You two quit that. Don't you know that
if you pull away the veil, remove the legend, don't drink Kool Aid, etc. that our mystique will be ruined? Totally ruined!!! :D
I think, if you dig into it, the disconnect
Quote:
Originally Posted by
120mm
I have spoke to a plethora of SF guys who are absolutely convinced that we should not listen to John Nagle or David Petraeus, because only SF is capable of understanding/employing COIN. And these are guys with gold and black oak leaves on their collars.
The same belief is apparently rife in the CA community, as well, as I've bumped into the same viewpoint vis-a-vis C-M relations.
is on the size of the effort / numbers of people involved and concomitant tendency to use the "if you're a hammer, everything is a nail" approach. The Nagl / Petraeus methodology is the "Big Army" application. While that can certainly be made to work, on balance the track record is not good, not at all -- and it is very costly in terms of casualties, effort and money.
It also is becoming more and more politically unacceptable -- and that statement merits some thought...
The use of the small SF (and CA; they've done some good stuff, particularly in Central America) footprint, OTOH has essentially been quite good. It is effective, efficient and relatively cheap in terms of all types of costs. It is also politically acceptable because it's under the ignorant media radar screen.
I am very much in agreement with SF on this one; I don't question that the Army and Marines need to know how to do FID and COIN and that they must be prepared at all times to do that -- it just should be a course of last resort and not the preferred method.
I strongly question the current approach, the size of the footprint and, far more importantly, how efficient and effective the big battalion effort is. We are not doing ourselves any favors.
That, too is true, U-Boat.
There's a degree of 'we told you so' involved, no question but even more important is the fact that the big Army approach has never worked without great cost and much time; the small footprint of people who ingrain themselves, OTOH generally work well and the costs are not excessive -- and that type effort doesn't get the overly excitable (of whom this nation has too many...) perturbed.
There's always a rice bowl or too in the picture but in this case, there's practical evidence that the large effort is costly and prone to not succeed while the smaller, tailored one is less expensive and usually does succeed. Those SF Officers who reject Nagl and Petraeus have history on their side.
An analogy is Socialism. Some say the only reason pure socialism has never worked is because the right people have not been in charge. Color me dubious. The big Army approach to FID and COIN almost posits the same thing; "It'll work well and cheaply -- we just haven't done it right." I'm not dubious, I flat don't believe it.
With the caveat that I know it can be made to work -- but at what cost?.