Quote Originally Posted by Van View Post
If he failed to address these points, he missed the impact of the second half of the XXth Century on Small Wars (insurgency, irregular warfare, LIC, etc. - pick your buzz word). I'm all about historical-mindedness, but historical models have limits. I would argue that Gumz is being excessively reactionary and conservative in response to the "revisionist" young firebrands...
However I thought he was using history to show that many of today's adaptations of 'history' are flawed -- thus he would seem to agree with you to this point:
The young guns can be seen as 'cherry-picking' history...
As do I agree. However, on this:
:...but given the dynamics that are present in the world, we have to. No classic model or example comprehensively integrates the factors that shape the current environment.
I disagree and Professor Gumz seems to as well.

I agree that no prior example can provide a road map to integrate factors and shape the current environment. However, those young guns you cite are picking some elements of previous insurgencies and attempting to produce such a map. They're highly likely to err due to the factors you cited and a few others applied to an out of date datum for their map. I would in fact submit they have already done so. Err, that is...

You may recall that three years ago I was trying to slow down Gian -- I owe him an apology, he was closer to it than I was and picked up on it before I did. The COINistas are dangerous not least because they are selectively misapplying history. They mean well. But...

One of the things I discovered in seven years in TRADOC and a few more in FORSCOM was that there are almost no new thoughts in our doctrine -- the operational rule in the vast majority of training and doctrinal publication writing was to cut and paste the maximum amount. I would like to believe that is changing but my copies of FMs 3-0, 3-0.1, 3.07, 3-07.1, 3-21-75, 3-24 and a few others lead me to believe not much has changed.

I knew one LTC whose favorite technique was to cut paragraphs out of an existing document, rewrite them in longhand on a legal pad and paste the result in the appropriate location for a 'draft' approval before they went of to the typing pool. It worked. Too well...

Everyone wants a checklist, makes life simple, don't have to think too hard and if you follow the checklist, no matter how badly you foul up, you get over because you did follow it. Regrettably, warfare can have no realistic checklist...

History has much to teach and we should pay more attention to it than we do but warfighting, while subject to historical precepts and some constants is not politics or a social science project -- if you get it wrong, people get killed, therefor you have an obligation to approach it with an open mind and a willingness, even an eagerness, to adapt and succeed. Trying things that worked elsewhere under very different conditions -- and with bureaucratically added restrictions that also significantly impact conditions in comparison to past wars -- is what we've been at for the last eight years. How has that worked out for us?

Every war is different.