Our experience during World War Two with the Chinese Nationalist Army should have taught us something. It should have taught us that no matter how much money we pour in, how much equipment we supply, and how much time we spend "training" the army, it will all be for naught if we also do not prepare the NCO and officer corps, and they are properly motivated. As General Stilwell told the reporter, there is nothing wrong with the Chinese soldier. If anything, he is disciplined, obedient, and brave when called upon to go into combat. But without motivation and good NCOs or officers to lead them, the good soldier is really not worth much. That is the main reason why there was such a dramatic difference between Chiang Kai Shek's army and Mao's army. Mao's troops were not necessarily better trained and certainly not better equipped. But they were led by competent NCOs and officers, and they were motivated, something that the Nationalist troops definitely lacked.
Perhaps it was because we fought World War Two with our own troops and were not reliant on other nations' troops, whatever the case, we didn't seem to have paid all that much attention to the plight of the Chinese Nationalist Army. During the Korean War, at the outset everyone was caught by surprise and took a beating from the North Koreans. The South Koreans really did not have an army, they had an army that was in the process of being trained. What they had was a bunch of untrained men armed with Japanese army weapons and mostly led my inexperienced NCOs and officers. But it is amazing how a few months of OJT changed that "Korean Constabulary Army" into a solid Republic of Korea Army. It took but three months, from the end of June until September to change the South Korean army into a viable force. By the time the cease fire was signed three years later, the South Korean army was a battle hardened and battle tested fighting force, as good, if not better than the North Koreans! Today, they are definitely better trained, equipped, motivated, and led by excellent NCO and officer corps.
But after Korea, perhaps because the Koreans were able to field a good fighting force, we slipped back into thinking that we could simply "buy" a good fighting force by pouring in equipment and money. In South Vietnam we spent astronomical amount of money and equipment on the ARVN, the Army of Republic of Vietnam. However, during our entire time there, we were having problems getting the ARVN to perform on the battle field as they should have. The problem? The very same thing that happened with the Chinese Nationalist Army, lack of leadership! The ARVN was always lacking in good NCOs and officers, and motivation was none existent. Perhaps the biggest problem of all, just as with the Chinese Nationalists, was corruption in the leadership, which destroyed whatever morale the troops may have had.
Yes, there were ARVN units that fought well. There were good ARVN NCOs and officers. But unfortunately there weren't enough. There were Vietnamese Marine units that were advised by USMC officers that fought very well. The same can be said of some ARVN Ranger units and Paratroop units. They were invariably those units that had American "advisors" assigned to them. Once the Americans were gone, they fell apart. Yet, the NVA and VC fought well. Why, because they had good leadership and were motivated, something that their counterparts in South Vietnamese military lacked! Small wonder then that they crumbled like they did once we left! The best non-American fighting units in Vietnam were those indigenous forces that were trained and led by US NCOs and officers.
Now, we have been in Afghanistan for almost fourteen years and Iraq thirteen years. Why is it that given the amount of time we were in those countries that we couldn't train a decent army? Just how long does it take to train an army? Six months? A year? Two years? I find it absolutely mind boggling that after all that time, all that money, we still couldn't produce a decent field fighting force in those countries! The new Iraqi Army, with all the fancy equipment, can't even handle a rag-tag bunch of extremists that call themselves the Islamic State!
Again, it appears that the ISIS is well motivated whereas the Iraqi Army is not! Corruption is rampant in the newly created Iraq, the Iraq that we created! The same thing is true of Afghanistan. Now some of the brass in Pentagon are saying that it will take us two to three years to train a fighting force in Iraq to fend for itself against ISIS. Two to three years? What have we been doing the past thirteen years? If we couldn't do it in thirteen years, how are we going to do it in two to three years now? As for Afghanistan, recently Karzai asked that we postpone withdrawing our troops, that we should remain longer! Karzai, the former small time warlord, a tribal leader in the Northern Alliance, who has since become a multi-billionaire, is not about to let go of the cash cow! He knows that as soon as we pull out completely, he will be out of power and Afghanistan will be in chaos, not that it isn't already. Let's just say that it will be in a worst mess than it is now!
I think we need to realize that in all of those cases where the military is inept even after all the money and equipment they receive, it has more to do with the corruption in the system than anything else. We need to somehow "clean house" first, before we start building armies and go into that catch phrase, "nation building." It does no good to "build nations" that have a corrupt foundation, where its leaders are all simply lining their pockets and exploiting the country! In some cases, I believe it is not possible to change the culture of corruption in a country. I believe that both Afghanistan and Iraq have existed for a long time with rampant corruption. Their culture is so steeped in corruption that they know of no other way. That is one reason why extremists thrive in that part of the world. To the mostly illiterate and unsophisticated population, there seems to be no solution other than extremists way of "cleaning house," therefore you have the Taliban and Al Qaeda, and now ISIS, all claiming to "cleanse" the world of evil, which of course is the west first, then all non-believers!
No comments:
Post a Comment