Vietnam had been an anomaly. That war would have been won, in the opinion of most senior military officers, if the U.S. Armed Forces had been permitted by their civilian masters to fight it like it should have been fought.

C'est indépendant du reste de l'article, mais c'est très intéressant de voir ça, surtout aujourd'hui où les soldats Russes commencent à reprocher au Kremlin de ne pas utiliser toute la force de l'armée Russe et d'être responsable du désastre.

La partie 2 est super intéressante (en fait la partie 1 ne sert qu'à donner du contexte à la partie 2, et elle aurait pu être 10 fois moins longue)

In the face of the 1973 war, the Army would have had two choices: view it through an unobstructed lens in an attempt to understand what might be wrong with its new approach, or utilize the conflict to validate the decisions it had already made. The validation approach is simultaneously more satisfying and less risky than seeing one’s own errors in the mistakes of either side in the war. First, validation shows all the hard work has been paying off. We are on the right track. Second, findings that question the current path put the credibility of the institutions and senior leaders who determined that course at risk. They can also challenge the significant investments made in programs that might be deemed irrelevant to the war’s lessons.

[…]

The creation of the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command in 1970 would have created strong biases that could have skewed the key lessons from the 1973 War. The reputation of the Army as an institution, not to mention those of its most senior leaders, was at stake. This is not to say that their behavior was disingenuous. It was not. It is, however, a warning that well-meaning leaders who deeply believe in the results of their hard work are hard to convince that their efforts are wrong, even in the face of new evidence. This is particularly true if the new reality could upend hard-won gains in the budget battles or service relevance.

Un exemple tiré de l'entre-deux guerre et du début de la 2ème guerre mondiale:

During the interwar period, the branch chiefs held great authority over their branch’s doctrine, personnel, and materiel requirements. The Air Force had not yet gained its independence and was a branch of the Army. In February 1942, Maj. Gen. John Herr, the U.S. Army chief of cavalry, met with Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Marshall. He truly believed what he told Marshall: “In the interest of National Defense in this crisis, I urge upon you the necessity of an immediate increase in horse cavalry.” From his perch, and with the experience of a full and successful career, Herr viewed horse cavalry as a key reason for German successes in Poland and France. He honestly believed what he told Marshall, and Germany did have cavalry formations. Thus, if you looked for validating observations, you could find them and laud their importance.

The other Army branches also searched for supportive lessons from these early German successes. The chief of infantry highlighted the contributions of German infantry, while the Army Air Corps contended that the strategic bombing of Warsaw had been central to the German victory over Poland. Finally, the chief of the newly formed Armored Force, who was basing his concepts largely on the cavalry tactics he had developed in the 7th Cavalry Brigade (Mechanized), saw the use of tanks by the Germans as a validation of his approach.

They all missed the reality of the blitzkrieg because it combined armor and air power. Indeed, the Armored Force doctrinal manuals did not require air support for operations. Consequently, the Army, less the disbanded horse cavalry, took its existing concepts and weapons into the war where they suffered unnecessarily for their parochial decisions. However, it is important to understand that all of these senior officers believed their validating observations. It would be difficult to expect them to see and believe something that conflicted with what they had spent their careers mastering.