Military incompetence refers to failures of members of the military.
Often, some of the following factors can contribute to these failures:
- A conservative and traditional attitude, often marked by the misuse or rejection of newer technology and the inability to learn from experience.
- Rejection of information which challenges preconceptions.
- Overestimating the abilities of one's own side and underestimating those of the enemy.
- Indecisiveness and the inability to consider swift action, marked by a failure to exploit battlefield gains.
- Over-persistence.
- Frontal assaults and brute force over surprise, deception and/or tactical skill.
- In defeat, the search for scapegoats and the suppression of information.
- A belief in fate or luck rather than a rational assessment.