Quote Originally Posted by TheCurmudgeon View Post
Thought I would throw out a thought and argue that the problem is in the gap between what the Army is expected to do (the ultimate political solution, i.e. a democratic Afghanistan) and what it is capable of doing (destroy enemy military capabilities). The U.S. Army does not have the capability, nor the will, to accomplish this political objective. It does not matter if the objective is the right one. Not for us to argue. It is the objective. If we do not have the capability and we are not interested in creating that capability (we currently pay lip service to it with things like Advise and Assist Brigades), who should fill the gap between capability and requirement ... what is commonly referred to as "mission creep". It is not mission creep, it is the mission, the Army just can't do it as configured.

Not for the Navy to do, they sink Ships. The Air Force drops bombs. Maybe the Marine can help, since they are the only other ground force, but they are spread pretty thin. They certainly have more experience. None the less, it is the Army who is stuck with occupation duty in large scale conflicts. http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute...dpower/2012/09
I take issue with the will part of your argument. First off the Bush administration argued we were not an occupation force (we were) in either Afghanistan or Iraq, so the responsibilities of an occupying power were not accepted at the political level. I suspect that will continue to be the case.

Second there was, and to some extent continues to be a debate on the roles of the military and the roles of the State Department (State has a lot of big ideas, a lot of hope, but very little capacity to do anything on this scale), but they still oppose the Army doing this, and they carry some weight on Capital Hill.

Assuming we were given the mission there would be the will to get done, and the solution wouldn't be advise and assist BDEs. It would be much more complicated and robust. We would have to have a civilian corp of experts that would probably come from our reserves and national guard to facilitate the construction of a political system that never existed in the first place. Many would have to be civilians that are temporarly deputized (for lack of a better term) because their skill sets wouldn't be resident in the ranks.

I still think Iraq and Afghanistan are aberrations instead of the new norm. I suspect for the next decade or so we'll be less ambitious and more reasonable when we design our objectives. We're capable of assisting governments who desire to change (Eastern European governments, Burma, etc.), but forcing undesired political system change is probably not something we want to invest in.