That Is Why You Fail

Eric Martin continues the COIN discussion at Obsidian Wings, but I was more caught up with this comment on his post at 8:35 PM:

[John] Nagl was my commander for a short time when I returned from Iraq, and at that time had 17 years active duty.

I think he takes a military bias toward the idea: he is looking at how to achieve whatever objective is given to the military, not whether the objective is in itself a good idea.

Which is probably the correct position for the military to take: "how do we achieve what we have been asked to do?"

It is a peculiar attitude, but the Army leadership has always prided itself on not dickering over the details of how it was going to get something done. They just try to get it done, even if they don't have the resources or manpower. And then they fail, assess why, and plod along. This book pretty much explains it all.

It's not a helpful thing, mostly. Correct, maybe, but not helpful.