Timeline for What is the reason for: "Risk taking must focus on winning rather than preventing defeat" in US Army Operations guides?
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20 events
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| Jul 19, 2020 at 6:00 | history | tweeted | twitter.com/StackHistory/status/1284729698644299778 | ||
| Jul 12, 2020 at 19:37 | comment | added | Fattie | Welcome new user. Can you help explain your question? The sentence is pretty straightforward and clear. | |
| Jul 12, 2020 at 9:12 | vote | accept | P.R. | ||
| Jul 11, 2020 at 15:02 | comment | added | T.E.D.♦ | ...if anything, I'd argue the US's position of having superior manpower and industrial capacity to fall back on in the event of untoward losses against nearly any foe may have had more to do with that attitude than lack of experience. Its kind of like how casinos can deal with a random gambler on a lucky streak. As long as they keep the odds slightly in their favor, their superior financial resources mean they'll beat the gambler in the long run. | |
| Jul 11, 2020 at 14:57 | comment | added | T.E.D.♦ | @Rohit - Well, the Philippines was technically at the time US Soil, as were Wake and Alaska, both of which had invasion forces beaten off. Of course at the time my comment was talking about, those events were happening in real time. However, I think the US Civil war, which at the time of WWII there were still living veterans of, provided plenty of experience with the kinds of existential military risk you seem to be thinking of. | |
| Jul 11, 2020 at 12:54 | history | edited | Spencer | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
Fix title
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| Jul 11, 2020 at 12:44 | history | edited | LаngLаngС | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Jul 11, 2020 at 7:22 | answer | added | Schwern | timeline score: 40 | |
| Jul 11, 2020 at 3:07 | comment | added | Rohit | I guess it's because US hasn't been invaded on its soil for a long while, and in all the wars post 1900 it has sent expeditionary forces, the focus is on risk taking and winning victories, rather than cautious plans which avoid defeat | |
| Jul 11, 2020 at 2:35 | history | became hot network question | |||
| Jul 10, 2020 at 19:07 | answer | added | Pieter Geerkens | timeline score: 18 | |
| Jul 10, 2020 at 18:34 | review | Close votes | |||
| Jul 11, 2020 at 17:23 | |||||
| Jul 10, 2020 at 17:42 | comment | added | Pieter Geerkens | The evening before Trafalgar, nelson instructed all his captains: "No captain can do very wrong if he places his ship alongside that of the enemy." In a single sentence it condones all manner of innovative actions his captains might see opportunity to take, while still directing them as to an appropriate default (and approved) action to take instead. | |
| Jul 10, 2020 at 17:33 | comment | added | Pieter Geerkens | There's an old royal navy adage that is relevant: "Losing one's ship in peacetime is incompetence. Being unable to sensibly risk it in wartime is cowardice." And the Royal Navy has hung more than one Captain over the centuries for the second failing. Another one (from WW2, I forget which battle): "It takes the Navy three years to replace a ship; but three centuries to rebuild the tradition of never backing down from a fair fight." | |
| Jul 10, 2020 at 17:31 | comment | added | T.E.D.♦ | @MarkC.Wallace - Its true that there's probably a Sun Tsu quote or three saying roughly the same thing as wll. However, I was listening to Dan Carlin's Supernova in the East yesterday, and he seemed to be making a point that the US and Japan both had an unusually aggressive military outlook, which would make delving into that interesting I'd think. I might be misreading, I suppose. | |
| Jul 10, 2020 at 17:26 | comment | added | MCW♦ | winning and defeat aren't about casualty rate, they're about mission objectives. That is comparing apples to oranges. The quote is a restatement of fundamental principles of risk management - in earlier grittier ages the idea might have been "You can't win by playing defense." | |
| Jul 10, 2020 at 17:26 | comment | added | T.E.D.♦ | Hmmm...one would imagine stuff doesn't go in there without a lot of discussion. I wonder if any of said discussion might be written down somewhere available. | |
| Jul 10, 2020 at 17:24 | history | edited | MCW♦ | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Jul 10, 2020 at 17:22 | review | First posts | |||
| Jul 10, 2020 at 23:47 | |||||
| Jul 10, 2020 at 17:19 | history | asked | P.R. | CC BY-SA 4.0 |