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Six Steps To Victory
By Slab
MAJ Eric Egland USAFR recently came up with what I believe to be an excellent plan for "changing directions" in our fight in Iraq. I found his article intriguing and very well thought out. I whole heartedly agree with some of his suggestions, and others challenge my own ideas on how to fight this war. I say "challenge" because they are forcing me to rethink my own ideas, and evaluate whether or not they are truly as sound as I thought they were.
Just to give you a taste, the six points of his plan are listed below.
1. Encourage innovation by emphasizing small-scale technological solutions and rejecting peace-time bureaucracy.
2. Improve pre-deployment training and abandon Cold War-era checklists.
3. Allow local commanders to buy what they need and nationalize the war effort by connecting the American public with the troops and their mission.
4. Strengthen intelligence sharing between tactical and national levels, and develop a national insurgent database.
5. Take the offensive by reducing the predictable patterns on the ground while conducting operations that hunt, rather than chase, the enemy.
6. Accept the realities of warfare in the media age by decentralizing the sharing of information with both the Iraqi and American public.
The last point in particular should interest our readers, and Milbloggers as a whole. It's been said again and again that if DoD does not embrace blogging, it will end up being a huge problem for the Pentagon and detrimental to the war effort. If they take advantage of the perspective offered by military bloggers, perhaps even embracing Egland's "unit blogger" concept, it could very well turn out to be a huge advantage in the information war.
MAJ Egland has some excellent ideas, and I hope that they garner the attention that they deserve. You can help by spreading the word about his article. In addition, for those with experience on the ground, MAJ Egland is actively seeking your thoughts and opinions. There is an e-mail address at the bottom of the last page of the article that can be used to submit your ideas.
Hat tip to Blackfive.
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Comments
Blogs are the new weapon in the propaganda war.
Use them, or get whipped by them.
Major Egland does a good job of explaining his six points in the linked article, but the wording of the points themselves could be improved significantly to make them more clear. In the context of his longer article, they are sufficient, but when excerpted as bullet points, they are confusing.
The first four points use the word "and," making the point seem "double-barreled." For example, in point number three, it is not clear what allowing commanders to "buy what they need" has to do with connecting the American public with the mission. After reading the article, I understand the point; however, the points themselves could be re-written to more clearly and concisely convey the ideas. I would start by eliminating all conjunctions in the points.
I'm not just trying to be picky, but rather sharpen the message. The article is good, but if one of the main points is that we must become more efficient at transmitting messages, we need to make sure the message is easy to transmit.
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'1. Encourage innovation by emphasizing small-scale technological solutions and rejecting peace-time bureaucracy.
2. Improve pre-deployment training and abandon Cold War-era checklists.
3. Allow local commanders to buy what they need and nationalize the war effort by connecting the American public with the troops and their mission.
4. Strengthen intelligence sharing between tactical and national levels, and develop a national insurgent database.
5. Take the offensive by reducing the predictable patterns on the ground while conducting operations that hunt, rather than chase, the enemy.
6. Accept the realities of warfare in the media age by decentralizing the sharing of information with both the Iraqi and American public.'
Here are some of my additional stages for victory.
7. Have a media that doesn't leak classified information that helps the enemy by being the propaganda tool that just keeps on givin'.
8. Have a media that doesn't distort reality to fit their cocktail party political beliefs.
9. Have America wake up and smell the coffee again and understand what war is and the long term threat of this enemy. The caffeine kick on the 9/11 brew has worn off and they are asleep at the wheel again...hopefully they won't need another bitter cup of coffee.
10. Have politicians who leave politics at the water's edge and want to defeat the enemy.
11. Cut off our leadership's and servicemen's bound hands to crush the enemy and not worry about 10 bizillion lawyers litigating to judges to get their desired outcome.