Quote Originally Posted by Dayuhan View Post
I've always thought our approach to Iraq showed echoes of the days when a war ended when you rolled down the main street of the other side's capitol city. Never quite understood why some seemed unable to understand why the war didn't stop at that point. Sort of a chessboard approach - when the king falls the game is over - but hardly consistent with today's realities.
The very fact that view exists shows how bad our teaching of strategy is. Napoleon occupied and burnt Moscow. He lost the war! The Idiot Hannibal won victory after victory and never attacked the one thing most likely to allow him to win - Rome!

Curious about those ideas.... who would be "them" in your view of A'stan? The Afghans? The Taliban? Wouldn't a negotiated peace have to be acceptable to all major parties if it's to have any chance of producing peace?
Them is context specific. Negotiated with those who you can talk to. Bribe those you can kill if required and kill those who will not talk. - or some combination of the above. Point being that unless you get WHAT YOU WANT, then you have failed. - as the US seems unable to articulate what it wants in Afghanistan, I am not optimistic!

I suspect that the military's lack of emphasis on "strategic intelligence" may have something to do with the overlap between "strategic intelligence" and "political analysis", the latter being possibly seen as more the province of the State Dept and the non-government analytical community.
Yep. No one will understand the dissonance of "strategic intelligence" until someone actually teaches strategy!