Readiness and the Opening Shots

Abstract

The United States military has a history of being unprepared for the opening shots of a conflict. The past has shown that between conflicts the training and preparedness of personnel and units degrades as the time from the last conflict grows. This lack of readiness has many causes, to include the loss of the knowledge at the junior and middle leadership ranks. While this alone is not the only cause, as time and distance from the last battlefield grows, so too does the loss of knowledge and experience at the direct leadership levels. The opening ground battles of World War Two and Operation Just Cause, while nearly 50 years apart, show that the U.S. Army was spending more time updating doctrine to fight the last battle rather than using the past to look to the future opening engagements.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Aug 15, 2009
Accession Number
AD1137369

Entities

People

  • Scott Kostal

Organizations

  • United States Army Sergeants Major Academy

Tags

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Battlefields
  • Continents
  • Doctrine
  • Education
  • Geographic Regions
  • Instructors
  • Leadership
  • North America
  • Pennsylvania
  • Students
  • Trainees
  • Training
  • United States
  • Universities

Readers

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