Quote Originally Posted by William F. Owen View Post
I beg to differ. I think the doctrine often drives the definitions. The very fact that you wanted to develop a "COIN Doctrine" instead of a broad guide to conduct of Irregular Warfare is symptomatic of that.


Not sure I understand the question. Define an irregular enemy? That depends on your define a regular.
Regular Forces are, trained, paid and organised as declared and defined instruments of state power - all others are irregular.

So for example, regular soldiers have pay books, ID papers etc, and thus even US Special Forces are very regular soldiers.

I personally wanted to write an IW JP and have advocated writing an Army IW FM, so please don't assume that I personally just leaped to writing a COIN JP. Developing or not developing a joint publication is not one individual author's choice, although they certainly can make recommendations. Irregular warfare is covered in higher JPs, although I personally think it needs more detail and development, and the joint community wanted IW to permeate all joint doctrine rather have reside in one pub, so it was decided not to develop an IW pub.

As far as the COIN manual goes, there was a gap in joint doctrine with respect to COIN and the Army therefore proposed that we develop a COIN JP. This proposal had to be consistent with policy and approved by the voting members (Services, Joint Staff J-7, ALSA, GCCs, and FCCs). In this case, the members voted unanimously to develop a COIN JP. There are similar considerations for FMs.