Concur that their is much for the US to learn from the British experience, not just in the realm of COIN, but also to recognize that the US is entering the same period of instability and transition that England faced 1776-1945. We focus so much on our rise during this period, that we fail to study England's decline over the same period, the challenges they faced, things they did that worked, and things they did that did not.

Which brings me to my number one issue with IW. We are struggling to come up with a concept to manage the results of failed foreign policy, instead of digging into the real issue of how to retune our foreign policy for the world we live in today. Such is always the soldier's lot I suppose. We don't start the wars, and we don't end them, we just get to fight them.

As Tennyson reminded us so well, "Ours in not to reason why, ours is but to do and die.."