From Hard to Harder: Iraq Retrograde Lessons for Afghanistan

The U.S. Army and DoD have been conducting redeployment and retrograde operations from both Iraq and Afghanistan for the past 11 years. Both Iraq and Afghanistan are unique with their own geographical, operational, and political challenges resulting on different lessons learned. However, many lessons from the Iraq withdrawal are being applied in Afghanistan. This paper will review the joint redeploymentretrograde lessons learned from Iraq and Afghanistan. The author proposes five recommendations to support the retrograde from Afghanistan, including increase divesting opportunities, increase the rate of base closure, increase the monthly retrograde velocity goals, plan for a location to store residual equipment post 2014, and synchronize JOPES retrograde timelines with the commercial contract system for a coordinated retrograde common operating system. The author offers three recommendation from the retrograde lessons learned for potential application to Army 2020.