The Army's Five Year Afghanistan Plan

The United States has operated in Afghanistan for nine years and based on a FedBizOpps notice last week, at least one part of the Army plans for another five years.

The Rock Island Contracting Center of the Army Contracting Command said it plans to issue next week a request for proposals for Army mail services. The contract will have one base year and five option years, which shows at least one part of the Army has long-range plans in Afghanistan.

I don't know if the folks who deliver mail for the Army have any special insight into top-level strategic thinking or are just good planners. But the notice sure does confirm that careful reading of FedBizOpps is a good way to discern long-range plans at a very low level -- i.e. pretty good open source intelligence.