“’Dishonest Doctrine:’ Or, How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love Coin Doctrine”

[Penta]

A thought: While many of the military skills are perhaps focused on one end of the spectrum of warfare, there's a lot of the LIC/COIN skillset that would only be helpful in MIC/HIC situations.

Example: Language training. Cultural awareness training. Somehow, I think it'd only help combined operations (at any level of conflict) if we could get to the point where most of the officer corps can at least speak one language besides English fluently.

[Jedburgh]

Canadian Army Journal, Spring 08: Manoeuvre Warfare Theory and Counterinsurgency Doctrine

....The key to manoeuvre warfare, as expressed by proponents like William Lind and Robert Leonhard, was the defeat of the enemy by attacking his criticalvulnerability rather than going toe-to-toe with his strength. By the mid 1990s, most Western armies had converted to this school of thought, at least in their doctrine manuals, and were teaching their young officers the principles and techniques of this ‘new’ form of warfare. However, since only recently adopting this new theory, Western armies are faced with insurgencies rather than mid to high-intensity wars. Does this mean that manoeuvre warfare theory is no longer valid or applicable? This essay will attempt to answer this question by first defining manoeuvre warfare theory and COIN theory as they exist today, and then determining if the former is in any way applicable to the latter. The intent is to examine whether the campaigns of the Global War on Terror (GWOT) do necessitate starting from scratch with regards to doctrine.....