Ian Smith 🚁🛠️🇺🇸

.@SECWAR “One of the most alarming findings of our comprehensive review was that our war colleges actively AVOID the rigorous study of recent American strategic failures. Faculty dismiss them as ‘sore subjects’ or politically sensitive topics. We must ask ourselves: How can an institution claim to teach military strategy while refusing to conduct an unsparing autopsy of, for example, the catastrophic withdrawal in Afghanistan? Thirteen brave American service members were murdered at Abbey Gate due to gross operational, strategic, and political failures. The chaotic collapse of that theater was an unmitigated disaster for American credibility. Our war colleges owe it to every sailor, soldier, airman, and Marine who served in that twenty-year conflict – a brutally honest post-mortem. Why did our senior leadership fail to foresee the collapse? Why did our operational plans unravel in days? f our future generals and flag officers do not study – and understand – that collapse with clinical precision, they are doomed to repeat it in other AORs and other domains.”