Operating with just 0.1% of the defense budget and facing immense logistical challenges, AFRICOM has become an "experimentation theater." It pioneers remote advisory techniques, new technologies, and unconventional tactics that are combat-evaluated and then exported to better-resourced commands.

The military fails to effectively transfer knowledge between rotating units in a conflict zone. Incoming units often discard their predecessors' experience, believing they can do better, thus repeating the same errors and failing to build on crucial, hard-won lessons.

The policy of rotating commanders on one-year tours was a critical strategic flaw in Afghanistan. Each new commander arrived believing they had the "recipe for success" and would change the strategy, resulting in a series of disconnected, short-term plans that prevented long-term progress.

Military analyst Andrew Exum predicted that the war in Ukraine would become 'the best excuse the US army ever found to never say the words Iraq and Afghanistan again.' The institution is rapidly pivoting to large-scale combat operations, dismantling specialized units like the Asymmetric Warfare Group and discarding hard-won counterinsurgency knowledge.

While veterans bring a crucial ground-truth perspective to policy, their experience is often narrow. Effective policymakers need to understand the broader bureaucratic machine, from the Pentagon to Congress, to see how the entire system functions.

The US effort was fragmented among three groups: conventional forces, partnered Special Operations (CJSOTF), and direct-action kill/capture teams (JSOC). These 'tribes' often pursued incompatible goals, with JSOC night raids sometimes undermining the relationship-building efforts of infantry commanders in the same area, hindering the overall mission.

The US Army's extensive counterinsurgency experience from the Global War on Terror is largely irrelevant in modern peer-level conflicts. Forces like the Ukrainians and Russians now possess far more relevant and recent combat experience, particularly regarding drone warfare and large-scale conventional operations.

Twenty years of focusing on counterinsurgency in Iraq and Afghanistan caused the Army's core competencies for conventional warfare to degrade significantly. For example, short-range air defense (SHORAD) capabilities were so gutted that the Army had to rebuild the entire skill set from scratch, as there were no experienced NCOs left to train new soldiers.

Despite China's rapid military buildup, the US maintains a critical advantage: decades of real-world combat experience. Under Secretary of War Emil Michael notes that US generals have learned hard lessons from the Global War on Terror, while their Chinese counterparts lack recent conflict experience.