Putting the House in Order: Part III: Picking up the Pieces

Looking Back, January 2025
By Mark Albertson

Putting the House in Order
Part III: Picking up the Pieces

To win the hearts and the minds of the Home Front, the military had to recreate itself.  One of the first ports of call was dispensing with the draft, and replacing same with a Total Force Policy.

“Following the experience of fighting in an unpopular war in Vietnam, the 1973 Total Force Policy was designed to involve a large portion of the American public by mobilizing the National Guard from its thousands of locations throughout the United States when needed.  The Total Force Policy required that all active and reserve military organizations of the United States be treated as a single integrated force.  A related benefit of the approach was to permit elected officials to have a better sense of public support or opposition to any major military operation.  This policy was construed as one that echoed the original intentions of the Founding Fathers for a small standing army complemented by citizen-soldiers.”[1]

The reality here was that the citizen-soldier concept as offered in 1973 was not the same citizen-soldier concept as defined by the 1792 Militia Act, where the governors controlled ninety percent of the American military effort; which in essence, was a People’s Army.  What is being proclaimed in 1971 is not a People’s Army; which in essence, was not the citizen-soldier concept as originally defined by the Founding Generation.  For the reality was, that in 1973, America was long beyond being a colonial backwater, as opposed to being what it actually was, a global power.  Hence the citizen-soldier concept had to be redefined in 1973 so as to conform to the social-political-military reality as it existed in then, the present.

Professor George J. Stein, observed:  “. . . the federalization of the entire Arkansas National Guard by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1957, ended forever any lingering states’ rights mythology on the role of the Guard as defenders of the liberties of the states against federal interference.  The role of the Guard in civil disturbances during the civil rights and Vietnam eras and the ultimate folly at the Kent State University did little to improve the image of the Guard with either the general public or General Staff.  Something had to be done with what many critics, both military and civilian, were calling an obsolete hangover.

That ‘something’ that was done to incorporate and modernize the role of the National Guard in the nation’s defense program was the development of the Total Force doctrine.  Unlike the earlier ‘New Look’ doctrine which seemed to set the Guard and Reserve in competition and replaced the Guard as the chief manpower pool, the Total Force doctrine met most of the demands made by the NGB and the Guard lobby—the National Guard Association—for the increased federal role.

“In 1972, Secretary of Defense Melvin R. Laird established the essentials of the Total Force doctrine in testimony before the House Armed Services Committee.  The Guard would be ‘the initial and primary force of augmentation of the Active Forces during a contingency.’  No longer was the Guard a mere pool of manpower for a strategic reserve.  The Guard was to become part of a force in being.  The Guard is now part of the Total Force.  Consequently, the federal government and the Department of the Army have become the main source of Guard training, equipment support and, more importantly, control.  In 1933, for example, the states still paid one-third of the costs of the National Guard.  Today, the states pay less than 5 percent.”[2]

A significant development of the Total Force policy was the inclusion of women.  For in 1973, the year of the formal establishment of the all-volunteer army, “recruiters were initially able to fill only 68.5 percent of their quota for enlisting the first-term male soldiers . . . the Army ended fiscal year 1973, that last year of the draft, understrength by almost 14,000.”[3]

“The changes in the role of women in the Army proceeded slowly but inexorably as the talent, skill, and dedication women brought to the task made believers out of a somewhat conservative male Army leadership.  The numbers of women recruited went from 10,900 a year to 25,130 a year in just five years.  By 1978, there were 53,000 women in the Army, growing to around 80,000 by the end of fiscal year 1983.  The Army could not have made its recruiting quotas without this dramatic expansion of the number of women who willingly joined the service.”[4]

But the Total Force policy was but a segment of the military makeover with which the United States was set to engage, with that concerted effort to prepare the armed forces for the post-Second Indochina War period.  And this entailed regaining that focus on a more conventional warfare approach.  Especially true since the United States had been embroiled in Southeast Asia for more than a decade and the Soviets had vastly improved both their nuclear and conventional capabilities.  For by 1977, the comparison in Europe was as follows:

	NATO	Warsaw Pact
Divisions:	45	140-150
Tanks:	10,000-11,000	27,000
Artillery pieces:	6,000	8,000 to 9,000
Men under arms:	1,200,000	1,240,000

“Although the manpower under arms is approximately equal, the Warsaw Pact capacity for very rapid mobilization would give them a 3 to 1 superiority in fighting troops after three weeks of mobilization.  NATO could only close the gap after a further month had elapsed.

“To what extent the Soviet Union’s Warsaw Pact allies can be relied upon depends, of course, on the political situation in which the conflict occurs.  The startling improvement in quality and quantity of equipment with which the USSR has equipped the non-Soviet Warsaw Pact countries since 1970 would seem to indicate that these countries are increasingly being considered by the USSR as quite reliable allies.  The German and Bulgarian armies have particularly benefited from this trend.  The Poles, Czechs, and Hungarian armies in addition use good quality domestically produced equipment.  Only the Rumanian Army has failed to show a marked improvement since 1970.  Presumably due to Rumania being the least controllable regime politically[5] and having the least important position strategically, her army is accorded the lowest priority of resupply by the USSR.[6]

“. . . however, American intelligence agencies in the early 1970s noted an increase of five Soviet armored divisions in Europe, the continued re-stationing of Soviet Army divisions farther to the west, and a major improvement in equipment, with T-62 and T-72 tanks[7] replacing older models and with a corresponding modernization of other classes of weapons.  If general war had come to Europe during the 1970s, the U.S. Army and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allies would have confronted Warsaw Pact armies that were both numerically and qualitatively superior.  Indeed, with the Army having been mired down in Vietnam and with modernization postponed, this was a very sobering prospect.”[8]

General Donn Starry had analyzed much of the above as he prepared to help refurbish the Army in the 1970s:  “Resources necessary to sustain a reasonable rate of force modernization had been consumed by operational need of the Vietnam War.  New doctrine and subsequent development of equipment, organizations, and training and education for soldiers and leaders—noncommissioned and commissioned—had stood still for nearly 10 years.  This process—doctrine, development of equipment, organization, and training consistent with the doctrine—lies at the heart of an Army; without it an Army stagnates.[9]

“Mobilization on a scale necessary to support, first, large forces deployed in Europe, then to Vietnam as well, was denied by President Lyndon Johnson, determined that nothing—not even the war—should interfere with progress toward his Great Society.  It was necessary therefore to use the entire Army, the Army deployed in Europe and the Army stationed in the United States, as the rotation base for Vietnam.  Further aggravated by a one-year tour length in Vietnam, this effectively increased personnel turbulence in units far above the level at which unit proficiency could be achieved and sustained.

“Both the militant revolt against all authority that characterized the generation of the young in the 1960s and growth of a substantial drug culture in the nation, especially in that same generation, were reflected in the nation’s armed forces.  Military jails were full.  The drug culture pervaded all but the best units, and there were very few best units.

“Largely because of this situation, conscription was shut down in 1972, a full year ahead of the expiration of the draft law, without much real confidence that the Army could recruit sufficient volunteers to fill its structure, but finally acknowledging that the draft law as implemented had become totally dysfunctional.

“Army soldiers and leaders returned, many of them several times, from a war in which they had all won their battles, only to find that, while they were away, the nation had lost the war.  The result was a crisis of confidence—soldier confidence in leaders, leader confidence in themselves, in units, in the Army, most importantly in the political leadership of the nation.

“Longer-range planning for the future was beset by complex problems . . .”[10]

To solve the complex problems that beset the Army, efforts were set in motion to chart a new course.  Late in 1972, General Creighton W. Abrams was named Army Chief of Staff.  The summer of 1973, the reorganization of the Army command structure followed.  CONARC or the Continental Army Command, was subdivided into a pair of sub-commands:  FORSCOM or Forces Command and TRADOC or Training and Doctrine Command.  The former oversaw the command of Army forces in the United States as well as the Army Reserve.  The latter was tasked with the fostering of Army doctrine and, with the development of Army equipment and service organization, education and training.

As the Army began its process of reorganization, the fourth major Arab-Israeli war broke out in October.  “The TRADOC commander, General William DePuy, sent his armor commandant, Major General Donn Starry, and the XM1 tank program director, Brigadier General Bob Baer, to visit Israel and report on the war’s implications.  This marked the beginning of a long and in-depth series of U.S. Army visits intended to extract lessons from the war and the start of personal relationships between Starry and some of his Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) colleagues, which would have a great deal of impact on the U.S. Army in the coming years.”[11]  Indeed . . .

. . . “Fundamentally, his [Starry’s] experience in surveying the battlefields in the Sinai and Golan served to both reinforce and enhance his thinking on modern warfare.  The initial, most basic lesson centered on the relationship between mass and victory.  Sheer weight of numbers concerning men and equipment clearly influence battles and may portend its outcome, but such factors remain indeterminate when forces remain within parameters of six to one or even ten to one.  The Israeli Defense Force conclusively demonstrated the possibility of fighting outnumbered and winning on the modern battlefield, a battlefield of relative technological parity and large numerical superiority on part of the adversary, in this case, the Egyptians and Syrians.”[12]

“Both generals Starry and Baer met with such Israeli commanders as General Moshe Paled, commander of the Israeli Armor Corps and the victor of the Golan Heights battle, and, General Israel Tal, founder of the Merkava tank program,”[13]  They biked the battlefields of the Golan in the north and the Sinai in the south.  The Israelis opened up to their American visitors, sharing some of their findings and analyses of the war.  And this was followed by other visits, which resulted in an exchange of weaponry and methods of training.

“For example, when the U.S. Army Infantry School commandant and his deputy visited in December 1976 and February 1977, respectively, both met with IDF Chief of Staff, Lieutenant General Mordecai “Motta” Gur.  Gur’s willingness to meet one-and two-star generals to discuss antitank weapons systems, mechanized infantry training methods , and the appropriate number of soldiers in an infantry squad demonstrated the priority that the two armies placed on both institutional army concerns and bilateral cooperation. The IDF offered not only the higher levels of engagement but also surprisingly low ones, such as inviting the U.S. Army infantry School deputy commandant to observe an armor company’s live-fire exercise in its entirety.  Visits to brigade-level during tactical operations, allowing U.S. Army visitors to write exhaustive reports on IDF tactics, techniques and procedures.  The level of detail recorded says much about the U.S. Army’s appetite for reforming its own training methods, equipment, and doctrine, and its enthusiasm for those of an allied army that had recently fought a mid-intensity war.”[14]

* * * * *

Less is More

The Total Force Policy germinated from President Richard Nixon’s policy of victimization; whereby, responsibility for the war in Southeast Asia would pass from the hands of the U.S. Army to that of the South Vietnamese Army.  By 1973, the United States Army had been, for the most part, removed.  Reductions in the Defense budget was the inevitable result, owing in part to the antiwar and antimilitary atmosphere in many blocks of the electorate and Congress.

Secretary of Defense, Melvin Laird, August 1971, announced that he was going to shrink the size of the active duty forces, which would italicize the importance of the reserve elements, both those of the combat variety and supporting units, a policy continued by Mr. Laird’s successor, James P. Schlesinger.  Thus, the Total Force Policy was to become institutionalized, courtesy of the debacle of the Second Indochina War, where the political victors of the conflict, residing in Hanoi, successfully helped to choreograph the alteration of the political, economic and indeed, the philosophical doctrines of the military policy of the United States.

Hence the increased reliance on reserve units to assume the role of support force responsibilities; thereby, reducing such functions performed by active-duty forces, saving precious dollars.  Such budgetary considerations, then, did, in part, dictate policy.

In fiscal year, 1968, the Army boasted of some 1,570,000 men.  By 1974, 785,000.  Yet America was in the world of 1974, not 1945.  The United States was no longer the only game in town.  The globe was catching up, eroding American dominance.  Western Europe and Japan comprised modern states that were hardly the economic, political and social wrecks of 1945.  And, as alluded to earlier, Vietnam was emblematic of a post-colonial satrap seeking to determine its own fate, and doing so by wielding a vibrant doctrine of revolutionary nationalism to hand the world’s ranking superpower an unmitigated political defeat.  And so in an increasingly multi-polar world, the American military was now going to have to do more with less.  Indeed, in 1973, General Creighton Abrams petitioned Secretary of Defense, Melvin Laird, and received the go ahead to do so, and expand the Army to sixteen divisions, without increasing manpower strength.

Both the Table of Distribution and Table of Organization and Equipment were altered . . . units, assigning reserve component ‘round out’ brigades as integral units in late-deploying active divisions and moving combat service support (CSS) functions to the reserve components.  By the end of fiscal year 1973, 66 percent of CS/CSS was in reserve components.[15]

“As the Army implemented its new Total Force Policy, the National Guard and Army Reserve recovered from the Second Indochina War and the immediate post-Vietnam doldrums to gain new heights for readiness.  Each component was reduced in size throughout the 1970s but rebounded by the end of the 1980s.  The National Guard, at an authorized strength of 402,175 in 1971, was down to only 368,254 soldiers a decade later, only to increase to 456,960 by 1989.  The Army Ready Force end strength was only 263,299 in 1971, and fell with the end of the draft to 202,627 by 1980.  However, it had recovered to the level of 312,825 soldiers by 1989.  By the eve of Operation:  DESERT SHIELD/STORM in 1990, the Guard and the Army Reserve would be, like their active duty counterparts, as strong and well trained as they ever had been in their nation’s history.”[16]

From the perspective of material acquisition, the Less is More approach to revamp the armed forces was fraught with the most hair-pulling of challenges.  Doing with less troops meant relying more on America’s technological advantage; yet, at the same time, austerity had to be observed.  For the rising cost of weaponry is to be understood with the growing sophistication of weaponry.  Take the McDonnell-Douglas F-4 Phantom, designed as it was in the 1950s, cost some $4 million a copy.  But as Albert W. Blackburn observed:  “The Grumman Corporation’s F-14 Tomcat . . . a supersonic, swing-wing, carrier-based interceptor, will bottom out at less than $13 million a plane.

“Although the Phantom first flew in 1958, both aircraft have nearly the same performance characteristics in terms of maximum speed and altitude, maneuvering stresses and the like.  The Tomcat is the subject of continuing controversy between its builder and the Navy.”[17] And the author added that such occurrences were hardly exclusive.

In 1972, Congress canceled the MBT-70 main battle tank, offered by General Motors owing, in part, to the AFV’s[18] production cost, some $1 million per machine; as opposed to Chrysler’s M-60 which weighed in at $373,000 per copy.[19]

“Estimates for the Navy’s new Spruance-class destroyers, being built by Litton Industries, now exceed $100 million a ship.  As recently as 1969, the Navy estimated that a Spruance would cost $60 million.  The last destroyer delivered to the fleet cost less than $40 million.”[20]

Too. Mr. Blackburn brought forth the notion of the computer and ability to use same to enhance the process of weapons development and procurement.  High-speed computer programs streamlined data production associated not only with weapons, but ‘weapons systems,’ a terminology befitting Madison Avenue mumbo-jumbo for inflating costs to be paid for by the taxpayer.

“Contracts were broadened to give total responsibility for a weapon system to a single contractor.  To win these multibillion dollar contracts, the magic words of systems management had to be used in the proposals.  A single copy weighed more than a ton.”[21]

Again Mr. Blackburn brought forth that not only was the military acclimating itself to the environment of austerity, but so were its industry partners.  Meanwhile fiscal year 1971-1972, was the same year General William DePuy “helped to plan the STEADFAST Reorganization of the Army.”[22]  He witnessed the termination of two major procurement programs, one for the Cheyenne advanced attack helicopter and the other the MBT-70 main battle tank.  Although Army leaders saw both weapons systems as critical to the Army’s long overdue modernization program, they were unable to convince the Department of Defense and Congress of a need for these weapons systems commensurate with the costs.  While the Army’s procurement agency, the U.S. Army Material Command, began solving the problem of cost overruns by improving its contracting procedures, General DePuy hoped to help the Army express its material needs more persuasively by integrating the combat functions of TRADOC.[23]

General DePuy also oversaw the writing of the Army’s first doctrinal study in the post-Second Indochina War era, Field Manual FM 100-5, which set the stage for the Army to operate in an increasingly technological approach to conventional war.  For the Industrial Revolution was giving way to the Technology Revolution.  And the 1976 FM 100-5 was a literary attempt to help prepare the way, culminating eventually in the AirLand Battle concept; this together with the Army’s desire to better digest the lessons from the recent Yom Kippur War.

* * * * *

Being a NATO member, the United States Army maintains close liaisons with its treaty partners, for example the British and Germans.  Indeed, Washington arranges and fashions military doctrine with its NATO allies.  However in the early 1970s, the armies of NATO lacked combat experience.  The Israeli Defense Forces did not.  The IDF boasted a wealth of conventional warfare experience versus opponents generally equipped with Soviet weaponry and trained by Soviet advisors.  Such experience was sought by the United States Army and, also by its NATO partners.[24]

Beyond the efforts of generals DePuy and Starry, were those of Brigadier General Paul F. Gorman, “who served as TRADOC’s deputy chief of staff for training and later as commandant of the U.S. Army Infantry School, too, part in intense training was the variable that had won the war.[25]  He studied the detailed data that the Israelis had on tank battles and examined Israeli tank commander gunnery training.  However the level of detail went beyond mere exchanges of expertise and included TRADOC obtaining translations of Israeli training manuals, gunnery qualification tables and armor exercise plans from crew to battalion level. (This was more akin to what partner nations receive today from the U.S. Army during foreign military sales—except that these exchanges were free between trusting partners.)

“With this information, Gorman concluded that IDF armor training had not only been the decisive factor in these battles, but also invalidated then fashionable theories about the overriding importance of numbers on the battlefield.  This approach clearly linked operational success on the battlefield, with institutional reforms, which were the ultimate objective of the Army generals’ engagement with their IDF partners.  DePuy wrote that when equally advanced weapons systems clashed on the battlefield, ‘courage, imagination, and the training of the commanders made the difference.’”[26]

Unlike what was encountered in Southeast Asia, the numbers and mix of weapons systems of increasing lethality and carnage, to which:

“We should expect modern tactical battlefields to be dense with large numbers of weapons systems whose effectiveness at range will surpass previous experience by nearly an order of magnitude.  While modern battlefield systems will enjoy greater protection due to increased standoff range and improved armor, it will nonetheless be true that what can be seen can be hit, what can be hit can be killed.  The long-range antitank guided missile—Sagger, TOW, HOT, Milan—will add considerably to lethality at range in the battle at the forward line of troops.  Direct fire lethal battlespace will be expanded more than two, perhaps three, orders of magnitude over corresponding battlespace in World War II and the war in Korea.

“Because of the numbers and the lethality of modern weapons, the direct fire battle will be intense; enormous equipment losses can be expected in a relatively short period of time.  We noted that the total—both sides, of tank losses in the critical six or seven days of the Yom Kippur War exceeded the total U.S. Army tank inventory deployed to U.S. Army, Europe, in units and in war reserves combined.

“In modern battle, regardless of which side outnumbers the other, and regardless of who attacks whom, the outcome of battle at tactical and operational levels will be decided by factors other than who attacks and who defends.  In the end the side that somehow, at some time, somewhere in the course of battle seizes the initiative and holds it to the end will be the side that wins.  More often than not the outcome of battle defies the traditional calculus used to predict such outcomes.  It is strikingly evident that battles are yet won by the courage of soldiers, the character of leaders, and the combat excellence of well-trained units—beginning with crews, platoons, companies, battalions, and squadrons ending with regiments, brigades, divisions and corps.  The best tank on the battlefield is yet the one with the best crew.  The best units on the battlefield are yet those that are well-trained and well led and those who have trained together to a high level of excellence before battle’s onset.

“The air battle over the tactical battlefield will be characterized by large numbers of highly lethal platforms, both fixed and rotary wing, and by large numbers of highly lethal air defense weapons systems.  Although there were no large numbers of armed helicopters employed in the Yom Kippur War, it was difficult to foresee their introduction, postulate their effect on the battle, and analyze their impact on other factors that we could examine first hand.”[27]

While the above provides ample reference as to where the U.S. Army intended on going in the post-Second Indochina War era, the focus of the rest of the narrative will be on Army Aviation, as in this period, leading up to branchhood; for it, too, was not proof from a makeover in the wake of the debacle known as Vietnam.

Endnotes

[1]  See page 3, “Legal Basis of the National Guard,” www.RNG,army.mil/aboutus/history/Pages/ConstitutionalCharteroftheGuard.aspx

The citizen-soldier as depicted in 1973 is not the citizen-soldier concept as defined in the 1792 Militia Act, which bolstered the Second Amendment.  Here all white males, ages 18-45 were considered as part of the militia.  These state armies were controlled by the states, not the federal government or the army; unless, of course, federalized when needed to bolster the regular army in times of national emergency.  Every militiaman bought his own musket, powder, ball, shirt, pants, shoes, . . .   And, according to the 1792 Militia Act, militias could only be federalized for three months in any one year, per Section 4 of the May 2, 1792 Militia Act.  Some ninety percent of the military capability of the United States was controlled by the governors, not the army or the federal government.  For many believed what George Washington proclaimed in his farewell address, September 19, 1796:

“. . . Hence, likewise, they will avoid the necessity of those overgrown Military establishments which under any form of Government are inauspicious to liberty, and which are regarded as particularly hostile to Republican Liberty. . .  “  [By Republican Liberty, Washington is referring to the type of government, not a particular party, since in his Farewell Address, Washington was opposed to parties as instruments of factionalism, where you will always find party people willing to subvert the precepts of the nation for the precepts of the party.  See pages 98-100, “Farewell Address, George Washington, September 19, 1796,” Founding Character:  The Words & Documents That Forged a Nation, edited by Kirk Ward Robinson and Christopher Eaton.]

[2]  See pages 6 and 7, “State Defense Forces,” Military Review, by George J. Stein.

[3]  See page 372, Chapter 12, “Rebuilding the Army, Vietnam to Desert Storm,” American Military History, Volume II, Richard W. Stewart, General Editor.

[4]  See page 373, Richard W. Stewart, General Editor.

[5]  The weak formation of control by the regime of Nicolai Ceausescu, was later inflamed by the austerity program during the 1980s.  Rumania’s surging national debt, some $10-$11,000,000,000 resulted in rationing, falling living standards, many Rumanians becoming food challenged and a rising infant mortality rate.  By December 1989, as the fall of the Soviet Empire accelerated, the Securitate (Rumanian Secret Police) no longer proved able to quell dissent, as even elements of the army joined the people.  When the security organs join the masses, Revolution can succeed.  The 1917 Russian variety being another example.

Ceausescu’s December 21 speech failed to change the now charted course of the masses.  Ceausescu and his wife Elena attempted escape.  Both were captured.  Both were tried, by a flying court, December 24.  Both were convicted for crimes against the state and people.  Both were shot on Christmas Day.  On January 7, 1990, capital punishment was outlawed in Rumania by the succeeding government.

[6]  See page 64, “NATO/Warsaw Pact Forces Located in Europe,” Soviet Ground and Rocket Forces, by Christopher Donnelly, Bill Gunston and Dr. James E. Dornan.

[7]  The T-62 as actually introduced in 1961, as an eventual replacement for the T-54/55, which came out in 1949 as a replacement for the T-34 of Eastern Front fame in World War II.  The T-62 was to become the main Soviet tank in armored divisions and motorized infantry units.  The T-62 featured a 115 mm main armament over the previous T-54/55 which mounted a 100 mm rifle.  The T-72 medium tank, introduced in the early 1970s, featured a V-12 diesel power plant which cranked out 780 horsepower.  It mounted a 125 mm rifle with a rate-of-fire of 6 to 8 rounds-per-minute; this was over and above the 115 mm rifle on the T-62 which could fire 3 to 5 rounds-per-minute.  See pages 5-32, 5-33, 5-35, 5-36, 5-37, 5-40 and 5-41, “Armored Fighting Vehicles,” FM 100 2-3, The Soviet Army.

[8]  See page 377, Richard W. Stewart, General Editor.

[9]  Author’s italics.

[10]  See page 220, “TRADOC’s Analysis of the Yom Kippur War,” Press On! Selected Works of General Donn Starry, Volume 1, edited by Lewis Sarley.

[11]  See page 45, “Not an Intellectual Exercise:  Lessons from U.S.-Israeli Institutional Army Cooperation, 1973-1982,” Military Review, by Major Ethan Orwin, U.S. Army.  www.armypress.army.mil/Journals/Military-Review/

[12]  See page 45, “Evolution,” Continuity and Evolution:  General Donn A. Starry and Doctrinal Change in the U.S. Army, 1974-1982, by Major Aaron J. Kaufman.

Author’s note and analysis:  The 1973 Yom Kippur War notwithstanding, the post-1945 period saw a number of nations, those of the Third World variety, those emerging from centuries of bondage of imperialism as wielded by the White Christian colonial powers of Europe, organizing as nations that were achieving access to modern weaponry and gaining admirable, and in some cases, skilled proficiency, in wielding same.  Mao’s Red Army and its ability to wage war to a standstill against modern Western mechanized armies in Korea; the Vietminh defeating the American-backed French Army in North Vietnam; the modernization of the Arab armies in their numerous conflicts with Israel; the build-up and modernization of the Shah’s armed forces in Iran. . .

The Arab-Israeli conflicts showcased second-tier or regional powers gaining proficiency and if lacking same, having a willingness to use modern weaponry to effect policy.  This, together with the evolving rise of such powers as China, Japan, India and, the long-term decline of the West, is slowly, but surely, altering the global chessboard.

[13]  See page 47, Major Ethan Orwin, U.S. Army.

[14]   See pages 47 and 48, Major Ethan Orwin, U.S. Army.

[15]  See pages 375 and 376, Richard W. Stewart, General Editor.

[16]  See pages 376 and 377, Richard W. Stewart, General Editor.

[17] See page 28, “Soaring Defense Costs?” Army Aviation, by Albert W. Blackburn, May 1, 1973.

[18]  AFVs or Armored Fighting Vehicles.

[19]  See page 28, Albert W. Blackburn.  According to the Comptroller General of the United States, as of March 1, 1976, cost per unit of the M-60A1 was $385,000.  See page 2, PSAD-76-153, Report of the Comptroller General of the United States, “Increasing Procurement Cost of M60A1 Tanks,” August 6, 1976, U.S. Government General Accounting Office.

[20]  See page 28, Albert W. Blackburn.

[21]  See page 29, Albert W. Blackburn.

[22]  “The Department of the Army established TRADOC on 1 July 1973, at Fort Monroe, Virginia, as part of the major STEADFAST Reorganization of the Army of the United States . . . The STEADFAST initiatives, directed by General Creighton Abrams, Chief of Staff of the Army, attempted to solve difficult command and control problems in the Army establishment evident in the early 1970s”  See page 6, “TRADOC:  A Historical Summary,” Transforming the Army:  TRADOC’s First Thirty Years, Military History Office, United States Army Training and Doctrine Command.

[23]  See page 27, “Assessing the October War, 1973-74,” Deciding Wat is to Done: General William E. DePuy, and the 1976 Edition FM 100-5, Leavenworth Papers, No. 16, by Major Paul H. Herbert.

[24]  Within the period in question, the United States Army was seeking to bone up on its conventional warfare skills following a protracted effort in counterinsurgency. The Israelis, on the other hand, would soon enter a period where, for the most part, the IDF will be engaged in a protracted effort of counterinsurgency and counterterrorism.

[25]  Meaning the Yom Kippur War . . . the author.

[26]  See page 49, “Not an Intellectual Exercise:  Lessons from U.S.-Israeli Institutional Army Cooperation, 1973-1982,” Military Review, by Major Ethan Orwin, U.S. Army.  www.armypress.armyu.mil/Jouirnals/Military-Review/

General Gorman’s view that Israeli prowess with employing armor on the battlefield in numbers less than their counterparts was due to superior leadership and training, was proven earlier on the Eastern front in 1941.  The four panzer groups dispersed among the invading German armies:  Army Group North, Army Group Center and Army Group South, contained 3,106 tanks.  See pages 22 and 23, Chapter 1, “The Opposing Armored Forces in 1941,” Tank Warfare on the Eastern Front, 1941-1942, by Robert Forczyk.  Bryan I. Fugate, in his Operation:  Barbarossa, page 31, offers, “3580 tanks and assault guns.”

The Soviet Army boasted, in 1941, per Bryan I. Fugate, in a letter sent by Stalin to President Roosevelt, July 1941, that the Soviet Union had 24,000 tanks, as opposed to the best estimates giving the Red Army 22,700.  See page 31, Chapter 1, “Prewar Soviet Defense Planning and Strategy,”

But in June 1941, the Germans, though vastly outnumbered, through superior leadership and tactics, including superior tactical air support rendered by Hermann Goering’s Luftwaffe, exacted a terrible toll of Soviet armor.  Estimates range upwards of 17,000 Soviet tanks lost between June 22, 1941 to the beginning of December 1941, just prior to the December 4-5, 1941 counterattack from Moscow by Georgi Zhukov.

[27]  See pages 222 and 223, “TRADOC’s Analyze of the Yom Kippur War,” The Jaffe Center Military Doctrine Joint Conference, Casarea, Israel, 16 March 1999, Press,On! Selected Works of General Donn A. Starry, edited by Lewis Sarley.

Bibliography

Blackburn, Albert W., “Soaring Defense Costs?” Army Aviation, Vo. 22, No. 5, Army Aviation Publications, Inc., Westport, Ct., May 1, 1973.

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