It may be that one aspect of the post-Vietnam culture of defeat is the way in which it is continually invoked, even when resemblances are few.
The all-volunteer force was first proposed by Adlai E. Stevenson during his campaign for president in 1956, but it took the antiwar sentiment of the post-Vietnam era to make the all-volunteer military a reality.
Calling the reluctance to use military force abroad "a pretty profound change," Malcolm Chalmers, research director at the Royal United Services Institute in London, which specializes in defense and security policy, said, "It has the feeling of the post-Vietnam change in the United States".
It also helps to explain the steeliness of Nato's high command, despite the indoctrination of the post-Vietnam US Army to avoid wars whenever possible, and only embark upon them with maximum and overwhelming force.
The use of force would, as indeed is already highly likely, return to the post-Vietnam norm of short, sharp interventions designed to secure clear and attainable objectives as swiftly as possible using massive force while minimizing risks of casualties.
And the post-Vietnam fear of risking ground troops in unfamiliar and harsh terrain.
Seeping into its cutthroat dance-off was not just a new look but a new sound — the post-Vietnam sound of retreat.
She notes, for readers, that a lot of her case rests on emphasizing the post-Vietnam period, and not necessarily the post-9/11 period.
A quarter of a century ago, a new secretary of defense, Donald H. Rumsfeld, faced a towering challenge: convincing a skeptical Congress that the post-Vietnam military needed a major infusion of money to meet the still-fearsome Soviet threat.
Perhaps most painful of all, America may have to give up the post-Vietnam illusion that it is possible to fight wars with few casualties.
