Counterinsurgency in Iraq RFI

[Tom Odom]

Eagle is right. Narrow it down.....suggestion

Write 2000 words using historical examples that I know you know explaining that FM 3-24 is a restatement of US military history in modern terms. Use Marine Corps Small Wars, Army Fronteir Wars, PI COIN, etc etc

Cap it with the statement that our inablity to come to terms with COIN today rests with our inability to understand our own history.

Best

Tom

PS

I have a date with a .223 and hopefully a few coyotes

PS PS

See Jedburg's post Restoring the Army's Culture of Irregular Warfare on this paper

[SWJED]

Eagle is right. Narrow it down.....suggestion

Write 2000 words using historical examples that I know you know explaining that FM 3-24 is a restatement of US military history in modern terms. Use Marine Corps Small Wars, Army Fronteir Wars, PI COIN, etc etc

Cap it with the statement that our inablity to come to terms with COIN today rests with our inability to understand our own history.

Best

Tom

PS

I have a date with a .223 and hopefully a few coyotes

PS PS

See Jedburg's post Restoring the Army's Culture of Irregular Warfare on this paper

I just need short blurbs much along the lines as Stu is doing. I don't have the luxury of time narrowing or organizing with the day job, family, other SWJ tasks and getting this out by Tuesday.

[John T. Fishel]

There are several wars for legitimacy related to Iraq. As Stu pointed out, one is in the international arena. We may be doing better here - Sarkozy in France for example. Another is in the US. Here GEN Petraeus seems to have an excellent and quite successful strategy that includes such things as John Nagl's appearance on The Daily show. Then ther is the legitimacy war on the ground where Dave Kilcullen has really made the case. Finally, there is the legitmacy war at the national level in Iraq where the picture is bleaker - although Kilcullen's observations qualify that judgement.

Too bad it took so long to recognize that there were multiple wars of legitimacy ongoing.