Not really sure how to engage this ponderous document, but here is my two cents as relates to my area of expertise:

“The task of the Army is to protect its friends, to reassure and protect populations, and to identify, isolate, and, when necessary, defeat the enemy. War is a three-person, not a two-person, game. In the end, the Army must develop the capabilities to gain, sustain, and exploit physical control and psychological influence over the enemy, people, land and resources.” P. 3, Lines 350-364

Although many other elements apply, one critical component of addressing the above-identified task is a breadth of operational information, systamatically collected and routinely updated, about the people, infrastructure, economic systems applicable to the latter three components---the people, land and resources.

Lord Kelvin, the father of quantitative sciences, claims that: ‘if you can count it, you can know something about it.” Without credible baseline data, established and updated in real time on a systematic regional basis (not just by battlespace), decision-makers are unable to establish effective force deployments, track likely responses and effects, and plan effective post-conflict stabilization.

Moreover, fact and data-driven information systems and regional analytical approaches, including the application of fundamental planning and analytical approaches, such as civilian GIS systems, that are the foundation of modern public administration in all moderately developed countries, provide a fact-based metric for improving the catastrophic performance in developing and implementing integrated, rapid and effective stabilization and reconstruction, less susceptible to graft, corruption and project failure, all of which significantly contribute to an opponent's position.

Collecting accurate civilian data on a systematic basis, even if by proxy sources, and frequently revised, but soundly based, estimates is even more critical in a conflict zone than a stable civilian environment.

Two critical lessons: (1.) the war was easy, the peace was the challenge; and (2.) to plan for either war or peace, especially consistent with the identified goals, decision-makers must know something substantive about the land, people and resources, and not just about the enemy.

The Army has no system for the routine and systematic collection and use of timely and accurate base line regional geography, economics, governmental structure, or infrastructure information, but cannot hope to understand or control the land people or resources in any area without them.

Additionally, as noted below, this information must be used effectively prior to initial contact, to improve decision-making and inform viable strategies to manage each stage of conflict, including post-conflict stabilization.


In Iraq, decades of economic sanctions, and the initial shock-and-awe bombing operations resulted in substantial and unnecessary damage to the people, land and resources necessary for subsequent protection of the population. This excessive and, to an extent, unconsidered destruction in the early phases of conflict (prior to Army engagement), made the later phases much more difficult, thus contributing to a lengthier, more dangerous, and expensive operation.

Decades of economic sanctions substantially eroded civilian resources and infrastructure, and created and sustained substantial black market and organized criminal activities.

While these pre-conflict sanctions may be outside military control, the reality of sanctions, and their logical effects as a likely precursor to any conflict environment demands that the Army become highly adept, on a focused basis, in responding to those effects once it arrives on the scene. Failure to adequately research, track and prepare for sanction-induced effects will substantially compound the challenges of subsequent post-conflict operations.

In the post-conflict environment in Iraq, the Army was immediately faced with two serious problems, both of which were directly attributable to the pre-conflict sanctions phase.

First, sanctions-induced limitations on critical civilian resources like refined fuel led to the establishment of organized smuggling and black market operations which, in large part, defined the post-conflict environment including by limiting restoration of civilian services, providing economic support for enemy activities, and creating an complementary secondary enemy, closely intertwined with the primary enemy, to attack the Army and undermine its activities.

Second, sanction-induced infrastructure maintenance deferral for critical systems like energy and public water and sewer resulted in substantial hurdles in re-establishing public services, extension of effective government, and limiting attacks both on itself, and the fledgling host government.

More significant, in the shock-and-awe bombing phase, much destruction was done to civilian infrastructure and capacity in a manner that substantially impeded post-conflict stability. The “Valley of Broken Bridges” at Bayji, a key oil center and crossroads point for interregional travel and commerce, stands as abundant evidence of unnecessary over-destruction that impeded subsequent stabilization. The decks of the bridge structure were neatly punctured every 150 yards with bomb craters, then, the center sections were knocked out. Thus, reconstruction of the bridge, and subsequent economic restart was seriously impeded until virtually the entire structure was rebuilt. If the goal in the initial conflict was to limit bridge accessibility, this could have been achieved with a great deal more precision, and with an eye to rapid post-conflict restart. The Army’s targeting system is extremely advanced, but needs to brought to bear, in a focused manner, prior to initiation of conflict, in a manner that allows accomplishment of goals with the minimum of unnecessary destruction that might later impede stability operations.

The same is true in the destruction of (or failure to protect) central government civilian record systems critical to rapid stabilization. The Army’s system of lethal and non-lethal targeting needs to be augmented to identify, prioritize, and more carefully scrutinize bombing strategies to prevent unnecessary destruction of critical post-conflict assets.

Most evident in an after action analysis of Iraq was how relatively weak and unstable Iraq’s economic, infrastructure and social systems actually were, and how, with much less effort, the initial conflict mission could have been accomplished with a great deal less destruction, which, in turn, would have allowed more rapid and effective stabilization.

A complete, profound, and abundantly lacking resource critical to the mission is the base line information on regional geography, governmental structure (including provincial, district, and sub-district administration, division of responsibility, the role of national versus non-national government systems), economic and trade patterns, assets, and critical resources, and accurate and timely demographic resources, including credible population estimates, sub-population components (age, familial structure, sex, etc…),and population mobility tracking (including IDPs and displacement effects).

The future battlefield, and the enemy on it, may, in many instances, be more sophisticated in its approaches, and prepared to operate in a complex and less physically bounded space, possibly with a great deal more effective knowledge management-driven strategies. This environment will be significantly less forgiving of an unprepared opponent, and more able to take advantage of routine military and civilian bureaucratic strategic, and tactical blunders such as were evidenced in Iraq and Afghanistan.