Entropy: Agree with your post, and in a sense you are right in that we may have been talking past each other. LG is focussed on the now, while I am viewing the now but with a longer eye toward the future and the effects that the current wars in astan and iraq will have on it. I have stated this point in many of my published writings that--as you point out too--the Army must maintain its focus on coin now since the operational environment demands it. If a BCT is slated to deploy to Astan in 8 months then of course it should be training on counterinsurgency at the NTC instead of staring down the 11th Gaurds MRR in the VOD. My point all along has been to argue that the Army needs to accept how consumed it has become with counterinsurgency (again with good and understandable reasons) and then look honestly at itself in what that focus has done to its conventional capabilities. FM 3-24 is a different but related story. My criticisms of it have been toward its selectivity in theory and historical underpinnings at the expense of a doctrine that offers options other than nation-building. Did the Army need an updated counterinsurgency manual? yes of course it did. Was FM 3-24 a good cut at it based on the time constraints involved? Maybe. Is FM 3-24 the endstate for American counterinsurgency doctrine? In my mind it should not be.

Ken: My point about trade-offs was not an argument for building an armor-only force as your post suggests when it uses the term branch parochialism. Of course the Army needs an infantry capability. But if the Army is not careful we may wake up one day and look around and see the majority of its combat brigades as infantry with its few remaining mech and armor bcts in the national gaurd. That i do not think is a wise move. And hey Ken, what infantryman on the ground in Falujah in 04 didnt love having that Bradley in his hip pocket backing him up? Read David Belavia's book "House to House" to get a feel for the importance of firepower and protection even for dismounted infantry forces.

gian