But a death in the immediate family, and all the logistics that entails, and getting my youngest spawn off to Basra (who as a matter of fact just rung us up to let us know she was in Kuwait awaiting transport) has occupied a fair a mount of my time as of late.

On another thread here I pontificated:

“In many respects I agree with Gentile’s concerns and do not believe he is anti-COIN. The Army needs to have a robust capability to fight in both types of warfare. IMHO it is much easier for a Soldier who is highly trained in the complexities of employing the variety of weapons systems in conventional warfare to quickly adapt to a COIN/LIC/IW situation than it is for a Soldier who is trained predominantly in COIN to function at his optimum when thrust into the chaos of conventional war.

Soldiers, after all, are trained to obey orders, but to follow orders they need the skills. Conventional warfare requires solid skill sets, many of which that are also useful in COIN. COIN is more of an intellectual exercise requiring a common sense approach, an understanding of human behavior, and empathy with the local population, skills not necessarily taught or quantified in an FM.”

How we train is how we fight and at present training does seem to be slipping further towards being overly COIN centric, to the detriment of those hard skills Soldiers and Marines need. IMHO an “Advisor Corps” of the magnitude that Nagl recommends would strip away too many valuable troops from the main force. Better to develop an “Advisor Cadre,” place it within ARSOC or SOCOM, expand ARSOC to allow for sufficient personnel, make a fair amount of the strength Guard and Reserve, stop using SOF predominantly in DA, and tie them closer to State in some areas.

As to the SWM, it must be taken in the context and era for which it was written. The Marine Corps that fought in the “Banana Wars” of the 20s and 30s was not the Marine Corps that emerged from the Pacific Campaign. The genesis of that Marine Corps was Culebra and Quantico, not Haiti and Nicaragua. What I feel the “Banana Wars” contributed to the senior combat leaders in WW II was a taste of close quarters combat. At any level entering combat for the first time is a mind-boggling experience. There is great advantage to having combat vets in leadership positions when a unit enters combat for the first time, especially a green unit.

We do not need a COIN operated Army (or Marine Corps) we need a robust conventional Army and Marine Corps that is also capable of COIN and savvy in limited operations in conjunction with State in nation building/rebuilding.

To me that entails a greater fostering of professional inquisitiveness on the part of all ranks. I cracked open St Karl as a corporal, fortunately for me it was an abridged version but still, like Gian noted, it made little sense to me at the time and even made my head hurt a bit. But as I read more works by other theorists, delved into doctrine, and explored military history it made returning back to the old German dude easier and he started to make sense. To me John Boyd’s massive briefing “Patterns of Conflict” was less theoretical and more a revelation of how military history and theory all flowed together like a massive quilt writ large across the ages. That one should look at it all holistically and not try to cherry pick favorite strategies or theories. I am reminded of the introduction to the Encyclopedia Britannica’s series The Great Books. In it the editors posit that a “great conversation’ was occurring throughout the millennia between the Greek philosophers to those of the 20th Century. That each work of literature built on what came before. I see military theory and history entwined in a similar “conversation” across the ages. It’s tougher to see where you’re going if you don’t understand where you’ve been.

The Army we need is one well versed in conducting complex combat operations against a peer foe and can also decisively wage COIN.