or we'll get nothing done...

Not buying UW by the French in the American Revolution; There was nothing remotely unconventional about their entry, motives or operations. All boringly conventional. Surrogate warfare I'll accept -- though one could even quibble about that on the basis of who cajoled who to do what...

More importantly, as JMM noted:
"The bottom line, with relevance to this thread, is that, where law and politics for each side are based on entirely different constructs, their operational plans will also differ. CvC, methinks. In short, each side will be fighting a different war within the same armed conflict."
Certainly applied to the Revolution but it has also applied to most of our wars. Most of which we got right.

Until the Department of Defense was created...