As I watched “Zulu Dawn” for the umpteenth time, I was reminded how advanced armies often underrate guerrilla and low tech armies. Those adversaries are hard to defeat when they attack and hide among their people. They know we will do everything we can to avoid killing non-combatants who are protecting them. The latter came from our destruction of whole villages from artillery and bombing in Viet Nam. After action research showed we created more enemies than we killed in Viet Nam.

Our denigrating of our adversaries has increased with our increases in technology. We have come to think the world’s best army can overcome stupidity in political leadership in Washington.

Our belief that we were superior made us think we could easily defeat the Filipino Huks who had bolo knives. The 45 caliber automatic pistol was bought to correct that mistake. Soldiers thought it would be easy to kill a Japanese soldier because they were little and almost blind. We found that was definitely wrong. We initially thought the same thing in Korea.

We believed our technology would defeat the no or low tech Viet Cong and North Vietnamese. Their need and desire to win outlasted our desire. After action interviews shows Tet was the North’s last gasp but it caused us to give up after winning.

The Taliban, Al Qaeda, and Isis have learned we will quit if they continue long enough. If we allow the Taliban in Afghanistan to come away with a tie or a win we will never win a low level conflict because they know we will cut and run sooner or later. What happen in Afghanistan will decide future conflicts. Generals don’t want to fight but if they have to, leave them alone to do it.