I’ve bookmarked it to read the rest later.
For several thousand years, the three indispensable "hardware" elements of any war have been soldiers, weapons and a battlefield. Running through them all has been the "software" element of warfare: its purposefulness.
Something we pay little attention to. We come up with a reasonable sounding purpose to wage war – than assume the job is done and forget about it. Reasons must be kept simple, basic and highly moral.
Moreover, when a nation state or national armed force, (which adheres to certain rules and will only use limited force to obtain a limited goal), faces off with one of these types of organizations, (which never observe any rules and which are not afraid to fight an unlimited war using unlimited means), it will often prove very difficult for the nation state or national armed force to gain the upper hand.
We will forever play by the rules – we aren’t allowed to "lower ourselves to the level of the terrorist". We have to maintain the high moral ground. Every time we gain ground by taking out a high level terrorist operative, there are protests. Special Operations forces are made heroes - until they conduct a successful special operation.
