Good judgement comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgement.
I saw this adage just this morning before checking here, and we do stand a lot to lose if the hard-won experience isn't memorialized for others to draw from in the future, and we don't change with the changing world. I do not, however, think the future is necessarily bleak as OIF ends and OEF begins to wind down. Plenty of new challenges, but not bleak.

With the respective surges in either conflict, we also saw a surge in silliness, or rather a few people who came here with it in their head that they were going to see their avatar or name memorialized with a provocative article or string of posts that advanced their slanted agenda. I suppose we all have an agenda, but I hope that illustrates my point that there has been a signal-to-noise ratio that hopefully tilts towards more signal in the future. Down-sizing and refocus can very much be good things.

I can't remember exactly when it happened, but I made the recommendation to restructure the board to accommodate Iraq and Afghanistan (and other OEF hotspots) in greater detail, and that led to the structure you see in the Council right now. Other good restructuring came over time and across changes in servers, and I think we'll see other changes down the road as things morph and change for the better.

Specific interest will wane across some topics, and some forums may experience a virtual "death", but I'm confident there will be interest in all things small wars for as long as we fail to resolve our differences and interests through peaceful, constructive means.

To the specific question, we can keep the Council and Journal relevant by:

1) Sharing the Small Wars empire with folks may not have heard about the valuable content we have here. If we participate in other forums, linking in to content here can be the initial spark.

2) Submitting articles ourselves to add to the content. We all have our peculiar interests, and every article requires a touch of history that everyone here has a bit of insight into, sometimes in their own very unique way.

3) Supporting the SWJ/SWC financially. I have fired off a paypal donation or two in the past, and I certainly do not offer enough financial support to compensate for the brilliant content that I get to enjoy. I will pick up a Foreign Affairs or Foreign Policy magazine on occasion, but I rarely do so nowadays because there is already excellent content to rummage through here. The writing competition of 2009 drew some excellent and insightful articles, and I hope another can be supported soon. I'd contribute to the next one in a heartbeat, if that support would allow for prizes that draw the best writers out there. I believe I'd also be quick to contribute towards the kitty if it resulted a specific anthology of articles surrounding a theme or two. If that strikes a chord with anyone reading this, make those thoughts known and I'm sure the SWJ team would consider the concept.

Regards,

JC