Talk:Military incompetence

Untitled
This isn't remotely NPOV - Khendon 11:14 Mar 3, 2003 (UTC)

As it stands, yes, it needs a lot of work. It would be possible to write a very interesting and informative entry on this topic, and do it in a clearly NPOV way, but very difficult. Tannin

It is NPOV, it states that in certain military campaigns there are discernable traits in leadership which have led to or exacerbated disaster? Seems to be likely, the article just summarizes the failings and indicates the campaigns where they can be seen. 62.253.64.7


 * It was considerably less NPOV before I edited it, and it still carries
 * a certain "smell" of saying that military leadership are always
 * incompetent. Also, as Tannin says, the list of examples is extremely
 * subjective. - Khendon 12:43 Mar 3, 2003 (UTC)

Hmmm .. the list of battles could certainly use some work: World War I was as much about ignorance as incompetence, but OK. Pearl Harbor is a very poor example (as a careful reading of the history of the attack will quickly show - the Wikipedia entry on it, by the way, is very weak at present); Tobruk - Huh? Which Tobruk are we talking about? The famous one was an outstanding example of competence, not incompetence. Singapore: no doubt about that one. Dieppe, yeah. Arnhem - no, not really. Mostly just bad luck. Again, this is one where you have to read about it in depth.) Plus lots of missing ones. On the whole, I'm inclined to think that this topic is just too hard to do in an NPOV way. Possible, yes. But very difficult. Tannin

I was watching a documentary on the development of the AR-15/M16 on the History Channel. I think this could be used as an example of military incompetence because there were people in the U.S. military who initially rejected it. They thought the rounds were too small etc. --Dissipate 20:03, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Is this article even necessary? This doesn't seem like a topic deserving of an article. -64.81.146.219

Iraq war as a definition example?
I don't feel that the Iraq war is a good example to show what this phrase means. It is very controversial, and to many is not seen as military incompetence. There are other, better, examples. If no one disagrees with this then the example will be removed. - Mamyles 22:38, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Examples
I'm loathe to include examples just now - I'd prefer to keep the article as general as possible - but it might be a good idea to toss around some possibilities on the talk page.

The two classic examples that immediately spring to mind are the Somme (one more push!) and the Light Brigade (lots of communication messups led to famous catastrophe) - and these are reasonably uncontentious ones SFAIK. I'd prefer to keep things like Iraq off (but if we do have it, please let's use the standard spelling), as we can argue for days over whether that's a political failure or a military one, etc etc. More clear-cut examples from further back are a lot better for everyone. Shimgray | talk | 00:10, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Military organizations poor learners?
The statement that military organizations are poor learners seem to be a rather far-out generalisation. Should be removed, or at least specified. Many military organizations have displayed amazing innovative qualities. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.109.64.132 (talk) 21:05, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Making this NPOV
This Talk page seems to be moving towards the outline: (a) military incompetence happens, and (b) there are frequently structural causes for this which (c) modern armies try to avoid, but (d) experts disagree about which historical examples actually constitute incompetence - and if so by whom - and (e) there are often personal, political and cultural reasons to claim particular events reflect incompetence. Currently the page just includes #a-#b; could we flesh it out with #c-#e? Then any examples we're not sure about can reside in #d until enough digging has been done to file them under #b or #e.

Contra 64.81.146.219 above, I do think this is worth having a page on: it describes a persistent - if usually unspoken - school of thought, backed up by a messy combination of legitimate examples and folksy anecdotes. However, the page for the Norman F. Dixon book is pretty stubby so might be worth merging into this one.

A couple of suggested modern examples would be the Six Day War and the current situation in Ukraine. Further back, Napoleon's winter invasion of Russia. 2A02:6B6E:D0FF:0:C823:2A38:8936:8A01 (talk) 17:10, 27 March 2023 (UTC)