I defer to my work collegue "Hacksaw" here - for all the worry about our junior officers and NCO's only conceptualizing COIN - you can't have it both ways.

They were adaptable enough to shed MCO and learn COIN.

They are adapable enough to do the reverse, or even better, both, if we figured out how to balance our training base.

Their experience is not nested in FM's it's in practical experience. The reason why FM 3-24 gained wide acceptance is because it bore out the experiences and learnings of those who were "boots on the gound" from 2003 onward. Kilcullen's "28 Articles" was influential to me not so much because it taught me much that I didn't know - it was the first time in my career I had seen all my various education and experience to that point combined in a logical document that made sense.

There is a balance. We can't forget how to go toe to toe, and I don't think anyone's stated otherwise. But we also don't need a force that has to do 2003-2005 all over again, re-learning lessons from previous insurgencies as if they are something new.

Additionally, while the operational force may be COIN centric currently, our Leader development and education is almost the reverse. Consider that five years into two insurgencies we:

a) ....have no COIN proponent in the US Army (Well, the CAC commander is, by default), it hasn't been assigned.

b) have no TRADOC or CAC mandated COIN instruction in our centers and schools. There is absolutely ZERO COIN specific training tasks mandated in our current Professional Military education system. It is not required to be taught at all. Many schools have included it on their own, but it has not been directed for inclusion by the TRADOC commander.

c) have no defined plan to do either.

And I would say the momentum to do so is drying up as well as senior leaders grow more concerned about the loss of MCO capability. The Army has not taken action to make COIN knowledge a critical competency for the Army's future leaders in its eductional and training base. Once the war quits, we continue teaching Fulda. The experience rots, and 20 years later my son walks into a COIN scenario and learns the hard way everything the institution forgot.

Most educational and training base sites DO train COIN, but it's not a mandate from TRADOC. Which tells me when the current conflicts subside, that training will disappear unless action is taken.

Note also the insight from this current CGSC student here - it's true. CGSC removed its only mandatory COIN course a few years ago.