The Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz Memorial Lecture
Thomas E. Ricks is a Senior Fellow at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS). Concurrently with his duties at CNAS, Ricks writes an online blog for ForeignPolicy.com called, “The Best Defense,” serves as contributing editor for Foreign Policy.
http://nimitz.berkeley.edu/
source
hahaha!!!
Our generals are pompous gasbags who are more concerned with self-promotion and self-aggrandizement than with doing the job we expect of them. We are 15 years into the war on terror and are no better off today than we were the day after 9/11. The generals spend more time giving interviews and spending time with their biographers (I'm looking at you, Petreaus) than they do planning and executing the fight. The sworn duty of every American officer is to get promoted, by hook or by crook, and our generals are a result of that. I am tired of seeing Private Smith or Corporal Jones get wounded or killed because of inept, incompetent ego-maniacal generals who are societal misfits, never having been in the real world, cannot take even the slightest criticism, and fire subordinates who are either smarter than them or do not take great pains to protect the generals from scrutiny. I hate to go all Hitler on the problem, but if we executed a random general once every 30 days until the war on terror is won, the war would be over in 29 days.
Very simple. In WWll, while the generals (and admirals) had huge responsibility, they weren't afraid to make a decision. Their decisions carried with them dire consequences if they were wrong. But they had the guts to make them anyway. The "rules of engagement" were simple: Destroy the enemy. Today, liberal PC politicians and the generals and admirals (who are PC themselves) are poised to destroy any officer who dares make a tough decision. Today's "rules of engagement" say: Don't fire unless fired upon, ask permission to return fire WHEN fired upon, and above all…NO NAME CALLING! Liberals have turned the U.S. military into a bunch of little PC snivelers. Very simple.
Well foremost war has changed to asymmetrical, guerrilla non sense. Not really nation states vs. nation states with moving front lines and total war output.
Simple the politicians probably listened to them!
How much of his concept is due to the fact the military in WW2 had 9 million soldiers in it. If someone was canned they had to be brought back because a trained general is not something u can create in a hurry. U can draft 9 million men. U can't train enough generals to fire the bad ones and not use em.
That's how it went in the civil war. Bad generals were fired and brought back because what the hell could they do.
This lecture was just featured on the @thewaryears WWII Twitter feed.
WW2 was the last war where America listened to its allies! After that they thought they knew it all!
wt a fuck its a stupid talk; for what?????? ; whats learn about it ; big bull shit talk; learn beter to look at ww1 movies ; for never more war
Who eats their young…could not understand?
I think the reason that the US has not won a war since WWII is that WWII was the last war that was fought with the full consent of the American people and a Declaration of War by Congress, as required by our Constitution. I don't believe any war is ever won without the full participation of the mass of citizens who have to sacrifice and bleed to win that war. That has not been the case since WWII. I say this as an ex Marine who was in Vietnam.
great
Because they had Russia on their side in that war…
If you believe everyone gets a trophy, Please pay special attention at 19 minutes.
I have a main reason because WW2 was more successful for USA than all the other wars: the Russians did most of the work on WW2.
did ricks mean @ 56:03 when nobody gets fired for taking risks or when nobody gets REWARDED for taking risks?
We were successful in Korea and Vietnam. I thought we lost those wars. It would have been smarter to compare Iraq and WW2.
This is the last of your videos I'm going to watch.
You pathetic warmongers.