Best military commander post WW2?

I would just like to know who is choice would be for the question asked. Regardless of the grenade in a barrel of fish approach to the Persian Gulf war, overwhelming force got the job done with limited loss of life to the coalition forces. I don't think a campaign needs to be a blood-bath on all sides, or a struggle... to determine superior generalship.

 

General Vo Nguyen Giap

 

On a related note- I heard a very interesting interview yesterday

http://www.npr.org/2012/10/29/163185980/should-the-generals-get-fired-more-often

But according to Thomas E. Ricks, we should be paying attention — specifically to those in charge of the military there, because they can make the difference between long, expensive wars and decisive victories. That's the lesson Ricks explores in his latest book, The Generals.

The book starts with George Marshall — a leader perhaps best known for his diplomatic role after World War II, but whose management style during the war was notable in part for his willingness to fire people. "In World War II, it was quite common to fire generals," Ricks tells NPR's Steve Inskeep.

Ricks says he was shocked to discover that Terry Allen, the general in charge of the 1st Infantry Division during the Sicily campaign, had been fired despite his success in the field.

"My jaw dropped," Ricks says. "I had just come out of Iraq, where we are losing a war, where nobody gets fired, where combat ineffectiveness is just not relevant in judging a general. How could the U.S. military have changed so much?"

It all goes back to Marshall. Ricks calls him decent man, a good and even great man — but not a nice man. Ricks describes a scene a week after Pearl Harbor, when Marshall asks the young Dwight Eisenhower, then a brigadier general, how he'd fight the war in the Pacific. Eisenhower takes a few hours to write a memo laying out his strategy, and "when he gives the answer, hands the memo, that afternoon, to Marshall, Marshall looks at him, and Eisenhower wrote later, 'The eyes were the coldest I think I'd ever seen.' "

I think I will be picking this book up to read.

 

During WW2 the US was losing something like, on average, 2000 dead a week. That's a bit of an incentive to fire people.

 

But a huge propaganda, political and strategic victory and they won the war as well. The Viet Cong were South Vietnamese..not North. At least try to get a fact right.

 

Good call, I second that,he kicked the French and Americans asses out of Vietnam. All these Americans claiming generals who defeated a 7th rate Iraqi military must be joking, I can not take then seriously.General Vo Nguyen Giap actually got two victories with limited resources, not like he had B52 bombers,Napalm etc..

 

I wish I could remember his name.

There was an Iraqi tank commander in the Gulf War. He positioned his T-72s and whatnot behind a dune. The Americans came over the dune and the Iraqi commander swarmed the Abrams. Shot point blank into their sides. Point blank into their rear.

The Americans slaughtered and destroyed every tank he had to no losses of their own, even though they'd just broken all sorts of rules about just driving over a crest and he'd positioned his tanks perfectly.

But no, equipment never wins the day. If he'd had decent equipment he would've won that battle.

 

When did he forcibly remove the U.S. military from Vietnam? What influence do you think the political landscape of the war had on his success? How instrumental was his leadership of a largely fragmented and indepedent cells of Viet Cong?

 

The US and Allies weren't kicked out of Vietnam.

The VC were destroyed during the Tet Offensive and the NVA rarely came into South Vietnam in any great numbers. After Tet much of South Vietnam was devoid of fighting.

The US and Allies chose to leave when the war ended.

That's right, the war ended in 1973. South Vietnam fell in 1975. You do the maths.

 

You lost,get over it.

 

They lost the war,they left.end of story.The war with the Americans ended in 1973,the Americans lost and went home.

 

So the VC destroyed, NVA scared to come south of the border, North agree to sign a cease fire, etc is lost and kicked out?

I suppose the Allies lost WW1 because they signed a piece of paper and went home?

 

I will explain what happened to you as you seem not to know. The American intention in Vietnam was to hold onto South Vietnam and not let it fall to communism,they also wanted to stop the neighboring states falling as well. Those were their war aims, they failed. They failed to beat the VC/North Vietnamese and Vietnam,Cambodia and Laos became communist. If you do not achieve your war aims then you lose plain and simple and that is what happened to the Americans,they then went home. The allies did not sign a peace treaty that left the German army in France,the Americans /South Vietnamese signed one that left North Vietnamese troops in the South so trying to even compare the two is a bit daft.

 

Failed to beat the VC? The VC were destroyed in 1968.

 

Is this the height of your argument now I have proven your other post to be wrong? The VC were still around after Tet,they even had their own government in the south until the end of the war in 1975. So not destroyed.

 

Ok man. The VC ran the US out of Vietnam.

 

he commanded the NVA not the viet cong

 

the NVA rarely came south of the 17th?? hahahaahahahahahaah who the hell do you think was coming down the trail??

 

no wonder america made the mistakes in iraq all over again, no one studies history!!

 

More revisionist history on your part.

 

He was the Defense Minister at the time who was instrumental in deciding on and planning the Tet Offensive. The Viet Cong, while decentralized, were still a significant component of the operation and worked in sync with the regular NVA troops.

 

I assume we can take General's Petraeus and Allen off the list...one who couldn't keep his zipper up and another who has so much time on his hands he can send 30,000 e-mails to a housewife in Tampa, Florida.

Good grief, who is the next General to go down in flames?

This has gone from the sublime to the ridiculous.

 

I tend to agree.

 

The name of his biography is "Victory at any cost". The book isn't intended to be pejorative, but it should be because that is in fact what he did. He kept throwing bodies at the problem until he achieved his objectives. No general from a free country could sustain the casualty levels he did and not be sacked.

 

He did not plan the Tet offensive, he had an idea for it and others planned it.