Quote Originally Posted by William F. Owen View Post
Sorry, but this strike to the heart of the issue. There is no such thing as "COIN techniques" - 99% of actions performed in COIN are applicable in other forms of warfare. What you are talking about is not something exclusive to something called COIN. It is a means to end, to applied as and when necessary, and within a political context.

Talking about "armed social work," and "respect for culture" utterly misses the point, of
a.) Don't let civilians, who are under your protection, come to needless harm, either by your action or ... worse.. inaction, because it will/may negatively impact your military operations.
b.) Do not do those things that will needlessly create offence, because it will/may negatively impact your military operations.

Now is statement A or B incorrect?
Are they actually different from saying "social work" and "respect for culture". I submit that A is not Social work, and B is good behaviour, not respect.
You are going to have to do things that are not synonymous with "respecting their culture" - killing, searches, etc, so why back yourself into that corner with sloppy semantics?
I don't think someone referring to COIN techniques would dispute that 99% or maybe 100% of the techniques would be used in other conflicts, e.g., large conventional ops, etc. I'm puzzled that people seem to question premise that the composition and frequency of tactics used in a COIN environment would differ from that of large conventional conflict. Agreed, a lot of the same tactics would be used in both, but it would be a different mix. It's like saying there's no such thing as MOUT because all of the things in MOUT are done in non-MOUT ops. It's a question emphasis. I don't think it's unreasonable to refer to COIN techniques to describe non-kinetic ops, but I agree that there are definitely kinetic elements to COIN.