Ok, now we are diverging into a couple of distinct issues. Both important, but clearly distinct.

First, strategy for successful COIN. More accurately for the US, strategy for successful support to someone else's COIN. COIN is fundamentally a domestic operation, and if revolutionary rather resistance against an illegitimate foreign presence, really does not fall within the logic and fundamentals associated with war and warfare. The Government of Baltimore is currently conducting COIN. The US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan are providing support to foreign efforts to deal with their own revolutionary insurgency, while at the same time contributing to the parallel resistance insurgency generated by our very presence and actions. (more to follow)