As debate swirls around the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, a new paper published by the Association of the U.S. Army suggests that political and military leaders must examine all facets of the operation as they develop a strategy for future warfare.

“While it might be easy to identify and focus on all of the failures in the Afghan strategy, it is ultimately more constructive to identify and focus not only on the weaknesses but also on the strengths of what occurred, working to understand, develop and refine the formation of strategy for future warfare,” says the paper’s author, Maj. Thomas Pledger.

According to Pledger’s paper, “The United States in Afghanistan: Implications for Future U.S. Strategy Development,” many of the strategy’s details are not yet known due to the short amount of time elapsed since the withdrawal, the lack of available unclassified information and the limited access to adversaries.

These aspects of the strategy, coupled with the personal and emotional connections involved in 20 years of operations, “hinder the full understanding of these events, resulting in unsatisfying answers unlikely to identify a grand purpose or justify the human and fiscal expenses,” writes Pledger, an Army National Guard infantry officer.

The development of strategy, he writes, is never complete or perfect and will always include coordination with political and military leaders at home, foreign leaders and organizations who will vie for making the best use of limited resources. Recognizing, understanding and accounting for outside interests “is a necessary reality,” he writes.

Strategy development “should not be formulaic, but rather be an iterative process where senior civilian and military leaders and experts work to create conditions that coax foreign actors to voluntarily shift their activities to align or support U.S. national interests,” writes Pledger.

Because the process of making decisions is influenced by the various personalities and relationships involved, the process of developing strategy should not be a dictated process. Rather, it should be enabled so the appointed leaders have the flexibility to come up with systems that match their capabilities and desired outcomes, he writes.

Read the full paper here.