Agricultural Component of the Afghanistan Surge?

[Tom Odom]

Tom,

Like you I am biased and don't see it all as horrible/evil thing, but this article does serve to illustrate some of the perceptions we bump into out in the field. I have had to spend more time than I thought would be necessary with my DOS, OGA, USAID, and USACE friends working through the one team one fight concept. Change is tough.

I feel that we also need to look at why many of our Inter-Agency brothers have this perception...the whole where there is smoke there is fire thing does apply to a certain extent. We have not conquered our inter-service/inter-agency tribal tendencies and have yet to really make the DIME concept work in this fight. I believe that the force-mix requests and staffing are very telling in the upcoming Afghanistan Surge. I see little to no info about a surge in the D,I, & E components...

Best,

Steve

Steve

I agree that the biases and perceptions play a large role and do affect what we try and do. But where I disagree with this opinion piece are the ideas that:

a. The Pentagon is a monolith capable of acting as the inner evil empire; there are as many agendas inside the Pentagon as there are outside, perhaps more.

b. That inner agency friction is somehow a new phenomenon and that the Constitution is under attack as a result of the evil empir (see a.)

In 15 years of inter-agency work, the turf battles never stopped. At best, good leaders--civilian or uniformed--minimized the friction. At worst, bad leaders--civilian or uniformed--only thought in terms of their own agencies agenda. Based on this author's criticisms, I would tentatively place him in the latter category.

Best

Tom