffective constabulary forces, inadequate reconstruction effort, and misbalanced representation of various factions in the government."
What the Mosul Study Group Missed - Modern War Institute
Posted from mwi.usma.edu
Posted >1 y ago
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Posted >1 y ago
"This cause-and-effect loop, or Precision Paradox, was a situation in which the failed promise of precision strike—one strike, one kill—generated a creeping wave of destruction across the city."
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Posted >1 y ago
You are right on being adaptable on the battlefield is paramount. In Vietnam and Afghanistan the enemy often picked the terrain and tactics. I appreciate your mention of attrition. The German's lost WWII by losing millions of soldiers. Most of the experienced German pilots were killed. They could not build enough tanks to replace the attrition, fuel and supply was significantly decreased.
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