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Getting Closer To Our Allies

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  • Getting Closer To Our Allies

    The op-ed is entitled-

    Getting Close To The Afghans-Washington Times Mark Moyer March 1, 2010

    and is the story of contrasts between a risk-averse, casualty avoiding military and our risk-takers. It is also the story of a MILPERCEN designed, not unlike Vietnam, to rotate units AND leaders-successful or otherwise-on a strict schedule built around career progression at the expense of valued experience and accumulated historical knowledge. The allusions draw upon a past of W.W.II which kept our best combatant commanders in the field and sidelined our losers and the classic Marine Combined Action Program of Vietnam that positioned small groups of marines among the citizenry we were trying to reach.

    The allusions go beyond Afghanistan when you consider the objectives of COIN more globally and therefore have applicability in Iraq, Mindanao or elsewhere that finds American troops engaged in a war for the populace. The implications to our officer and N.C.O. management system is enormous. The risks, starting at the top with the bureaucrats making these decisions and ending at the sharp end of a small village and equally small team of soldiers are equally enormous.

    We talk of building a corps (and core) cadre of area specialists that will devote a large portion of their professional career to an area specialization. I wonder and worry how much is only "talk" and how aggressively these visions are implemented at the top. Does Gates pound the phones to get the system in place and his peers at State, USAid and elsewhere to offer up their best and brightest? What incentives are there for him and for those envisioned by such? Btw, that program doesn't foresee these men living among the people as I understand it but, nonetheless, is representative of what Moyer is reaching for here.

    We've among us some that could offer valuable insight here and it's a worthy discussion IMV lest I'd not offer it. I look forward to your thoughts.
    "This aggression will not stand, man!" Jeff Lebowski
    "The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what you share with someone else when you're uncool." Lester Bangs
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