I blame everything on the air force AOC concept and the joint targeting cycle. They are, at their core, an attempt to manage every aspect of a war from one room. It 'works' in peace time when you have exactly 3 real decisions to make a day and a staff of hundreds to orchestrate it but in war it is completely unresponsive, blind because all information comes through the telephone game and bought 100% into the idea that 'if all you have is a hammer, everything is a nail' problem. We have bombs. Let's bomb them. This is why we loose wars.

Our operational level of war is junk. We have forgotten how to create a task force that has has a clear mission with a clear duration, resources, battlespace, ROE and, most importantly, authority to act. McChrystal 'rediscovered' empowering small teams that every flag officer rediscovers eventually in war. If your supporting the commander's cycle means enabling them to make all the decisions then you have just decided to loose the war. They can't make all the decisions. They need to expand that decision making power. That is their job. Build teams that have the authority and resources. Let those teams, if needed, also build teams if the problem is too big. Most importantly though, let those teams act. If you can't trust those commanders to make decisions and act on them then you shouldn't have put them in the job. Divide and conquer is the only solution here and the JTS/AOC model of warfare is the antithesis of this.