I agree with just about everything said above. This has been a great discussion on a subject that needs addressing.

My entire career, save for about 6 months, has been in small tactical units at the Troop level and below. Without boring you all with the details of a biography, I can safely say that I have a pretty decent handle on tactical matters within the COIN environment. Having said that, there is a tremendous strain on tactical units placed upon them by higher leadership who do not understand the cause and effect cycle of COIN operations. As has been said before (though maybe not this way and for lack of better terms) we are 4GW Army being lead by people with a 3GW mindset. Let's break this down:

COIN is a tactical endeavor. Small units working in conjunction with each other towards a common endstate spell success. Due to the nature of 4GW there is a much greater importance of placing small unit leaders who "get it" in positions of greater responsibility at the tactical level than having crack staff officers at BDE and above. Staff officers hate this concept, as they feel it deligitimizes their role. While it is important to have competent people in staff jobs at higher levels, their interaction with local populaces is almost nonexistant, thus, their effects on the COIN environment is less perceptible.

Unfortunately, for those at the pointy tip of the spear, much of their success (ie. projects, funding, etc.) is merried to the capacity or ability for higher level staff officers to get them what they need for success.

I'm not saying that higher headquarters have no place in COIN; quite the contrary. However, their inability to understand the implications of their decisions at the tactical level has repeatedly lead to frustration at the tactical level. Hypothetically, having a water project turned down due to a "lack of necessity" within my AO will be nothing more than a penstroke to a higher level staff officer. For me, it means I've got to find a way for the townspeople to access water, usually by truck, which will enhance my force protection posture as I now have a greater accessibility to the population of trucks with a high explosive capacity.

The bottom line is that 2nd and 3rd order effects, however much we're talking about them in the Army today, are felt most heavily at the tactical levels. What this means to me, in laymans terms, is that if some idiot above me makes a decision without ever leaving the friendly confines of the FOB he has no idea what reprocussion are felt by my soldiers (ie. a skeptical populace within my AO, increased attacks along my LOCs, etc). This is bad.

In 3GW, battles are often won or lost by the decisions a BDE or BN commander makes regarding the tactical employment of his forces. Where he positions his reserve, where he breaches a situational obstacle belt, or where he defends are all decisions that often must be dictated from higher. Once the plan is in place, it's the responsibility of tactical units to take the guidance and form it into the most feasible COA (ie. can't breach at Point A, as the plan states, due to terrain restrictions. It's better to breach at Point B, etc.). In the COIN environment, due to most actionable intelligence being generated at the team, squad, and platoon level, the inverse of 3GW mindset takes place. Tactical units then must take the bull by the horns and develop and act upon the information given.

This presents an issue to those with the 3GW mindset; they feel deligitimized as decision makers and (potentially) commanders because they aren't as necessary within the tactical OODA loop as they once were. In attempting to rectify the situation, or, perhaps to feel a bit more relevent, they start poking their fingers into areas they want more progress. In the end, this becomes counterproductive. Luckily, I was in an organization where this didn't happen, but I've seen much more units with this problem than those who didn't.

In the end, what does this all mean? It means, as has been stated countless times before, that the action a platoon or troop on the ground takes has implications far above the tactical level. Whether I decide to improve SWEAT-MS commodity areas within my AO means that I have to run the traps through my command all the way to the MNF-I level. Getting a water project in my area will take a water project away from another. Smart tactical units found a way around this by outsourcing at the lowest level, which, in turn, increased employment in their area through security, construction, or other jobs. Still, someone at a higher level needs to turn on the faucet of economic relief to pay these people, thus strategic compression.

When you look at combative action, surely the firefight 1st platoon enters into in the Sarai District of Tal Afar will most likely be presented in Western and Arab media outlets. Depending on the tactical unit's situational understanding of what media is in the area can mitigate what effects a slanted story may have in the international media community. By keeping reporters and camaramen at close hold, explaining to them the situation, and granting them access to part of the tactical OODA loop (ie. Why am I conducting a cordon and search? Because ISF gained a source saying this block is where the terror cell is making IEDs) I can begin to spin the story at my level as conducting a combined operation based off Iraqi intelligence with Iraqi soldiers as the main effort and Americans in a support role to enhance and provide security to the people of Tal Afar. We're getting better at this.

In the end, tactical leaders need to understand that their actions (and inactions) will impact the larger strategic objective. What guys at the bottom end are owed is what the desired endstate is. Once this is established and dictated, trusting the lower echelon leaders to get the job done and resourcing them for success becomes the main job of those at the Operational and Strategic levels.