Quote Originally Posted by Michael C View Post
WILF, what Karaka posted and what is in the FM 3-24 Counter-Insurgency roughly equal population-centric COIN. Along with that, Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife and some articles in Military Review.
OK, but I think FM23-4 is not fit for purpose and I do not think much of "Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife."
You said, "None of the above is new. It's all 3,000 years old." I don't think CNAS, or the individual authors associated with the new theories, have ever disputed this. They strive to change contemporary US Army doctrine, but they repeatedly stress that successful policies are not new, they are old. They hold up successful past COIN as the examples.
Sorry, but some very much wish to inject novelty and insight into COIN. That's why they are called "new theories." ...and they are using a whole new language to try and appear original.
The only thing they might dispute is crediting CvC. CvC did a lot of theorizing about inter-state wars, but I tend to side with John Keegan who views his approach as very limited. CvC, it seems to me although I have not studied him as extensively as you, was very confused about irregular warfare and populations and his policies were not for them.
If they do dispute it, it is because they have not read CvC or understood him. Keegan certainly did not and nor did Van Creveld.
CvC wrote about War. Not War just between states. There has never been an armed conflict in the entire span of human history to which the majority (if not all) of his observations did not apply.

He was not confused in any way by regular and irregular warfare. He just saw no point in their differentiation. War is War.

As concerns populations,
"War is a setting forth of policy with an admixture of other means,"
Policy is pretty much relevant to populations is it not? What more would you like to add?