Will We Learn Anything ? - William R.Polk

Brilliant two part series (part 1 & part 2) by James Fallows - A must read with Syrian War looming around the horizon:

What Russian's learned from Afghan War:

Almost from the beginning the Soviet forces engaged in counterinsurgency tactics.  The Russians learned that they could get better intelligence, and so win battles and avoid ambushes, if they performed "civic action."  Instead of money, they offered services.  Inspired by the Médecins Sans Frontières,  they trained intelligence officers in rudimentary medical skills - as American forces later did -- before sending them out into the villages.   They undertook large-scale programs also in education,  government reform, social affairs including women's rights, irrigation and road building.  Remarkably, they trained over 70,000 workers in relatively modern techniques.   But, as Braithweaite has written,

"They discovered...that most Afghans preferred their own ways, and were not going to change them at the behest of a bunch of godless foreigners and home-grown infidels.  The Russians did not, and could not, address this fundamental strategic issue."

Now, the main 13 enlightening questions about Syria and of-course the answers (read the all the 13 Q&A and it's worth the time):

1. What actually happened?
2. What has been reported?
3. Who has told us what we think we know?
4. Who are the possible culprits and what would be their motivations?
5. Who are the insurgents? 
6. What is the context in which the attack took place?
7. What are chemical weapons and who has used them? 
8. What the law on the use of chemical weapons holds? 
9. Pro and con on attack  
10. The role of the UN 
11. What is likely to happen now?  
12. What would be the probable consequences of an attack?
13. What could we possibly gain from an attack?

When a powerful government takes a step in any direction, the step is almost certain to have long-term consequences.  But, it seldom that leaders consider the eventual consequences. What happens?  Inevitably,  having taken step "A," it narrows its options.  It is embarked upon one  path and not another one.  At that point, step "B" often seems the logical thing to do whereas some other, quite different sort of action on a different path, seems inappropriate in the  context that step "A" has created.  At the same time, in our highly visual age with the forces of television coming to bear, governments, particularly in societies where public opinion or representation exist, come under pressure to do something as President Obama said in the remarks I have just quoted.  Where lobbies represent sectors of the economy and society with vested interests, the pressure to do something become immense.  We have often seen this in American history.  One political party stands ready to blame the other for failure to act.  And fear of that blame is often persuasive.  Thus, step "C" takes on a life of its own quite apart from what is suggested by a calm analysis of national interest, law or other considerations.  And with increasing speed further steps are apt to become almost inevitable and even automatic.  If you apply this model to Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, you can see how modest first steps led to eventual massive involvement.