Quote Originally Posted by Ken White View Post
There is no one size fits all and attempts to 'simplify' or consolidate doctrine to cover all eventualities are part of the problem. War is probably the most stupid of human endeavors; warfare -- how you do it -- is one of the most complex.
Liked the last sentence, and agree. One size doctrines, even if most all known eventualities are in it still face one significant problem: We like to do things differently because of historical and cultural experiences. I'm only speculating, but I'd say NATO got around this during the Cold War because there was more of a common understanding about the specific nature of the threat(s) and what to do about them. I don't envy the individuals who've had to get NATOs COIN AJP into a form that the allies can accept it (are such publications also consensus based?).


Quote Originally Posted by Ken White View Post
I strongly agree with Wilf; Foreign Internal Development and stabitiy ops are not military things; they're civil. If one has a security problem and the military is committed, it should rectify the security issue and then disappear to allow a strengthened police organization to handle the residual issues.
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I'd taken FID as Foreign Internal Defense, which tactically speaking I think is almost entirely military. Advisors could be civilian, especially those advising at the nat'l HQ and minstry level. I agree in principle that at strengthened police should take over, but if even the EU is having problems deploying enough police to do training, mentoring etc. I don't know where they'll come from.

FM 3-07 has a figure (1-3) that shows the relationship between SFA and FID, with both FID and SFA being entirely military. I see some potential for confusion if an EU and US rep speak about SFA. Police obviously belong in the category of security forces (at least any Gendarmerie), but helping them would fall under Rule of Law programs within the EU - entirely civilian.


I've done a fair number of interviews for my project, and always brought up the fact that on the military side, the US has upwards of a dozen different tasks the military may be asked to do, while in EU parlance there is only Crisis Management. The most common reply has been that at the tactical level everyone is still clear on what any given mission involves, so it's not a problem. What do you think?