In most things we are in violent agreement...
As for which it depends on whose definitions you use and in the case of the US Army it seems torn as to which it will use internally and whether they will remain consistent with joint doctrine or attempt to influence AGAIN the direction that joint doc takes...

I can certainly agree that the tortuous path that this has taken has been... well toruous...

Agree it is what the policy is or what we want the policy to be in the absence of policy

and this is topic in which we can play parlour word games for as long as we wish... I just never thought any of this was NEW... as a division planner I explicitly/in parallel considered the conduct of operations regardless of intensity... if we are conducting an attack to destroy... reduce to the point that the organization can not be reconstituted (well that has an info content to it in terms of the immediate task and subsequent conduct of operations) that is probably coached in terms of defeat...

and if as a planner I'm not thinking in those terms... well I cheated the CDR and the unit