Rob,

You're doing great work, and I assure you, there are leaders at SOCOM far senior and smarter than I that hang a great deal of hope on SFA. I just think they look at it very differently than it is being looked at within the conventional force. They see all the shades of goodness from a career of doing this business, and know how horribly limiting our current funding and authorities are for getting out and engaging with and building relations with security forces around the world. SFA is a vehicle to enable FID to rise to the next level, a level more appropriate for the world as it exists today. The actual training is only about half of the benefit.

Marc,

I was fortunate to attend conference on "Grand Strategy After War" hosted by Duke University, with many notable speaker/attendees like Dr John Gaddis of Yale, and Dr. Kratzner of Stanford. After a couple days of discussing grand strategy, I asked "Does Grand Strategy require a threat?" It was something these guys really hadn't considered because it has always been crafted as such. The "politics of fear" and all.

This is part of what is mentally slowing us down today. The world remains a dangerous place, but no matter how hard we try to get some state or some non-state to play "threat" for us to allow us to apply the old model and make the old strategies work, it just doesn't make sense. Today the things that threaten your nation the most are not other states and not non-state UW guys like bin laden. It is this globalization empowered and connected mix of "things" going on all over the world. At the middle of all of those things are people. People empowered like never before, people connected like never before.

Deterring the Soviets really when all was said and done only required that we deter one man. Today "deterrence" means deterring people everywhere. Infinitely more complex. Requries bold new thinking and bold new approaches. Bigger hammers won't do it. More security will never be enough security. It means we must not only be strong, but we must also be good. We've not been so good of late. Justified by the Cold War for a while, but then just running wild during the Clinton years, then justified by GWOT, but now once again that has worn thin.

Remember when the use of military force by the US was a rare and very big deal?

Most Americans don't.