Hi Rob--

I hope that nobody is mistaking my point - you certainly are not - for I do believe that John Nagl's proposal has merit. I just don't think that the Army as an institution will buy it and I believe that an advisor corps is inherently a joint organization. Moreover, USSOCOM, in its Title 10 institutional role, seems to be the ideal vehicle to raise, train, and equip the advsor corps force. SOCOM, in that role, also has the clout to force the services to support with manpower and common equipment. It was, in part, I believe the power that USSOCOM wielded that provided the impetus for the creation of SF branch. (I could be wrong on this but it seems a logical deduction for a partial explanation.)

The sub-unified command proposal that I made in the previous post would be crafted from Nagl's structure with modifications to fit both the joint nature of the beast and the input of both the SOF and conventional communities. It is a really interesting prospect and 20k is not all that many troops.

Cheers

JohnT