I'm back Tuesday to answer more questions, what would you like to discuss with me?

That's a tough question - and an important one. While we made some truly impressive changes to become more adaptive, anything as big and tradition-bound as the US military has "muscle memory" that pulls the force back into organizational constructs, policies, and habits that have been in place literally for generations. We changed in Iraq because we had to -and it takes that kind of pressure to change most institutions. My belief is that we need to use the current environment to make some big changes that essentially prevent us from going backwards in how we operate. I'd probably start with personnel policies and management.

This is really important - and I think its how we recruit, develop, and manage our talent (which means every soldier). As you experienced, the modern battlefield is even more complex, and far faster moving than any time in history - and that's accelerating dramatically. I think that equipment and technology are key - but the difference is going to be in how well our people individually, and together can leverage that technology. We've enjoyed a monopoly on many types of technology for the past few decades (GPS, precision strike, night vision, UAV's, etc) - that's essentially over. Now the difference will not be who has what tech - it will be who uses it best - and learns fastest.

Thank you very much for your answer, sir.

To be honest, the military does best in teaching soldiers as they enter the service. There are some programs like TAPS that are designed to help in building skills and connections that will assist in entering the civilian workforce, but its not been our strong suit. I believe that we need to do far better. The success of former soldiers in life is one of the best recruiting programs we could ever devise. Doing it poorly has the opposite effect.

Ted, I think was agree. The problem continues to be that the 'group think' solution gets it wrong, while the enemy is advantaged by perceived political indecision and HN popular anti-US / "West" narrative. Hamme's "Sling and the Stone" and his thoughts on 4th Generation Warfare are spot on, completely in-line with Nagl and Schoomaker's "Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife". Not many people understand that Afghanistan (for example) has recently enjoyed their highest wheat yield in history or that Coca-Cola is bottled in Kabul and distributed to all provinces in Afghanistan. 16% of all Afghan Government officials are female and that there are functioning Afghan Airlines operating under ICAO standards, just to name a few tangible examples. The US and NATO have left enduring positive capacities, while the American general public is only aware of the casualty cost of that war. The general public is largely unaware of the multiple enemies (other than Taliban or AQ) and that the insurgents have suffered varied levels of defeat, reorganizing numerous times. The derivative enemy factions base themselves in Pakistan sustaining on international drug trade profits outside Afghan borders. The fact is, that public information and counter messaging have been absent for OEF, in the popular news media realms. Not saying Afghanistan is in a wonderful place, because its not. The country is very delicate, however, it has enjoyed gains.

COL (Join to see) - Colonel; While it may seem cynical ("Who me?") there is a lot more money to be made from reporting "disasters" than there is from reporting success. "Little Achmed Went To School Today" doesn't sell advertising space - "Little Achmed Was Killed When He Tried To Go To School Today" does.

ALL (commercial) media is biased - the trick is figuring out what the bias is and trying to find another source with a countervailing bias - "The Truth" is someplace between the two - but that takes work and makes your brain hurt.

Histories aren't much better (admittedly they improve if you redact all the adjectives and adverbs possible) because so much of what happened isn't the sort of thing that the descendents of the people who did it (or even the people who did it themselves) really want you to know about. [For example, "What illegal narcotic founded the fortune of the family which produced an American President in the 20th Century?")

As far as Afghanistan is concerned, if they actually had an honest government the country would be in even better shape (assuming that the "warlords" let that government remain in power. That, of course, doesn't detract from the fact that the Afghans probably are having it slightly better than they have had it since 1950.

Indeed the armed indigenous resistance (and their imported friends) HAVE suffered setbacks and have had to reorganize as a result. Mind you, one should probably pay as much attention to the fact that they WERE able to reorganize and return to the fray.

In "Fourth Generation" warfare, the trick to "winning" (for the "non-government" side) is not to stop fighting (varying the intensity is NOT the same thing as stopping fighting). The trick to "winning" (for the "government" side) is to make it unfeasible for the "non-government" side to continue fighting (which isn't the same thing as "defeating" them - it's more like starving them until they are an object of derision and ridicule (at which point they become ineffectual).

However, I do agree that "someone" simply hasn't been "getting the message out". Unfortunately "the message" (where there have been successes) simply isn't flashy enough to gain votes (or attract advertising revenue) AND, where there have been failures then "the message" is used to ensure that "our guys" get the votes (or "our company" gets the advertising revenue) by trumpeting the failures. [When Mr. Bush was the President, the Democrats didn't have any problems blasting every failure (no matter how insignificant) across national media in their efforts to gain votes. Now that Mr. Obama is the President, the Republicans don't have any problems blasting every failure (no matter how insignificant) across national media in their effort to gain votes.]

In either case, the trumpet of failure, by default, makes the insurgents seem legitimate and powerful.....the 4th Generation. A faction doesn't need a Trillion Dollar defense infrastructure to seem like they defeated the Americans. In fact, you don't even have to have any humans....Ebola has established a great IO campaign...Thanks FOX, Thanks CNN. 50% of the African Disease deaths in the Ebola crisis were from other diseases, while the disease existed in epidemic levels for 6 months prior to news reporting.

Colonel; Think of it as similar to buying the very best image enhancing optically stabilized high magnification sights to attach to the sawed-off shotgun which you are going to use to shoot yourself in the foot.

I wouldn't trust Iran to do anything not in their interests - which essentially puts them into the same category as most nations in the world. I know that sounds skewed, but while you and I are strongly opposed to much of what Iran has done - and is doing - their perspective would legitimately be far different. And while we disagree, I think we have to respect that they're reached rational conclusions based on their point of view. The key thing, then, is how do we interact with them. I think that much like we did with the old Soviet Union, we need to interact and seek common ground, but remain cautiously skeptical. There are areas of common ground and shared interests - but we can't confuse building that relationship with the kind of trust-based relationship we'd like. its just not realistic right now.

Sir, I appreciate you for answering my question. I also agree with your perspective in dealing with Iran. Thank you for your time.
Very Respectively
Stephen R. King

Brandon - the most critical step was in arriving at a common definition of success. Although we often gloss over that in planning and coordination, I found my force's interpretation of what success looked like was vastly different across the force. We worked to shape it so that only the success of the larger enterprise counted as success - not the accomplishments of individual organizations. That sounds easy, but it was a fundamental shift. Getting there required us to arrive at what I'd call Shared consciousness through transparency and communication that were radically more robust than anything I'd seen before. We found that when we forces ourselves out of our silos to view the larger entity, perspectives matured. We also used Liaison Officers and NCO's very aggressively so that we could be connections with other organizations that ran deep - far beyond superficial communication.

Our society will struggle with this, as we live in a media and news world with sound bites and superficial understanding. It is easier to demonize and place political blame, than to assess and understand underlying civil warring factions, enemy political goals, or economic disposition. Meanwhile, the Land Power narrative of sustaining and capitalizing on gains (ie advising, capacity building, or human dimension) is lost in favor of technical Air Power solutions, which are more akin to a pest control methods.