USEDCARSALESMAN

Department of Energy

DepartmentofEnergy.com is a new blog that Usedcarsalesman recently began putting together.

"Department of Energy," the generic term within the above URL, is usually what comes to mind when one thinks about an entity, typically at a national or state level, that is in charge of managing energy-related problems within a given jurisdiction. 

Examples of such organizations are:  

• U.S. Department of Energy
• Philippine Department of Energy.  
• Oregon Department of Energy

Why did Usedcarsalesman start DepartmentofEnergy.com?  Reality is because he could. 

But also because he's been following energy technology developments since the 70's.  

And because a non-nation or state specific "Department of Energy"-named site seemed to make sense in this day and age.  

What does Usedcarsalesman mean by that?

Well, it's no news, but almost all people around the globe have to cope with energy-related matters that don't appear to pay much attention to state or national boundaries (frankly since, for better or worse, most energy-related prices are seemingly so largely hinged to prices in internationally-traded, commodity futures markets).    

So, this "Department of Energy," itself merely the humble DepartmentofEnergy.com blog, doesn't limit its focus to a constituency within state or national boundaries.  It can address a world-wide constituency and a world of energy-related problems and solutions.  

You Want A Contractor-Counter-Insurgency (CCI) Guys... P.S. Don't Forget The Iraqi Economy

Usedcarsalesman saw the U.S. dead count in Iraq hit 1000 in late 2004.

It’d be great if he could look back today and say:  Yes, we lost 1000 soldiers, but the U.S ultimately mastered the social, economic, and military environment in Iraq and no additional U.S. soldier deaths were recorded between 2005 and 2008!!  Unfortunately he cannot.

As of March 24, 2008, the U.S. dead count in Iraq has ascended to 4,000. That's 4,000 Americans – people like you or me -- who are now but a memory. 

Who’s to blame for the quadrupling of U.S.combatant deaths in the space of 3.5 years? Certainly the enemy insurgents bear ultimate the responsibility.

However, Usedcarsalesman believes that the insurgency's success at killing our personnel is greatly enhanced due to the following  errors committed by U.S. Leaders:   

I. Employing a Strategy That Does Not Eliminate Insurgency

Chief of the British General Staff, General Sir Richard Dannat, speaking in September 2007, stated that “…With the exception of the Al Qaeda in Iraq element…(Insurgents) are Iraqi Nationalists and are most concerned with their own needs – jobs, money security…”

What does the U.S. use to combat these insurgents  -- these private Iraqi soldiers not a part of any nation’s standing army, and “who are most concerned with their own needs?”  Of course, the U.S. uses the military tool it has most readily available -- its own standing army.  Usedcarsalesman says this is the wrong "tool" for the job

What do we see as a result? A high-stakes, "police-vs.-criminals" scenario, where the U.S. Armed Forces play the “police” and "insurgents"  play the "criminals."  And Just as with crime in the U.S., we ultimately see that the Iraqi Insurgency is never entirely eliminated. it's managed or perhaps reduced, but never wiped out.

If the U.S. wishes to eliminate insurgency, Usedcarsalesman says that the U.S. must rapidly fund a different "tool."    It must fund a Superior Counter-insurgency force composed of private soldiers who are of U.S. origin and military background and -- like the Iraqi insurgents -- most concerned about their own needs including  jobs, money, and security.

Namely, the U.S.must work with Private Military Companies to create a Contractor Counter- Insurgency (CCI) force of 50,000 to 100,000 men.

This force could be achieved by drawing deeper from the current pool of ex-combat soldiers, ex-Marines, ex-Army Rangers, and ex-Officers with those forces, as well as by using an even larger number of ex-soldiers / sailors and officers from Special Operations Units – Army Special Forces, Recon Marines, and Navy SEALS.   

Yes, money and lots of it, would serve as the aforementioned "draw."  But as General Dannat said above,  "jobs, money and security" are what motivates the Iraqi Insurgents.   So, the ethical equation  balances out, so to speak.

Usedcarsalesman believes that in effect, such a Contractor-Counter-Insurgency (CCI) force – essentially "Mercenaries" who are mostly U.S. citizens with U.S. military training and loyalties– would put the Iraqi Insurgency Out-of-Business. The CCI would become the sole “Insurgency” in Iraq by forcing the competition – Iraqi Insurgents -- to do something else or die!

II. Failing To Adequately Rebuild (Remodel?) The Economy of Iraq

Iraq’s adult population -- namely the guys willing to carry the gritty AK-47s -- has faced  chronic low or under-employment for the last 5 years in no small part due to the U.S. invasion. Also, Iraq, itself, has had to struggle under more than a decade of foreign-trade embargos following its invasion of Kuwait in 1990.  Add the continued presence of an occupying army to the mix and Iraq finds itself with a nice case of domestic insurgency.

Usedcarsalesman, however, says that the failure of the U.S. to enable full and ample employment of the native population has left conditions in Iraq especially fertile for Insurgency 

Is it not reasonable to assume that all people who are unemployed and who want to work will potentially turn in to "outlaws" if they fail to find adequate employment (true for the United States as well as Iraq probably)? Is it not reasonable to assume that people who work and make a decent living typically want to avoid trouble, embrace security and obey the law (since failure to do so only puts what they have -- their recently-earned money, assets, well-being of family -- at risk)?  Exactly!

How Does The U.S. Fix The Aforementioned Two Problems?  Usedcarsalesman humbly submits the following solutions:

I. Voters Should Elect Either Sen. Barack Obama or Sen. Hillary Clinton as the Next President of The United States.

Here's why:  We know that Obama or Hillary will withdrawal U.S. combat soldiers -- Hillary in a probably more moderate fashion than Obama.  What most voters don’t seem to realize is that such  U.S.troop withdrawals won't necessarily mean that the United States is exiting Iraq.  

Instead, Obama or Hillary’s "troop withdrawal" action will enable former U.S. combat soldiers to freely rotate back to Iraq as well-paid military contractors. And trust Usedcarsalesman, most of those guys will want to do just that.

Sen. John McCain -- he a great leader and patriot and also an old, third-generation Naval Academy War Horse -- will not withdrawal troops.  In fact he will add troops -- the poorly paid Army/Navy/Marine guys enjoying mediocre public support and experiencing little in the way of perks other than ready-access to base fast-food -- and the U.S. will see another 5,000 U.S. soldiers come home in body bags in the next 8 years.

Yes, you could argue that 5,000 well-paid military contractors will come home in body bags in 8 years instead.  However, Usedcarsalesman would contend that those dead military contractors went to Iraq by choice, knew the risks, and could leave at any time. They were not there for some vague or questionable national objective, either 

(All is not peril for a CCI force of military contractors.   Keep in mind these well-paid privateers could afford – and have the leeway -- to arm and armor themselves with state-of-the-art equipment, thus cutting some of the risk of death and injury that they would face using “Standard-Issue” (Lowest-Bidder) gear .

II. The U.S. and The Rest of The U.N. Needs to Get the Iraqi Economy Moving Full-Throttle

Usedcarsalesman wants to see Iraqi Movie Studios bigger than Warner Bros., Iraqi Investment Banks that dwarf Morgan Stanley, Iraqi Entrepreneurs that make Steve Jobs seem flat-footed, Iraqi shopping malls better than anything in Tyson's Corner, Va., Iraqi hotels better than the best in Dubai, world-renowned Iraqi Universities, an Iraqi Six Flags,  a dozen Iraqi Harley Dealerships and Walmarts.   

He doesn't want a single Iraqi to have time to contemplate picking up a weapon unless it’s at the newly built gun club down the road from the new Coach store in Baghdad. And he wants each Iraqi citizen pining for pictures of Ray Kroc and Donald Trump to hang in their home-offices (not pictures of explosive-vested martyrs).

Yes, you could say that the aforementioned economy would be a better state of affairs for many people in the United States, let alone Iraq. And Usedcarsalesman is forced to agree.   

The good news is that the U.S. may gain experience "fixing" Iraq that will enable it to correct its own problems at home

Have Your "Halawa" and Eat It, Too

The phrase, “to have your cake and eat it, too” means, “to want more than one can handle or deserve, or to try to have two incompatible things,” at least according to Wikipedia. But, since this post has to do with the recent “execution” of Saddam Hussein and since “Cake” is apparently hard to find on dining tables in Iraq where traditional fare is served, Usedcarsalesman will, here, use the term, “Halawa” (an Iraqi dessert sliced and served with Pita bread) in place of “Cake.”

In this post, Usedcarsalesman speculates that the U.S. has managed to, in a manner of speaking, “Have its Halawa and Eat it too,” with regards to the “death” of Saddam Hussein.

“Have Your Halawa”

Saddam Hussein, alive, is an intelligence resource. But, you kill him and you can never use him in the future to do things such as verify claims made by terrorists supposedly associated with the old Iraqi government, or maybe ask him for the PIN numbers (sic) to unlock the security on weapons-of- mass-destruction found in the Iraqi desert (Usedcarsalesman hopes that’s a joke).

Frankly, one could reasonably argue that it’s in the interest of U.S. National Security to keep Saddam Hussein alive and in custody. Usedcarsalesman speculates that Saddam Hussein is just that.

“Eat it, Too”

However, to the people who have directly or indirectly suffered as a result of Saddam Hussein’s rule, the idea of Hussein sidestepping execution is likely unthinkable. And, it also seems a political necessity in Iraq that Saddam “dies” -- the “life” of the new Iraqi government may depend on it. So, to “Eat it Too”, the U.S. needs to achieve the political affect of Hussein’s death without actually killing him.

As such, the world is shown Saddam Hussein led to the gallows and apparently hanged to death. We see little cell phone snippets, etc. The crowds of people in Iraqi streets rejoice.

The political effect is achieved and so, the U.S. gets to have its “Halawa” (Saddam captured and in custody, a valuable U.S. intelligence resource is maintained) while receiving the benefits of apparently eating it, too (Saddam executed, new Iraqi government and legal system legitimized, Iraqi citizenry celebrates, U.S. looks like it has achieved a goal and seems a hero to many in the world).

But, like Usedcarsalesman said, the aforementioned is just his speculation ;)

"Western Insurgents:" Private Military Companies and the Evolution of Their Operations in Iraq

The web-site, Privatemilitary.org, states that "Private Military Companies" or "PMCs" are:

"...legally established enterprises that make a profit by either providing services involving the potential exercise of force in a systematic way and by military means, and/or by the transfer of that potential to clients through training and other practices, such as logistics support, equipment procurement, and intelligence gathering. It is a potential because the mere presence of a PMC can deter aggressors from considering the use of force a viable course of action. Neither does there have to be an actual or potential military role; a PMC's involvement may as well be directed towards enhancing the recipient's military and security capabilities."

Privatemilitary.org also seeks to differentiate PMC personnel in the field from mercercenaries:

"The foreign or multinational constitution of various legitimate military actors challenge common perceptions of 'mercenaries' as simply soldiers in foreign service and/or working for private gain. Hence Private Military Companies, as well as the military units listed here, should not be labeled or dismissed as simply mercenary forces, there are many other factors to consider when defining either mercenary forces or PMCs."

Well, Usedcarsalesman believes that the executives at PMCs may, understandably, wish to encourage a more open-minded public view of what their companies do. But, the reality is that the rank-and-file guy who contracts with a PMC is simply capitalizing on his hard-earned, specialized military skills in trade for high-pay and the self-esteem that comes from having his skills needed by other entities in the world. He's, for better or worse, a mercenary.

Now this isn't Usedcarsalesman writing some post on how bad mercenaries are for the world etc. In fact, he believes that employing PMCs contractors, lately termed "American Gangsters" or "Western Insurgents" is actually a winning decision -- at least in strategic terms -- for the U.S. In fact, said PMCs are likely the only military organizations that are unencumbered enough to make Iraq a reasonably civilized place for foreign investment and domestic reconstruction, Post-Saddam, in the 21st century.

But, you might ask, "Why PMC's in Iraq? Don't we have Special Operations Forces to kill the insurgents and train the Iraqi police?"

As you may recall, the U.S. Armed Forces defeated the Iraqi military quite rapidly in the 2003 invasion. But, what the U.S. Forces responds to now are "insurgents" -- ex-military or aggressive civilian Iraqis but mostly foreign nationals who want to invest their likely soon-to-be-abbreviated lives in sniping, exploding IEDs, or blowing themselves up to kill the U.S. military and Iraqi citizens allied with it.

Usedcarsalesman says that when you confront an insurgency composed of (likely ex-military) civilians, you defeat it using a vastly superior "Insurgency" composed of (likely ex-military) civilians.

Within this dynamic, its is apparent that U.S. special operations units are not right for the job of defeating an Iraqi insurgency -- like it or not, they are part of an apparatus who's war is basically over and won in Iraq. Instead, you, like the U.S., purchase the services of a vastly superior "Insurgency," a "Western Insurgency" -namely that of Private Military Companies.

More on PMCs:

Private Military Company men are highly-paid & well-equipped. There are no political repercussions when employing them as personnel -- no notes home to mother's who's sons have died fighting for the U.S. effort. And PMC personnel do not have to follow a Military Code of Conduct (as of 2006), their violations of which would be used by enemy insurgents to make a case against them in the international media.

One of the PMC "number" is disposable, dis-ownable, can be labeled a "humanitarian worker" when his actual work for the day was the execution of 42 "head-shot" kills. Or he can be dressed as a Red Cross aid-worker when, in reality, he was actually part of a death squad formed to assassinate specific enemy insurgent individuals. Even better for the Pentagon, PMC personnel can be scape-goated.  They get out of hand and the military employer with whom they contract can cut its ties to them, say "we had no idea." But, no matter what, the Pentagon does not get "stuck-with-the-'political'-check" in the press when "outsourcing" to PMCs.

Are there enough personnel in PMCs to get the job done in Iraq?  Frankly, Usedcarsalesman says no. Many in the PMC fold are being used to train the developing Iraqi police force, the idea being to allow the Iraqi citizenry to self-police and self-govern. Usedcarsalesman, your humble blogger says, "yeah right."

Usedcarsalesman knows that the Iraqi police force is composed of the same guys that were in Iraq when Saddam was around.  And those guys have demonstrated a strong precedent of doing whatever they have to keep their heads on their shoulders and feed their families, even if it means playing ball with the new guys in charge, the U.S. military. 

Also, consider that most of the Iraqi Police force likely also lost brothers, fathers, uncles, cousins in Desert Storm, circa 1990-91 and again in the 2003 invasion. You don't think, despite oaths and background investigations, that many in the Iraqi Police are going to be up for some sabotage, revenge etc?

So the PMCs may end up facing what U.S. military faced in the Vietnam War: a need for reliable personnel other than native citizens to help them fight in, police and control a given area. The United States instituted a draft in the 1960s to assemble such additional personnel for the Vietnam conflict. It didn't have the desired effect, but what else was the U.S. going to do, then, during the Cold War?

To run Iraq, PMCs (non-governmental organizations) will take a different tact to raise the private army they are going to need:  they will offer cash via their large client (the U.S.), a lot of it and to a lot more ex-military people than they are currently. Usedcarsalesman expects to see Iraq turn in to even more of a large scale, "Wild West," "Wyatt Earp," Soldier of Fortune paradise over the next decade. It's certainly been moving up in that direction for the last two years, just as have the fortunes of PMCs.

As a result of their likely effectiveness in Iraq, Usedcarsalesman predicts that Private Military Companies will become seen as one of the new, dominant "faces" of Warfare in the 21st century.

Looking at "War in Iraq, 2004" Post

Maybe you can look back to help get an idea for where the future is leading. So to do just that, Usedcarsalesman recently read through a post he did on November 7, 2004, titled "War in Iraq, 2004" (deep in the November, 2004 Archives)

In that 2004 post, in addition to getting a little ticked off, Usedcarsalesman broadly questioned the performance of the U.S. military command apparatus as it related to Iraq. He compared the relatively low casualty levels from the Desert Storm, circa 1991, with the more than 1000 U.S. soldiers that had been killed to that point in Iraqi Freedom thus far. He questioned the lack of appropriate armor for U.S. troops and their Humvees. And, he questioned the military intelligence community, who had apparently failed to "game" the invasion of Iraq down to the proper detail level, if at all.

Well, about a year and a half has gone by since that post. The current number of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq is apparently at 2400 persons, according to antiwar.com; this means an additional 1400 persons, predominantly male combat personnel, have died in Iraq since November 2004. Does this, however, mean we are on track to lose about 1000 U.S. soldiers a year in the sunny, sandy home of ancient Babylon for the foreseeable future? Maybe, maybe not.

In defense of the U.S. military, our troops have, in the last year and a half, been equipped with better armor, as have their vehicles. New revolutionary "Dragon Skin" armor now offers some U.S. troops flexibility, light-weight, and protection against multiple rifle-round hits (something that a Kevlar vest could only do when equipped with heavy ceramic plates, a heavy burden in the Middle East).

U.S. Humvees have been fitted with armor packages that resist IEDs (Improvised Explosive Devices), RPGs (Rocket-Powered Grenades) and high-caliber rifle fire. And, classified technology has apparently filled in a few weak spots elsewhere, such as the blocking of insurgent transmission signals to IEDs. So, U.S. troops on patrol in Iraq appear to be better-equipped for their hostile environment.

Unfortunately, the insurgency (the enemy in Iraq and elsewhere) is in the business of attacking weak-spots. Usedcarsalesman is forced to surmise that If the U.S. has strengthened its initial weaknesses by making U.S. combat personnel in Iraq harder targets, then the insurgents will attempt to hit U.S. soft-spots elsewhere.

Usedcarsalesman does fear that, as U.S. forces in Iraq become, essentially, more unassailable to insurgents, that said insurgents may attack, in the name of their cause, outside of Iraq (or Afghanistan). And, yes, they may attack where U.S. persons do not commonly wear "Dragon Skin" and drive Armored Humvees: Here in the States.

Best-of-the-Bomb

The previous post about IMAX and the Air And Space Museum has led Usedcarsalesman to recall both his life in Washington D.C. and the city's Cold-War, political climate during the Carter and Reagan years.

             

Obviously, back then, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) was still alive and kicking.  To the young, impressionable Usedcarsalesman, it looked like the U.S. would, unfortunately, be "wrestling" with this nuclear Super-Power in to the 21st century and beyond.  Frankly, the aforementioned Super-Power "wrestling match" seriously scared Usedcarsalesman, especially growing up in proximity to Washington, D.C. -- a city obviously a target for numerous Soviet warheads.

                   

Hollywood hadn't helped Usedcarsalesman's young perspective much.  He had watched highly publicized movies like 1983's, The Day After , with Jason Robards, Steve Guttenberg and John Lithgow and basically thought, "it's only a matter of time; two sides have all this nuclear firepower sitting there, one sides going to cough and the other side is going to "seize the day," push the button and that's that."

With this backdrop of Nuclear Armageddon, Usedcarsalesman was embarrassed to say it, but he literally sometimes had trouble investing himself in daily, "real" life in and around Washington, D.C. To him, what was the point? It was all just going to get blown up.  Usedcarsalesman couldn't really see a "cup-half-full" when it came to the portrayal of nuclear war scenarios.

And you'd be amazed at the calculations that could run through a little Usedcarsalesman's mind on a subject like Global Thermonuclear War . He'd drive with his father to his office in D.C. and look at all the traffic and think, "there's no way all these people are going to be able to make it out of a city within 30 minutes of a launch alert." He'd watch stops of the Washington D.C. area metro being built and think, "hey guys, the subway tunnels are just going to collapse, come on we're talking 10 megatons, 200 times Hiroshima here!"

                  

Usedcarsalesman would ask his family if they had a real idea of what they were going to do if a nuclear strike was eminent, what plans they had for meeting up, regrouping, escape routes planned. He'd become angry when I heard through friends of friends that X's Dad at the CIA was moving his family out to the "safety" of Jefferson County in the West Virginia panhandle and taking the train to Langley each day. He was bothered when the issues of nuclear warfare were not taken seriously by friends, family, adults, etc.; and like Usedcarsalesman said, he was only about 12 years old.
               
But strangely, life seemed to move on. There never were any sirens or a mad rush of millions from Washington D.C. to the safety of the countryside and many of the underground bomb-shelters closed. And apparently, it was a flaunting of the West's economic freedoms on TV screens that seemed to be the real, overriding "tip-of-the-spear," the one to apparently cause Soviet citizens to demand change in their governing system. Usedcarsalesman saw the Cold War end and terrorism emerge as the only "continuation of politics by other means" that the U.S. didn't seem to have a "lid" for.

               

In conclusion, Usedcarsalesman don't really know what the moral of this post is. Maybe it's that when a situation seems to have no "cup half full" perspective and you can't do anything alone or in a group to control it, then you ignore the situation? Usedcarsalesman guesses so.  That's what most healthy people seemed to do during the Reagan and Carter years.

                        

Of course, just the other day, Usedcarsalesman read that the U.S. is building a nuclear bunker buster weapon to destroy deeply buried enemy fortifications, likely in the Middle East.  In light of this, Usedcarsalesman wonders if Starz online or anybody on Kazaa might have a viewable file of The Day After sitting around, you know, a "cliff-notes," "Best-of-the-Bomb"-type version to help him take an abbreviated, digitized stroll down Washington D.C., Cold War memory lane?  After all, Nuclear strikes might be "back on the table" for the U.S.; and, if you "give," you are probably going to "get," so to speak.

War in Iraq, 2004

Usedcarsalesman was in college down at The University of Virginia when the first Gulf War was being fought in 1990 and 1991.  Back then, he'd routinely come back to his place after classes each day, sit on the couch and watch CNN footage of various Iraqi targets being "taken out" by laser-guided missiles.  At the time Usedcarsalesman thought: "Man, those guys at the Pentagon really got their s%#t together."

 

Even then, Usedcarsalesman realized that the Pentagon "got their "s%#t together" probably as a result of a major institutional overhaul since the Vietnam War.  And this overhaul probably included doing things such as "gaming" a "War in the Persian Gulf" a million times, just as the Pentagon had gamed through defense of Europe against a Soviet Tank onslaught during the Cold War.
            
With this in mind, Usedcarsalesman now looks at current events in the Persian Gulf and asks:  "What happened with the "gaming" of the invasion and occupation of Iraq by the U.S. and coalition forces, post-9/11?" Didn't the U.S. and coalition forces have intelligence personnel who had done a million games of "IRAQI FREEDOM" in the 90s and who then concluded: 

1. This is how we win Iraq. 
2. This is how we deal with its insurgents and holdout areas.
3. This is how we deal with people who were family (and who might still hold a few grudges) to the 100,000 Iraqi soldiers killed 10 years ago in the first Gulf War.
4. This is how we deal with IEDs.

Unfortunately, Usedcarsalesman really doesn't know the answer. More than a thousand U.S. citizen/ soldiers have died in Iraq so far in the last fiscal year or so largely from IEDs or stray gunfire.

Obviously, this is outrageous in light of Desert Storm, circa '91, in which the U.S. lost a grand total of what, 160 people (mostly due to car accidents in US held areas and one stray scud)?!  And Usedcarsalesman says that even if the US did not "game" IEDs in to their post-9/11 Iraqi invasion plan, Usedcarsalesman maintains that there is no excuse for a failure to address the current threat to the Coalition soldiers.

In fact, the U.S. military has publicly demonstrated that it is capable of rapid, mid-conflict procurements of military materials when it wants to. For example, in 1991 when U.S. forces confronted a buried Iraqi command bunker that they could not destroy with laser-guided bombs, coalition forces developed a "Bunker-Buster" -- a chopped-off battleship gun barrel filled with gunpowder, capped at the ends and dropped from a fighter-bomber -- within in a matter of days.  This scratch-built bomb was shipped to Iraq and then employed successfully within hours of being in country.
             
Is developing a bunker buster -- other than requiring significantly less mass-production -- any different from better protecting a large number of coalition troops in Iraq in 2004? And if insurgents are using car bombs and package bombs or booby traps or whatever on a massive scale to foil U.S. coalition efforts,, is it not an immediate national imperative, just as with the '91 Bunker-Buster, to make sure our forces receive the proper weapons and equipment?

Usedcarsalesman says that the words of the U.S. and Coalition military leaders should now read like the following: "I don't care if you have to equip 500,000 U.S. soldiers with solar-powered, air-conditioned, Kevlar-ceramic-plated, bomb-squad suits... you get that gear on the troops within the week! I don't care if you have to outfit every Humvee with exploding-reactive armor from Israel, you get that gear on there a day from now if you are serious about winning!"

Usedcarsalesman cannot account for this oversight by the U.S. generals or intelligence officials responsible for these matters. And unfortunately, based on the number of U.S. troops dead or catastrophically injured thus far, it would appear somebody has forgotten (or chosen to forget) the near perfect U.S./Coalition execution of the Gulf War in 1991.

Usedcarsalesman will, however, say that he is heartened that the U.S. and Coalition leaders have shown a precedent of learning from mistakes in the past.  Troops need them to do the same, only much faster this time.