Marine Corps Gen. Peter Pace, JCS Chairman, thinks that the US military scores well when it come to intent to transform, but its way down the scale on follow-through. At Kirtland AFB, N.M., Wednesday, Pace said that on a 10-point scale measuring transformation progress, the military gets an “8” for intent and a “4” for execution. The problem is not, he says, lack of energy applied, but lack of knowing “what we’re capable of doing.”
U.S. Southern Command recently announced its first lethal strike on a suspected narco-trafficking vessel in two months, and the first under a newly formed permanent counter-cartel task force. The U.S. is also reportedly planning to transfer MQ-9 drones to Colombia to bolster its counter-cartel efforts.