Major General Dunlap's track record
Major General Dunlap's rebuttal to Frank Hoffman's critique is well written and smooth - what might be expected from one of the USAF's top lawyers. But it is well to remember that General Dunlap has a track record, or perhaps a better term is paper trail. It is one that goes back to his brilliant, well received, and extraordinarily clever 1992 article, "The Origins of the American Military Coup of 2012." In that piece, Dunlap argues that focusing the military on non-big war operations leads to disaster that in the worst, and very unlikely, case would put the military in charge of the government doing tasks that it is not qualified to do and unable to do its core missions of fighting the big wars. There is much of that view underlying his rebuttal of Hoffman's comments on his piece. It is, therefore, not an overstatement to suggest that Dunlap has never shown himself to be a supporter of COIN and its related missions.
Comment on Hoffman's view of COIN doctrine
I was particularly struck by Frank Hoffmann's statement on the dearth of COIN doctrine in his blog piece. "It
fills a 25 to 30 year void in our doctrinal library thanks to the Vietnam Syndrome and the Pentagon’s insistence on only preparing for wars we would like to fight instead of those our enemies are prepared to wage."
This is simply incorrect. The Army published FM 100-20 Low Intensity Conflict which focused primarily on COIN in 1981. In 1990 it published a revised and better version of FM 100-20 (with the USAF under General Larry Welch who had created with his Army counterpart the Army/Air Force Center for Low Intensity Conflict) called Military Operations in Low Intensity Conflict which retained the cOIN emphasis. In the interest of full disclosure, I worked on that document from the USSOUTHCOM Small Wars Operations Research Directorate (SWORD) which, along with the CLIC had significant input to the document drafted at Leavenworth by the cell headed by LTC Jerry Thompson.
This version of COIN doctrine was incorporated into both FM 100-5 Operations of 1993 and Joint Pub 3-07 Military Operations Other Than War.
There was nothing wrong with our COIN doctrine except that few military people read it. Certainly, even fewer civilians read the doctrine.
What makes FM 3-24 important is that it is being read and discussed both within and outside the military.
Always ready to fight the last war...
Quote:
Originally Posted by
wm
Within the last year or so, USAF redfefined its mission to include the cyberspacw piece you reacted to. I'm not sure it is statutory or reflrcted in any JCS/DoD literature however.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
John T. Fishel
3. The EC-130 Commando Solo, airborne radio and TV station that can deliver its PSYOP message from on high.
It is a great AF COIN mission but its low density - one unit - and location - the Pennsylvania Air National Guard - as part of the Air Force Special Operations Command gives an idea of USAF priorities. Even more than the Army, the USAF doesn't see PSYOP, let alone the rest of AFSOC, as part of the real Air Force:rolleyes:
Anyone mind if I add an "oye vei!!!!" here :wry:. Television? Radio? Umm, how about Youtube and LiveLeak? Oh, yeah, and who legislates the RF transmissions in Iraq? If they want to play in cyberspace, then they need to get some really good hackers to teach them how.
If the USAF is going to get into the COIN game in other than their "traditional" roles, the really do need to start thinking out of the box rather than trying to legislate the box. As a start, they may want to examine light cavalry tactics, especially those of the Khazaks and Mongols (probably best in Afghanistan.
Marc