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Although I agree wholeheartedly with the concept of picking and choosing our battles with the goal of maximizing our potential for success, I didn’t get the feeling from Douglas Macgregor’s article, “Refusing battle,” [April] that the author had a well-defined concept for counterterrorism.

If we utilize his model of purpose/method/end-state framework, would it be effective to frame it in the following terms?

• Purpose: Preventing anti-U.S. terrorist organizations from performing large-scale attacks on U.S. soil and our allies.

• Method: Aggressively engaging terrorist organizations across multiple battlescapes to include direct action, financial assets, media inputs, intelligence operations and cultural engagement in a coordinated effort with our committed allies and allies of convenience.

• End-state: Anti-U.S. terrorist organizations incapable of performing attacks on U.S. soil or allied soil with potential impacts of greater than 20 lives.

Maj. David F. Bigelow

Army United Launch Alliance Transition “Red” Team Lead,

Launch Vehicle Operations

Littleton, Col.