As a civilian, and non-U.S. national, I am a tad wary of critiqueing a document that has obviously had so much care, consideration and professional effort put in to it, predominantly from people who clearly 'walk the walk'.

That said, my immediate impression is of an inconsistency between the individual parts and the whole. While the introductory section give a succinct picture of the problems associated with scientific precision and etheral war, parts of the draft (e.g. 2-2 Future Operating Environment) reiterate or reemphasise the same flawed thinking about our human environment that has led to the constant replication of mistakes and constant cycle of retranche, reanalysis, revision, and repetition. These flaws are two - our focus on change and our misunderstanding of complexity.

Change - while the intro does acknowledge continuity, sections like 2-2 over-egg the pudding with the use of language that overemphasises what will be different, and neglect to point out that a hell of a lot in human affairs will remain the same. I was recently re-reading a USAWC publication from 2000 on the decade ahead. It was full of techie jargon and concepts relating to cybernetics etc etc. The future war was all robotics, networks etc, and not the same crude encounters with home-made explosives, simple ambushcades, hostile populations that professional armies have faced for at least a couple of generations. The popularity of Galula etc in 2003+ was they were reminding us of the continuity in human affairs.

Complexity has become an ever-handy excuse for poor performance. Yes, we live in complex times, but so did Machiavelli (he talks about the complexity of his Italy in an early part of The Prince) or Caesar, or most probably in his own mind, Ugg our great cave-warrior-ancestor. The point is that human affairs have never been anything other than complex, humans just don't do simple! By constantly emphasising complexity and change, important documents like this can create the erroneous impression, among young emerging leaders especially, that because all in front is new, they have little to learn from the past, and engagement in history is only an act of homage, not tutulage.

Two cents worth from NZ. In case you haven't seen these images Stateside, follow the link for some scary environmental images from Aussie. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news...lery_id=107575 Just another environmental incident to add to the debate about the changing nature of human security.