In The Future of War — John Hillen, former Army captain Hillen explains that big, toe-to-toe wars aren’t the norm for our military:
In terms of military culture, we like to think that Desert Storm and World War II are the norm, and that peacekeeping, humanitarian assistance and the backstreet brawling in Mogadishu are the exceptions. But it’s really quite the opposite. The United States has used military force overseas over 200 times since the birth of this nation. And we’ve only been in five declared wars. We’ve only had another five, perhaps, that fit the classic definition of a war. And yet, from those rare instances where we fight those types of wars — the type we saw in World War II or Korea or Desert Storm — those are the ones on which we base military culture — the values and the traditions of the service.