For Trump and his generals, ‘victory’ has different meanings

This article written for the Washington Post, discusses the issues that the President and military leaders face when it comes to conducting operations in places like Afghanistan and Syria. More importantly it speaks to the difficulty, in this era, in establishing goals that indicate accomplishment of the mission. It notes that in conflicts like the ones the US is involved in, there seemingly is no definitive milestone that can be reached that signals a 'victory'. This poses a problem as without a set goal, there can be no real course of action. Without this course of action, and ultimate end point, conflicts like these, as we have already seen, turn into long drawn out, stagnant conflicts. These types of conflicts will in turn become increasingly costly, not only financially but in terms of human costs.

-Kevin Druger

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/for-trump-and-his-generals-victory-has-different-meanings/2018/04/05/8d74eab0-381d-11e8-9c0a-85d477d9a226_story.html?utm_term=.3ab06825b5af