"Wehrmacht penis envy"

[Ricky B]

yeah, thats the danger with these kind of articles - trying to create some broad narrative is always dicey. My concern would be that the top leadership has already adopted the German high command methodology of "best-casing" and underestimating opponents that led to disastrous decisions in WW1 and WW2. From this civilian's standpoint, the American military seems to have become infatuated with its strategic capabilities, and combined with weak political oversight has led to the last two decade's spree of interventions

I am sure there is some underestimating of opponents at the top level, maybe even more throughout the intermediate levels based on my time in service, but I don't think it is common for most leadersthip in the US military - I definitly don't feel it is common compared, historically, to most leadership in any country throughout history - if the leadership read things correctly then easily half the wars would never be fought as the losing side would know it was going to lose, as opposed to the harder fought wars. When it has come to conventional fighting I think the US military has done an excellent job of planning to win - while unconventional battles have and always will be difficult to plan for, and "win", since it is more a military-political battle there and it is basically impossible to beat a people's will to fight over the long term without something to eliminate the desire, through terror or other options.

As to the interventions over the recent past, I feel that is a real stretch to blame that on the US military leadership. They have carried out the orders issued to them. I don't recall any push by the military itself, versus civilian leadership over them, for war or intervention - I would flip it around and say that the political leaders, and NOT just the president, have pushed for the interventions and the military has done as told, as they should in cases of war.

Now maybe your post is related more to the civilian leadership and that I would have to agree with, but since you specifically mentioned the "American military" I am replying to that as it seems to be the point.

Interesting stuff either way!

Rick