Victory disease - Definition and Overview

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Victory disease happens when a nation, army or commander has military victories and falls for some combination of:

• arrogance
• complacency,
• established patterns of fighting,
• stereotypes of opponents, and / or
• ignorance of alternatives or refusal to recognize them,

and loses badly as result.

Examples

Examples abound; the next list is by no means complete:

• The Battle of Salamis in 480 BC during the Greco-Persian Wars, in which the hubris of Xerxes I led to a catastrophic defeat of the Persian Empire to the Greeks (see also The Persians),

• The catastrophic decision by Napoleon to invade Russia in 1812 in which a force of 610,000 French soldiers invaded, and about 10,000 returned, killing countless Russians as well,

• Decisions made at and before the 1863 Battle of Gettysburg by the Confederates after their victory at the Battle of Chancellorsville during the American Civil War,

• The 1876 Battle of the Little Bighorn, in which Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer and his entire army were killed to the last man,

• The catastrophic decision by the Nazis to invade Russia in 1941,

• The 1941 decision of the Japanese to attack Pearl Harbor,

• The United States's 1961 attempt to overthrow the government of Cuba by the Bay of Pigs Invasion,

• The United States's persistent folly during the Vietnam War, and

• The 1993 actions of Task Force Ranger in Mogadishu, Somalia during Operation Restore Hope.

• The United States' relative complacency following their initial victory in the combat phase of the 2003 Invasion of Iraq.

Final words

In each case, the attacker was led to believe in a sense of military invincibility, and came to ultimate disaster. While "victory disease" does not automatically foretell failure, it is a strong indicator.

The term has applications outside the military world.

See also

Main links

• Groupthink
• Hubris

Minor links

• Communal reinforcement
• Confirmation bias
• Narcissism

External links and references

• US Army Professional Writing Collection on victory disease (http://www.army.mil/professionalwriting/volumes/volume1/september_2003/9_03_5.html)