To the Halls of Wherever

I like the effort to draw lessons from the Mexican War of 1846-1848. It is worth the read given the expectation that a small American Army (with a small American Marine Corps) largely based in America could be called upon to deploy into regions without host logistical support and then sustain the expeditionary force until victory is achieved.

The main aspect I like to consider, given the vastness of Asia relative to our ground forces' size today, is that this war demonstrated how a small army relative to the size of the territory fought across achieved victory despite the inability to pacify the entire territory in the face of unified resistance. The war was in many ways a large raid.

Although we did well enough in COIN to allow Mexican internal divisions to make a peace treaty more appealing to them than continued the war after American forces captured Mexico City.

The article also reminds us that viewing the contest from today's power imbalance is an error; and in fact the war settled the question of whether Mexico or America (sorry Canada) would be the dominant power in North America.

While America had geographic advantages over Mexico, in the mid-19th century American power had yet to reap those advantages to the degree that we see today. Mexico was not a push-over.

Also, I shake my head at those who condemn America while celebrating Mexico for that war, as if Mexico was any less a conquering power in lands that were once occupied by indigenous people. I imagine this fact made relinquishing territory easier for the Mexican government because the territory was hardly integrated with the core of Mexico.

But I digress (as I can!).

Given that even eastern NATO Europe is still a logistical desert forward of established NATO infrastructure centered in the western part of modern Germany, such an expeditionary mindset is necessary even in NATO until the logistics shortcomings can be remedied.

And contrast Russia's ability to mass troops in the east to NATO's deficiencies.

Also, I'd love to see an analysis of the incorporation of volunteer and state militias into the active Army/Marine effort from the frame of reference of coalition warfare rather than an active-reserve total force framework.

I say that because prior to the Civil War, America wasn't called the United States--a unified single entity. We were these united States--a collection of sovereign entities that gave only limited powers to the federal government to act for all the states.

In those circumstances more than half a century before reforms made the state militias an official reserve force of the active Army, only a common language made those forces more than foreign allied forces.

Hmm. Perhaps I should do that.

UPDATE: I suppose the title should have been To the Halls of Whomever, eh?