"The era of the big footprint is over."

[Granite_State]

Heard Professor Bruce Hoffman say that, almost in passing, during a talk on Al Qaeda (on the march, 2008 will be "al Qaeda's year" he thinks) on Friday. He's certainly not the first, I have an old paper Steve Metz co-wrote somewhere on my hard drive arguing that we shouldn't be basing ground forces expansion on the expectation of more OIFs.

But have Iraq and Afghanistan, and the modern media climate, soured the West on large-scale, boots on the ground COIN? Are small, interagency advisory teams scattered around the globe the way of the future in fighting insurgency? Or did the failure to catch Bin Laden in 2001 prove the need for Western commitment of substantial amounts of ground troops in key circumstances?