[Goose]

NATO forces also train Ukrainian soldiers to overwhelm their enemies with the type of firepower that it does not possess.

<snip>

It is always hard in the middle of a war. It was certainly hard during the latter period of the Vietnam War when the 90 day wonders were delivered to theater mostly  unready for what they got.  It became the luck of draw. When the demands of the war exceed the ability to provide properly trained replacements you get what you get and hope.

Indeed no matter how much training troops have received, they are NEVER ready for actual combat. At least they were 90 day wonders, not 30 day wonders. They were also generally going to units that were already "in country" and has some combat experience. Ukraine unfortunately has units that have never fought together before their first major battle. Think Kasserine pass. In many cases for Ukraine, they aren't replacements, they are the entire unit, including the leadership. When you are creating an entirely "new" army, as Ukraine must, that is indeed what happens. It isn't the training's shortcomings, it is the situation.

---

Goose, I generally agree with all you say, but to say that we have always traded fire power for lives is true in the sense of intent, but actually in Vietnam it failed miserably under Westmoreland. There we could provide all kinds of fire power, but were still asked to take senseless objectives under heavy fire and then simply leave after finally taking the objective. I think we may have gotten a little better at that kind of operation after  9/11.  I have always regarded President Johnsons unwillingness to finally pull the plug on Westmoreland as one of the worst decisions he ever made. General Abrams should have taken command in Vietnam a year earlier than he did.

LBJ was getting from Westmoreland exactly what he wanted, a military leader that was willing (even eager) to follow a strategy that had almost no chance of success. We were "messaging" the enemy that he should give up and hoping he would. We had no plan to compel the enemy to give up. As long as the North was able to send troops south, the war wasn't going to end. Lots of people knew that from day 1, but it wasn't a politically acceptable fact. Tactically, our trading firepower for lives "worked" (unless you were unfortunate enough to be one of those lives). Strategically, we were totally bankrupt. Abrams got fewer people killed, but he was still in a strategic "box".

IMO we really haven't gotten better at recognizing situations that military force is only a very partial solution. The so-called "Powell Doctrine" of delivering overwhelming force has "worked" in that it has certainly minimized casualties and has delivered complete tactical victories. It must be remembered that the "enemy" was not anywhere near a "peer" and it was a mismatch. The first Gulf war didn't look like that at the beginning, but it became clear that was the case very quickly. We also had no strategic constraint of possible Russian intervention on the other side.

The remaining problem was that the US had no strategy at all to rebuild the defeated countries to be "stable" and not a threat to world peace (let alone democratic and "just").  We couldn't and we didn't. Not the military's fault. IMO nobody knows how to handle these situations. Sometimes having a certain regime in power in a given country is "totally unacceptable" and we still send our military to remove said regime. They so far have done as ordered. However, the "How does this end?" question is either not addressed at all or is a fantasy. Unfortunately, that has to continue, because the "totally unacceptable" compels action of some kind. What happens afterwords is always hard to know, so the first step will continue to be taken in the often vain hope that we can make things "end" acceptably.

The Ukraine situation requires a whole different "think" on the issue.  They don't have the time to fully train people, they don't have our ability to provide overwhelming fire support and air cover. So if they want to keep their people alive they have to approach things differently. It seems to me that their success with Drone Warfare is a fall out from their inability to fight what we would call a conventional war. They seem very good at it, and quick to seize new opportunities. They are obviously still taking casualties, but they are inflicting significant loses on the Russians at long range, which hopefully pay dividends down the road.

Ukraine knows what they are doing with knowledge purchased by blood. They are doing lots of things well, but like all countries they still have their "problems". They have certainly been forced by circumstances to make tactical and strategic compromises. Hopefully history will record they made enough "correct" choices to win. In some cases it can be argued they spend too much time on technical developments that aren't "war winners". That said, some of those efforts have had effects all out of proportion to what was originally expected (sea-going drones for example). Hard to know. IMO our military "strategists", such as they are, haven't contributed much to the effort. Ukraine is probably better for it.

[Goose]

NATO forces also train Ukrainian soldiers to overwhelm their enemies with the type of firepower that it does not possess.

<snip>

It is always hard in the middle of a war. It was certainly hard during the latter period of the Vietnam War when the 90 day wonders were delivered to theater mostly  unready for what they got.  It became the luck of draw. When the demands of the war exceed the ability to provide properly trained replacements you get what you get and hope.

Indeed no matter how much training troops have received, they are NEVER ready for actual combat. At least they were 90 day wonders, not 30 day wonders. They were also generally going to units that were already "in country" and has some combat experience. Ukraine unfortunately has units that have never fought together before their first major battle. Think Kasserine pass. In many cases for Ukraine, they aren't replacements, they are the entire unit, including the leadership. When you are creating an entirely "new" army, as Ukraine must, that is indeed what happens. It isn't the training's shortcomings, it is the situation.

---

Goose, I generally agree with all you say, but to say that we have always traded fire power for lives is true in the sense of intent, but actually in Vietnam it failed miserably under Westmoreland. There we could provide all kinds of fire power, but were still asked to take senseless objectives under heavy fire and then simply leave after finally taking the objective. I think we may have gotten a little better at that kind of operation after  9/11.  I have always regarded President Johnsons unwillingness to finally pull the plug on Westmoreland as one of the worst decisions he ever made. General Abrams should have taken command in Vietnam a year earlier than he did.

LBJ was getting from Westmoreland exactly what he wanted, a military leader that was willing (even eager) to follow a strategy that had almost no chance of success. We were "messaging" the enemy that he should give up and hoping he would. We had no plan to compel the enemy to give up. As long as the North was able to send troops south, the war wasn't going to end. Lots of people knew that from day 1, but it wasn't a politically acceptable fact. Tactically, our trading firepower for lives "worked" (unless you were unfortunate enough to be one of those lives). Strategically, we were totally bankrupt. Abrams got fewer people killed, but he was still in a strategic "box".

IMO we really haven't gotten better at recognizing situations that military force is only a very partial solution. The so-called "Powell Doctrine" of delivering overwhelming force has "worked" in that it has certainly minimized casualties and has delivered complete tactical victories. It must be remembered that the "enemy" was not anywhere near a "peer" and it was a mismatch. The first Gulf war didn't look like that at the beginning, but it became clear that was the case very quickly. We also had no strategic constraint of possible Russian intervention on the other side.

The remaining problem was that the US had no strategy at all to rebuild the defeated countries to be "stable" and not a threat to world peace (let alone democratic and "just").  We couldn't and we didn't. Not the military's fault. IMO nobody knows how to handle these situations. Sometimes having a certain regime in power in a given country is "totally unacceptable" and we still send our military to remove said regime. They so far have done as ordered. However, the "How does this end?" question is either not addressed at all or is a fantasy. Unfortunately, that has to continue, because the "totally unacceptable" compels action of some kind. What happens afterwords is always hard to know, so the first step will continue to be taken in the often vain hope that we can make things "end" acceptably.

The Ukraine situation requires a whole different "think" on the issue.  They don't have the time to fully train people, they don't have our ability to provide overwhelming fire support and air cover. So if they want to keep their people alive they have to approach things differently. It seems to me that their success with Drone Warfare is a fall out from their inability to fight what we would call a conventional war. They seem very good at it, and quick to seize new opportunities. They are obviously still taking casualties, but they are inflicting significant loses on the Russians at long range, which hopefully pay dividends down the road.

Ukraine knows what they are doing with knowledge purchased by blood. They are doing lots of things well, but like all countries they still have their "problems". They have certainly been forced by circumstances to make tactical and strategic compromises. Hopefully history will record they made enough "correct" choices to win. In some cases it can be argued they spend too much time on technical developments that aren't "war winners". That said, some of those efforts have had effects all out of proportion to what was originally expected (sea-going drones for example). Hard to know. IMO our military "strategists", such as they are, haven't contributed much to the effort. Ukraine is probably better for it.