Jim,

Interesting post, one that could be copied as relevant to a number of discussions in the SWJ. An excerpt from your quote,
When only 2% of the population is left alive, terror works and the survivors have no inclination to revolt anymore.
With our so called new theories on COIN and our precision targeting for more conventional wars where we make herculean efforts to avoid killing innocent civilians it seems alien to us that others would pursue a strategy that is very focused on cowing the population via coercion/fear to achieve their ends.

My argument on why I think our COIN doctrine is failing in Afghanistan and failed in Iraq is our assumption that protecting the populace was decisive instead of defeating those who threaten the populace. Protecting the populace against a militant threat that can mass very capable forces relative to indigenous security forces securing the various towns/villages results in a bad math equation for our partners. They're required to protect all 24/7, while our adversaries have the ability to mass power on particular points of their choosing. Our partners in Iraq and Afghanistan can't mass forces proactively nation wide. If we ultimately leave a safehaven in Pakistan for our adversaries to launch attacks from, regardless of well trained the Afghanistan security forces may be, we're leaving them with a very tough mission. On a much smaller level, we can see how a very rich nation has a tough challenge securing a small part of its border when you look at our efforts to secure our southern border.

In my opinion there seems to little appreciation of realism in our doctrine, and a lot of focus on "hope."