Acting in the Human Domain, but Educating for the Physical Domains

I will never forget a Special Forces (SF) company commander relating the story of his deployment to Haiti in 1994 to my class in the SF Qualification Course. His mission: deploy his team to a certain location and “establish peace”. At the time I had thought he was possibly exaggerating, but since then I have seen many other examples of official guidance which assumed that elements of the military could perform miracles. “Change our culture to one that ensures no sexual harassment or assault”, “Establish non-corrupt governance in Afghanistan”, “Support the development of a viable economic infrastructure”, and “Assist South American security forces in stopping the flow of drugs to the U.S.”are just some examples of the guidance I have seen in official documents. I used to think we did not really believe our official pronouncements, but regardless, the effect is the same: our troops are often asked to do the impossible.