Wilf:

I think the exam question is misplaced. In irregular warfare, we find the enemy and neutralize them. I suspect that, for the most part, the enemy is known, as are the means to neutralize it.

In this bizarre COIN world, however, what happens when you: (1) find the enemy, but they are the folks you are supposed to support; (2) see that enemy so closely intertwined with undefined externalities that neutralizing them is a separate problem in itself; and, (3) find that the enemy (who we are supporting) is opposed to any path within our resources/capabilities/interests?

I remain concerned that, while the military intelligence community continues to do its thing in a very predictable way, it is missing the point in Afghanistan.

The answers are outside of its analytical sphere, and are not filtering their way in to substantially inform solutions that can work to bring positive transformation.

We can fill this site with answers on the tactics of success in a battle, but not on the strategies of success in a unique multi-dimensional war (or mission, or whatever we want to actually call this thing.

Plenty of folks on this board understand the scope of their sphere---why what is in front of them is not working---and how to alternatively effect what is in front of them. But, at every turn, it is the externalities that limit their success.

Something else is going to need to be developed or to occur. The traditional definitions are all wrong. The traditional questions asked are not the relevant ones. The traditional answers are not useful.

The Graveyard of Empires looms only if the empire cannot adapt to this non-empirical environment. Success is somewhere else.

How do we get at that?