Quote Originally Posted by Ken White View Post
discussion forum such as this isn't called for or necessary.


If one tries to shade that fact by offering modifiers like LIC, COIN and so forth in an effort to show how 'professional' one is and impress the dumb civilians, one removes the the onus of WAR from the discussion and the Politicians will always jump on that and try to do it on the cheap -- as Korea, Viet Nam and OEF /OIF all prove. If they think they can pull off an easy war -- when there is absolutely no such thing in reality -- then they will try to do so. We should also not talk about 'winning' and 'victory' particularly in a COIN op where the best you can hope for is an acceptable outcome.

War is war; warfare is quite varied and there are many levels, types and nuances to include variance over the years in weapons and methodology. There is, for example, air warfare and there is ground warfare -- the two are not really interchangeable and that's sort of obvious if you phrase it that way. However, if one tries to sell an 'Air War' one might confuse the issue enough to convince the uninitiated that one can win a ground war from the air...

Billy Sherman said two things on the topic that every politician should be made to say publicly when he babbles of war; "War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it." and "Every attempt to make war easy and safe will result in humiliation and disaster."

Warfare IS the nature of a particular war, that we can have some control over...
I have had the opportunity to listen to several conversations related to this with somewhat of a more civilian tint to the questioning and it seemed readily apparent that first and foremost pols must be encouraged to understand and accept as fact what real costs ANY form of conflict carries and that they have to pick a side if they choose to lean towards said conflict.

The inherent costs don't seem to be a big part of the upfront decisions otherwise. Acknowledging my limited exposure to this phenomenon compared to many others here I would however be willing to admit a lack of in depth experience in actual political forums.