These crises have spanned the range of extremes. To deal with such a wicle range of possibilities, our armed forces must be capable of accomplishing a wide range of missions. I believe peacekeeping and humanitarian operations are a given. For the man or woman in combat, however, such academic niceties are moot. Me buttons is in th' way.
All wars are limited.
As Carl van Clausewitz was careful to point out, there has never been a state of absolute war. Such a state would mean total annihilation. The Gulf War was a limited-objective war. If it had not been, we would be ruling Baghdad today at unpardonable expense in terms of money, lives lost and ruined regional relationships. I O N Gulf War was also a limited-means war we did not use every means at our disposal to eject the Iraqi Army from Kuwait.