It's an interesting read on the comments you made against MacGregor because I have read similar charges made on U.S. military forums years ago especially on the book Breaking the Phalanx.
An addendum to the previous post: at the end of it erroneously wrote "MacMaster" instead of "MacGregor" four times. I noticed it only today.I was almost asleep when I wrote it.
So I meant to say that MacGregor is the Pierre Sprey of ground warfare and therefore it shouldn't be surprising to anyone that he was treated in the same way that Mike Sparks was.
For example MacGregor was one of the officers who "won" an OPFOR exercise by breaking the rules of engagement. Journalists love these stories because they think they "prove" that some idea, typically something the ignorant journalists agree with themselves, is wrongfully rejected by the Pentagon because Pentagon is filled with incompetent bureaucrats and corrupt grifters a.k.a. the "Pentagon wars" myth.
The problem here is that
OPFOR isn't meant to be won. OPFOR exercises are meant to be lost because they test how the unit handles failing at the task. Every units ideally goes through OPFOR which allows to identify problems and determine weak and strong links in larger force composed of said units.
OPFOR isn't meant to develop new tactics or doctrine because that is a task given to people much better qualified for that role and MacGregor wasn't on the list.
If you "win" OPFOR then you lose at being good military commander because you're not trying to identify problems. Problems that end up killing your soldiers in combat. And that's another thing that MacGregor didn't understand. Same applies to that famous "I sank a CVN with motorboats" guy. He wasn't being unpredictable or revolutionary. He was being an idiot.
There are two reasons why officers are sent to do staff duties. Either they are extremely good at planning combat operations, or they're extremely bad at leading an unit in combat. MacGregor may think it was the former, but it absolutely was the latter. And everyone who has ever served in the military understands that. People like MacGregor are either Dave McGraw from "Generation Kill" or Gordon Tall from "Thin Red Line" but they go on to keep telling their version of the story and will never ever shut up.
Having said all that, what's your take on Gen.Wesley Clark and especially his somewhat controversial shortened (some say FIRED) tenure as SACEUR during the Kosovo campaign. His relationship with his subordinate Gen.Mike Jackson on the Pristina incident was quite infamous since Jackson refused Clark's order stating quite dramatically that he was not about to start WWIII for trying to stop the Russians from arriving at the site.
My advice would be to look at what people do once they are out of their previous career path to understand their motives. Clark attempted a career in politics and in investment banking but failed at both. Neither is a merit-based career, especially for a former general, and that clearly indicates problems with his personality and his ambitions. I think this should explain why he made the decisions he did in 1999.
The decision to push for overt confrontation with Russians in an operation that the US has already mismanaged badly - first by delaying ground intervention for which Tony Blair has already arranged tentative support of several other European countries and only waited for signal of US support and then by escalating the situation further with the pointless and potentially criminal bombing campaign - was nothing short of insane.
Jackson, having been beaten to the objective, was right to refrain from escalation. NATO would most likely win concerning it had air support against VDV's light air defenses but that would have been a line that couldn't be uncrossed.
Solana gave Clark the authority because it was the shrewd thing for him to do. He didn't know at the time that NATO troops - including British special forces - couldn't reach the airport first. If they could that would be a major success for a troubled operation so he couldn't just outright deny it. But the risks were enormous. Clark on the other hand wasn't smart enough to realise that when a civilian superior is granting authority to a military subordinate it only indicates rejection of responsibility for a potential disaster. Clark thought it was his ticket to glory. And from we can tell it was largely his personal initiative because the commanders of American units in the area were also doing everything to prevent escalation.
I don't know much about Clark apart from the fact that neither Democrats nor Republicans wanted to touch him afterward. Considering that they're embracing MacGregor that says something about how much of a liability he was, and perhaps in more ways than just that one incident.
Anyway this has been an off-topic for two posts. If you have questions there's the PM.
EOT.
On that... well... I thought I've seen everything on this forum but this is new:
And another thing, stop sending me private messages. I won't reply to you. Thank you!!!!
I don't know who you are, and I don't care to know who you are. If I wrote you a private message that was merely a courtesy reply for when you quote me and I think it is written in good enough faith that I feel obliged to respond. We're on a discussion forum. Perhaps you should look up what "discussion" means in a dictionary.
And when you do that make sure to find a grammar textbook as well because "stop sending me private messages" doesn't mean what you think it does. And that's not the only part of your comment where the language is so off that it reminds me of a psychotic episode.
EOT as well.
