plawolf
Lieutenant General
Its pretty hilarious that even such high ranking US generals can be so thoughtless as to endlessly chant slogans without understanding the underlying logic behind those sayings to see if they apply.
Combat experience doesn’t make that much difference in combat. Not unless your combat training is utterly trash. Because if you are relying on your troops learning on the job in combat instead of giving them decent training beforehand, you are already royally fucked against even half competent opposition.
The main reason combat experience mattered in the past is because of the peacetime army problem. Where armies that have never been to war and never expected to go to war become lax, complacent and corrupt. It’s hard to install disciple because everyone knows it’s a waste of time and that it’s better to try and line your own pockets, because if you don’t, the guy next to you will. And the problem goes all the way to the top with generals stealing funds at a massive scale and even national procurement plans become compromised where priority is focused on the sexy big ticket items like planes and ships, and the stuff that actually win wars like training, logistics and force multipliers get neglected. The perfect case study was the Russian military before Ukraine. They basically embody the true weaknesses and risk of ‘no combat experience’.
But these issues don’t really apply to the PLA because of the ever present danger of Taiwan.
For the PLA at every level, training and war prep is taken deadly seriously because everyone knows there is a reasonable chance the balloon might go up while they are in the service, and nobody wants to be unprepared and regretting it while en route to combat against the world superpower.
This means PLA procurement, training organisation, everything is highly focused and disciplined. Thereby removing the core risks and weaknesses of armies perpetually at peace.
In this context, the PLA should actually be much better prepared than the US, since unlike the U.S., they don’t need to spend a significant proportion of their time doing low intensity patrols and ‘combat’ missions involving bombing goat herders in zero risk environments.
It’s telling that USN carrier pilots needs to undergo months of extensive retraining after combat deployments to get them back up to speed for combat operations against near peers.
What statements like this from senior US military leaders does show is a dangerous degree of arrogance and complacency where they think they are inherently better than their opponents. That means they are much less inclined to humbly review and learn the lessons of modern combat and apply that faithfully in training.
So brag away and continue to be smug American generals, China will remember your valued contribution and make a place for you in the history books as cautionary tales.
