My sense is that General Kayani recognises that a stable and secure Afghanistan is in the best interests of Pakistan.
All the nations that are adjacent to Afghanistan have a vested interest in the future stability and security of Afghanistan.
From my perspective, to really be ready, we can't afford to have these deep degradations in readiness associated with personnel turbulence post-deployment.
I want to make sure I have a system that allows me to know that the platoon sergeant and platoon commander aren't going to move at the same time when we come back from deployment. That sounds pretty simple, but it's really about data.
It is not unimaginable to have military options to respond to North Korean nuclear capability. What's unimaginable to me is allowing a capability that would allow a nuclear weapon to land in Denver, Colorado. That's unimaginable to me. So my job will be to develop military options to make sure that doesn't happen.
When you start to look at completing the development of a modern professional army, when you talk about maturing a democracy, when you talk about development and the economic conditions that have to be addressed, a decade is not too short a period of time to talk about.
