Observations on the Long War by Conrad Crane

Conrad Crane provides us with his observations of our involvement in conflicts over the past decade and more in this article posted on War on the Rocks. Crane is the Chief of Historical Services for the Army Heritage and Education Center at the Army War College. He is a retired Army officer and contributed to the writing of FM 3-24 in 2006.

He has comments on a wide range of topics. These topics include how to end wars, the asymmetric advantages that the U.S. enjoys in warfare, some limitations on air power (how the media portrays what happens on the ground after an air strike), the future of Foreign Internal Defense (FID) within the DoD, cyber security, social media, mission creep, white vs. dark SOF, importance of understanding human terrain, fighting "one year wars", unit vs. individual rotations, deployed headquarters units using "pickup team" personnel, and the role of counterinsurgency in warfare.

You can read the article online at "Observations on the Long War", War on the Rocks, September 10, 2014 at this link.