Combined Action/Arms Groups are stupid effective. Armor working with Infantry and Cavalry (light armor) that also have close air-support is a thing to behold.

The thing is, the US military re-tools its organization every 10 to 20 years or so, looking ahead at the conflicts to come. In the late 80s that re-tooling began and the result was methodologies that came to fruition in Iraq and Afghanistan. We take notes from past examples (see Russian occupation of the latter), examine the fight we see coming (insurgent warfare in WWII), and rebuild doctrine to fit.

The special operations groups were part of the process. While we were creating our own future enemies in the 60s and 70s (mujahideen turned into Al-Qaeda and others) we were also getting a first hand look at guerrilla warfare and how ineffective symmetric war concepts were at facing a guerrilla opponent.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asymmetric_warfare

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