Counterinsurgency and peer warfare demand different kinds of experience, and lessons can fade as the people who acquired them leave service. The Falklands War is now further in the past than the Second World War was in 1982. The British Army's repeated transitions from imperial campaigns to world wars show how a force can become organized around one type of conflict and need substantial adaptation for another. Recent amphibious raids can also create misleading expectations about larger landings, especially when exercises use a company to represent a brigade. Experience remains useful when its owner distinguishes the conditions that still apply from those that have changed. Headquarters accustomed to lengthy consultation face a further adjustment when an opponent can strike back before a decision is reached.
Notable Point · 3:22:30-3:29:10
Why counterinsurgency experience does not reproduce peer-war tempo
Counterinsurgency service, small raids, and reduced-scale exercises can leave forces unprepared for the pace and size of a peer conflict.