The difference derived from many directions, but I'll address what I think are the two principle generalities.

During the Cold War the US Army was focused on winning the conventional battle.  This created a majority of officers who seldom thought about fighting a insurrgency, or what some call "Near War Operations".  This is not to say the US Army discarded all thought for operations other than mechanized battles.  The Special Forces group (Green Berts) remained, the Rangers were revived as a combat unit, Delta Force was formed, experimental light units came & went.  But, most officers trained for the big battle.  More important the civilians & Army officers inside the Washinton DC Beltway seldom thought about the US fighting another insurrgency.

This lack of attention was compounded post Cold War by the lack of thought over military policy during the Clinton administration.  The policy cahnges revolved around the 'Peace Dividend' benefits.  Efforts to rethink US strtigic policy or Army doctrine were made & went nowhere.  Principly due to a lack of vision at the very top.  President Clinto & his staff had zilch military experince and did not even know what questions to ask the generals, let alone how to organize a effective & comprehensive review of stratigic policy.  This despite the involvement in peacekeeping in Somalia, Kosovo, and near involvment in several other places.  These missions required military force as one component of sucessfull intervention.  But no one at the top had a coherent idea of what sort of military force, and they had no clear idea of what the other components might be. 

The Bush Presidency brought to the Department of the Army the policy guidance relating to the statement "We dont do nation building".  The implication and the subsequent guidance from the Secretary of defence sent the US Armys thinkers in directions other than concerning "Low Intensity Operations". 

The US Marines in the 1970s and 1980s underwent a long internal debate on the nature of warfare and how wars/battles are actually won.  In overly simplitic terms the doctrine that emerged in the late 1980s was of outthinking the enemy in all aspects, vs only applying firepower and mechanized manuver to perfection.   Several personalities had much to do with this including a USAF Brigadier Gen who was already dead, and a couple Secretarys of the Navy.  

Then the Cold War ended.  The ferment in the USMC of the previous two decades of debate frothed over instatly with a new debate about the possible new USMC missions.  Most of the questions had already been addressed indirectly earlier over the nuances of tactics & doctrine, and the hisitorical role of the USMC.  That is the actuall role & not the common Hollywood or History Channel versio

Claymore       10/30/2007 7:24:30 PM

Interesting. What do you think was the reason that lead to this error in tactics? The US Army just patrolled places to infrequently and let insurgents build up versus keeping a constant eye on them?

Corams book understates the importance of Gray.  While Col Wyly was doing a lot of theoretical development, being the prophet in the wilderness, mentoring new diciples, Gray was when at various command levels doing the real world application.  As a divsion commander he released a lot of frustrated officers to accomplish a higher level of training, and showed many more that there was more than drilling by the book.  By knowing when to keep his mouth shut and exactly when to speak Gray made in to the Commadants office where he could institutionalize the changes Wyly proposed.  I suspect Gray worked hard to position a number of like minded generals for a shot a the commadants office.  Krulak certainly was of the same mold as Gray & following him to CMC four years later helped lock in Grays changes, then take them a step further.  The other Commadants of the last 20 year have been less spectacular personalities than Gray and Krulak but I think several other have helped carry the USMC into the 21st Century. 

  Strongly agree.  I have statd it before and wil stae it again, in my opinion General Gray saved the Marine Corps from becoming just a small version of the Army and paved the way for those that followed him. 

I dont think that is a accurate description of Col Wyly but Gray definitely made the beast behave as he wanted.  Exactly how that happend is not clear to me & deserves further study.

One Marine officer remarked, rather cruelly, that Wyly was the rodeo clown who distracted the bull while Gray wrestled it down.