CALL

Why is the US Army the best in the world? I have worked with the armies of many other nations, from the very good (British) to those getting better (Polish) to the near hapless (Uzbek, Albanian). You can point to our technology, funding, size, and many other factors. One thing that seems to startle other nation's services is our self-criticism and evaluation process. I remember the shocked look on Ukrainian, Greek, Moldovan and other faces when I was giving out evaluations as an Observer-Controller at an exercise in Ukraine in the summer of 2003. One Polish officer said, "In my country, we cannot just do what we want..." That gave me a bit of insight into how we were being perceived. The Polish officer was associating critique with anarchy. [NOTE: The Polish units I served alongside in Afghanistan in 2004-2005 showed improvement in their flexibility and adaptability].
The US Army has its own site to gather examples of where we goofed, where we adapted, where we need to improve, etc. This site is the Center for Army Lessons Learned [CALL]. I am going to be sending them a few tidbits when I get my thoughts together about Operation Crescent Relief.