Quote Originally Posted by Rob Thornton View Post
Picked this out of the Earlybird yesterday. A twist to the Powell "Pottery Barn" metaphor - you inherit all kinds of things when you change a regime. While I was in Mosul we had considered many "what ifs", and the dam was one of them as so far it related to sabotage of its electrical generation capability. However, this one is new to me. I think this also speaks volumes to the spectrum involved in the "3 block war" and the types of challenges we find there.
What I find most alarming about this piece is the solution described for the problem: "Let's just keep pumping more concrete into the holes and wait until the whole thing slides away." This dam story is a great metaphor for what I see is wrong with how we tend to operate--putting "bandaids" on sucking chest wounds and propping up the old way of doing business.

Seems to me that a better solution in Mosul would be to try to divert a lot of the water away from the current dam, to relieve the pressure on it--like maybe dig another channel that reroutes much of water back into the Tigris below the current dam. Enough flow could be let through the current channel and dam to push the turbines to generate electricity. Then a new dam with new hydro capabilities could be built in a location that is more suitable from the standpoint of soil mechanics. That would seem to be time and money much better spent. (Extrapolate from my solution to find new channels for relieving pressure by various insurgents across the theater as you see fit.)