Mustang Rambles

The Washington Posts reports that the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Army leadership are reviewing combat casualties and actions and will be reprimanding leaders for high casualty rates. Or, at least, that is how I read it. Seems that there have been a couple of incidents where a few soldiers were killed in combat that should not have been killed according to the higher ups. When the armchair commanders begin to second-guess their ground commanders, it is time to head for the hills. Good junior leaders will read the writing on the wall and begin to wage a cautious, less dangerous war against an enemy that is resilient, tested, and experienced in high country warfare.

The result will be a timid approach to waging war. Officers will be loath to send their men into combat if they think their efficiency rating will suffer, or that they may get a career ending letter of reprimand.

This recent effort that reprimands leaders for suffering defeats that inevitably come in warfare, especially when support lags for ground troops, is the beginning of the end if it continues. Soldiers are no dummies. When they see that they will be scolded for initiative, for courageous decisions, and for sometimes superior tactics by the enemy, they will stop taking chances, stop taking the war to the enemy, and therefore stop winning the war. Nobody ever won a war by waiting for the enemy to come to them.