The US did not lose the war against the VC, they stopped supporting south vietnam's war against the VC and withdrew because the war became unpopular. The distin

The US did not lose the war against the VC, they stopped supporting south vietnam's war against the VC and withdrew because the war became unpopular. The distinction is important because ultimately it wasn't America's war and the VC did not overwhelm the US military into surrender. It was the civilian government of the US that directed an end of their involvement. If anything, China won a cold war against the US who feared a direct conflict and caved in. With Afghanistan, the war against the taliban government was won 15+ years ago. The US thought it could play nation-builder like with Japan. The continued involvement in afghanistan was part of the ongoing "war against terror" to reduce the chance of afghanistan becoming a heaven for terrorists again. The war against afghanistan was won, what the US lost was a prolonged occupation. If you look at history, the victor would more or less burn the invaded country to the ground and enslave its people to avoid similar long term issues, one can argue it was both self-interest and an ideology of being humane to civilians that resulted in the waste of post-war afghanistan occupation. Regarding metrics, I am fighting this right now. I found out what is expected of me early on and worked to extract that value out of myself and support my team but in the end my struggle is being able to explain metrics that reflect a years worth of work that only capture at best 30% of what is expected of me. Either way, can't complain, management isn't easy but meeting metrics is. what I dislike is if I have good metrics and stop there, it isn't enough. Metrics will always set a maximum ceiling on quality, if management can accept that I have no problem with metrics driven performance appraisal so long as it pays.