Mike,

I always admired your passion and courage to speak with your heart, and wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors. I think your goals are important and like you I strongly suspect there is a better way, and it isn't COIN doctrine, it isn't the 3Ds, or hearts and minds, or any other fad that we have promoted. It probably is community and embracing our humanity. For a nation that claims to promote peace, we do over glorify war. Warriors will always be needed to defend societies, but we don't need to become Sparta to do so.

There has to be a better way than forever fighting the Long War. I’ll start figuring it out by waging a little peace.
We can't force peace, development, democracy or anything else upon others, we can only share it when they're receptive to it. It seems to me when we try to force it upon others, even with the best of intentions, we create an energy that then creates a countervailing energy that only spirals the violence upwards. This doesn't enable peace, but then again allowing the thugs to run the show doesn't either, so the right approach is still beyond our grasp and we need people to think hard about this and not simply come up with simpleton phrases like "hearts and minds" or if we just give them jobs, or we just need to kill more bad guys.

At best the military can implement a momentary peace only when it applies more energy than our opponents can oppose, and that momentary peace will only last as long as maintain that level of energy output. Maybe Ricks is right by default, I don't think the intent of the surge was to enable an honorable withdrawal, but it did in fact enable just that.

I doubt I will dismiss the necessity of war at times, which in itself is unfortunate, but over the years I have been humbled, and like you, I have learned the limitations of military force. To add to that, I have also have seen the limitations of diplomacy and development (at least the way we do it), so finding a better way is imperative.

Despite our tactical successes, however, we never arrived at a lasting peace. Nancy and Anna challenged me to begin looking at these types of conflicts differently.
All our talk about irregular "warfare" and why it is so important, and yet after years of it, whether "fighting" the drug war, countering insurgencies, or conducting stability operations, etc., we have rarely achieved our ends, and in our wake have left tens of thousands dead, homeless, angry and mobilized. All with the best intentions.