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)
