The Army is VERY focused on capturing and applying "the lessons learned from the past 10 years." Not at the strategic level, so as to better understand the types of threats we have been facing, or better design the operations we have applied so as to be more effective and less expensive. Those are assumed to be proper (to do otherwise would be to call into question senior leader decision making over that same period)
No, it is a very focused effort on how they could have made the BCTs more effective at the missions they were sent out to accomplish in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. Things like BSOs having greater control over the IA, NGO and SOF forces operating with their space. It is almost as if we want to absolutely ensure we fight the next war just like the last.
My suggestion is that most of these tactical lessons learned will be of little value in virtually any other type of conflict that we are more likely to become involved in. Also, that once we actually do take a hard look at how we understand these threats and how we could better design operations for an appropriate military role in addressing them, we will find that it in not very war-like, and that the previously derived tactical lessons learned no longer have much merit.
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