A look at the tragic consequences of underestimating the enemy. During the Second World War, the British commander of Singapore believed it to be an impregnable fortress until a numerically inferior Japanese Army overran it. Similarly, 12 years on, the French lost the mountain garrison at Dien Bien Phu after failing to anticipate the resourcefulness of General Giap and his Vietmanese peasant army.
We have long saluted military genius and bravery. But the other side of the coin is military incompetence – a largely preventable, tragically expensive, yet totally absorbing aspect of human behaviour.
From the Crusades to Vietnam, history is littered with examples of stupidity, obduracy, brutality and sheer breath-taking incompetence. Lack of communication, technological failure and a misplaced sense of superiority have led to the deaths of thousands of ordinary soldiers, let down by their masters and betrayed by arrogance. Using a combination of history, human interest and archive footage underpinned by powerful story-telling, Great Military Blunders charts man’s folly and cruelty in a series of stunning debacles, spanning almost a thousand years of conflict.
VIDEO HERE (48:27 minutes)
Ken, Lisa, have a good Christmas, a much better new year and all the contentment you deserve.
ReplyDeleteThanks for all your amazing posts.
God Bless you both.
How about the entire Vietnam war? Managed by politicians, directed by politicians and suffered through and died by soldiers, airman, sailors, marines, coasties, etc.
ReplyDeleteI was there.
I did not serve but looking back, my own thoughts are failure at the highest levels of government and military, who it seemed believed that a recycled tire soled peasant army, which successfully bested technologically and materially superior opponents, would throw down their weapons and quake in their sandal because the Americans would enter the fight.
DeleteWirecutter and miss Lisa, have a merry christmas.
ReplyDeleteExile1981
US military failures are a feature, not a bug. Quick wins limit profits; Desert Storm was a colossal blip that will never be allowed again.
ReplyDeleteBiden's Afghanistan comes to mind.
ReplyDeleteKenny, have a merry Christmas and a fun filled week.
The All-Time, Open-Class military blunder award goes to Joe Biden. Abandoning your base of operations in the middle of the night without informing your co-belligerents, so you have to work through what the locals will let you do at Kabul, and leaving ~$85B in supplies, ammo and weapons.
Delete"All Trump's fault." I call "Bullshit" Trump's plan was to have us (AND our local assets) out by the end of May; Biden extended our presence until 9/11 for some stupid-ass reason.
One of my favorite books, "From the Jaws of Victory" ... Classic military blunders.
ReplyDeleteThank you for reminding me of that title!
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