Lessons Leaning for the US Army

Excellent guest post over at ricks.foreignpolicy.com by retired LTG Barno.  Barno served as commander of Operating Enduring Freedom--the US ad hoc/unilateral effort in Afghanistan--and butted heads with Rumsfeld--always a good sign.

Anyhow, in his post, he lists ten things the US Army should do as it recovers from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and prepares for its future.  The most important is figuring out how to keep the folks who gained tons of experience and demonstrated heaps of initiative and leadership when they return home to jobs that are simply going to be less interesting and less challenging.  The key is that the Army can make it much worse or ameliorate the downshift. 

My plane in Zurich awaits, so read the rest of it.  Not all of it is ground-breaking but it is pretty sensible.