I am currently re-reading TGS, and Rand's thougths and actions near the end of the book seem to me rather strange, unmotivated and inconsistent with previously established facts. I am thinking about his abrupt decision to abandon the stuggle against the Seanchan to prepare his forces for a (seemingly quite blind) strike against Shayol Ghul, and also his reasoning behind not moving the Tairen army to Arad Doman. Rand (strangely) thinks:
"He'd originally intended to set Darlin in Arad Doman so he could pull the Aiel and Asha'man out for placement elsewhere".
Yet this seems to be at odds with Rand's reasoning when explaining his moving of a large army to Arad Doman and reinforcing that stationed in Illian to Cadsuane in KoD:
"Because Tarmon Gai'don is coming, Cadusuane, and I can't fight the Shadow and the Seanchan at the same time. I'll have a truce, or I'll crush them whatever the cost."
The way I read it, Rand had stacked the Aiel and the Asha'man in Arad Doman mainly to fortify the nation against the Seanchan. He intends to bring the Tairens up shortly after, in order to have a massive hammer against the Seanchan, should the peace talks go wrong. He does not reveal any intent of withdrawing the Aiel and the Asha'man in order to leave the Tairens alone to stabilize AD, as he seems to imply in TGS. Rather, that combined army was (in KoD) intended to crush the Seanchan, in the event of diplomatic failure.
Now, in TGS, Rand seems to have inexplicably changed his mind about this, and he seems to have forgotten why he put the troops there, in the first place. According to KoD, they were not there primarily to stablize Arad Doman, but to fight the Seanchan. After the talks do go wrong in TGS, he abandons the problem of the Seanchan entirely, without further explanation or reflection on his retracting on his former plan. He now decides to only fight one of his enemies by leaving the Seanchan problem unsolved. Why is there no reflection on this by Rand? Sure, there are many instances of him thinking that Arad Doman must "fend for itself" and that the risk of ignoring the Seanchan has to be taken, but there is NO insight in why Rand decides to abandon his previous plan. He does not even acknowledge that such a plan existed. To me, it seems as if Sanderson has not really understood what Rand intended to do in Arad Doman.
Has Sanderson, like it may seem, misunderstood what Rand intended when he planned this action in KoD? Or can this be read another way? It would be very interesting to hear what some of the literates of this board have to say about this.