SWC strategy: what future improvements are needed?

[Morgan]

I like Fuchs' idea....a different theme every few weeks. Maybe SWC can organize "interventions" / conflicts / wars under "past", "present", & "future" so folks could discuss the finer points about Vietnam or Algeria, the Caucasus or Syria, and/ or potential involvement in various areas of Africa, South America, or Asia.

[selil]

Conceptually Small Wars isn't just COIN. There have been lots of discussion around regional conflicts, and traditional US centric law enforcement applied in other nations as military pacification operations. The Insurgency v. Big War or (HIC v. LIC) fight in US politics is really a budget battle.

There is some artificial smashing together of special operations forces and insurgency that are not necessarily valid. The "how" you task a mission and to "whom" you task a mission does not make the overall strategy owned by that tasking. SOF doesn't have to be about insurgency but some SOF is about insurgency.

So you've got on one hand a HIC v. LIC debate dealing with small wars. A just use less tanks is a valid way to fight a small war. You have a kill all the irregulars in the darkness with cool toys SOF type construct. I think that the SWC sits above that fray and a place where all of the players can discuss regional and sub regional conflict inclusive of insurgency but not exclusively insurgency.

Smedley Butler said "war is a racket" and suggested that the military of most industrial nations are pawns to the political interest rather than the strategic necessity. That suggests a whole line of future conflicts at the sub regional level that almost nobody is studying.

Just some opinions and thoughts before the second cup of coffee.