Military incompetence

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Military incompetence refers to failures of members of the military.

Often, some of the following factors can contribute to these failures:

• A conservative and traditional attitude, often marked by the misuse or rejection of newer technology and the inability to learn from experience.
• Rejection of information which challenges preconceptions.
• Overestimating the abilities of one's own side and underestimating those of the enemy.
• Indecisiveness and the inability to consider swift action, marked by a failure to exploit battlefield gains.
• Over-persistence.
• Frontal assaults and brute force over surprise, deception and/or tactical skill.
• In defeat, the search for scapegoats and the suppression of information.
• A belief in fate or luck rather than a rational assessment.

See also: First Anglo-Afghan War; Crimean War; Indian Mutiny; Boer War; most battles or campaigns in World War I - notably Verdun, Ypres and the Somme; World War II - Dunkirk, Pearl Harbor, Tobruk, Singapore, Dieppe, Arnhem; Tet Offensive, etc.

Further reading:

• N.F.Dixon - On the Psychology of Military Incompetence
• Saul David - Military Blunders (1997)