Caveat Venditor: Think Twice Before Cutting Ground Forces

Pentagon Should Think Twice Before It Cuts Ground Forces, Historians Warn by Sandra Erwin, National Defense. BLUF:

In the wake of every conflict since World War II, ground troops have been declared obsolete. And each time, the prognosticators have been wrong, says military historian John C. McManus.

After a decade of grinding wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the conventional wisdom is that America will have no tolerance for any more ground fights. Policy makers will take that as a cue that it is now time to shift defense dollars from infantry to high-tech weaponry that can be fired from aircraft or ships, far away from the battlefield.

That would be a huge mistake, says McManus, the author of “Grunts: Inside the American Infantry Combat Experience, World War II Through Iraq.” In the book, which examines in detail 10 major conflicts over six decades, he concludes that “foot soldiers,” regardless of technological advances in weaponry, end up carrying the day every time the United States goes to war.