Another Reason Why Things Are Going Badly in Afghanistan

The lack of 'unity of command' is the reason for Col. Ian Hope. Hope contends that we have too many 'leaders' there. To me, a non-military man, he makes a lot of sense. In most organizations there has to be one person with ultimate authority. He closes with a quote from Eisenhower:

Alliances in the past have often done no more than to name the common foe, and “unity of command” has been a pious aspiration thinly disguising the national jealousies, ambitions and recriminations of high ranking officers, unwilling to subordinate themselves or their forces to a command of different nationality or different service. . . . I was determined, from the first, to do all in my power to make this a truly Allied Force, with real unity of command and centralization of administrative responsibility.