The weight of the SysAdmin

'Why We're Winning Now in Iraq: Anbar's citizens needed protection before they would give their "hearts and minds,"' BY FREDERICK W. KAGAN, Wall Street Journal, September 28, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDT

The SysAdmin is not trigger-puller heavy nor munitions heavy, it is personal connectivity and presence heavy.

(Thanks: Tom Wade)

Comments

[Andy]

I often wonder what difference it would have made if we had sent in 300 garbage trucks into Baghdad. What better way to restore a semblance of order than to pick up the trash.

[Andrew]

The SysAdmin is also re-shaping the relationship between SOF and conventional forces. As Big Army institutionalizes its ability to train indigenous forces (though the decision not to field an advisor corps is a setback) for the large-scale nation-building missions, SOF units find themselves doing more and more conventional kill and capture missions in these settings. I do not see SOF completely foregoing abandoning their roots, its just that when the patient is hemorrhaging you need to train up local forces on a much larger scale. They are still good for a vaccine, before major surgery is required. It is hard for many in both communities to accept this, as members of both groups claim they are being misused. The long war places different requirements on our forces and we must be agile enough to use them appropriately.