The Platoon Leader's Fight: Lessons from Maiwand

Excellent article in the Small Wars Journal by Alexander Frank.

This point needs to be quoted in full:

Train your men for flexibility
The single best training you can do is squad-level situational training in which your squads get hit from multiple directions by direct fire mixed with IEDs or suicide bombers. After defeating the ambush, have a large group of civilians come up to them while they are evacuating their casualties. The transition between direct fire and dealing with non-combatants will be key. To add more realism to it, make it a force-on-force. Task one of your squads with conducting the ambush and one to reacting to it. Grade both squads at the same time.

Read the rest of this paragraph:

...There should at least be one person devoted to intelligence full time, and one person devoted to money and politics full time in every company.

This is what at bottom you're doing:

...the basis of governance is a consistent set of enforceable rules that bring stability, security and order to people’s lives. People will kill for it and Afghan leaders will need your help if they are going to achieve it...