Posted by
Dawnsblood on Tuesday, January 16, 2007 5:28:20 PM
You can glean a bit from past writings. The
American Future blog found a Washington Post article that quotes from a report the General wrote about Vietnam.
On fighting insurgencies
Vietnam
planted in the minds of many in the military doubts about the ability
of U.S. forces to conduct successful large-scale counterinsurgencies.
These misgivings do not in all cases spring from doubts about the
capabilities of American troops and units per se. . . . Rather, the doubts that are part of the Vietnam legacy spring
from a number of interrelated factors: the previously noted worries
about a lack of popular support for what the public might perceive as
ambiguous conflicts; suspicions about the willingness of civilian
policy-makers—not just those in the executive branch—to stay the
course; and lurking fears that the respective services have yet to come
to grips with the difficult tasks of developing the doctrine,
equipment, and forces suitable for nasty "little" wars. . . .
Others,
who believe that the U.S. could develop suitable American forces for
counterinsurgency operations, have doubts about the existing
capabilities of U.S. units in this area. As one U.S. officer put it, "I
submit that the U.S. Army does not have the mind-set for combat
operations where the key terrain is the mind, not the high ground. We
do not take the time to understand the nature of the society in which
we are fighting, the government we are supporting, or the enemy we are
fighting."