War's Risks Include Toll on Training Values

[GorTex6]

I really hate the pseudo-intellectual sound of "4GW Warfare". It's simply age-old guerrilla warfare for Christ's sake. And "operational IED's" my ass. It's just another type of ambush, which tactic has been used by irregular forces against organized military units since time immemorial. The tactical ambush has evolved as weapons evolved, from bows-and-arrows, to matchlocks, to automatic weapons and AP mines - the IED is simply another turn on a very old coin. No need to make it out to be more than it is.

And there's also no need to psycho-analyze the troops - the frustration and over-reaction of conventionally trained troops to continued harassment by an amorphous enemy is also old as the hills. Given the situation, we do a bit better than previous examples because our guys are all volunteers and far better trained and equipped than the mass conscript armies that have historically been placed in such situations. But there still comes a point of breakdown - and that's at the NCO leadership level in this type of war.

Of course, if you want more hits on a website, better bullets on an OER, or just to cash in on the new popularity of UW/COIN, then keep on reinventing the wheel, and plenty of colorful new terminology to go along with it...

Is that why all the "experts" knew it all thus far? Three years ago the US military could not spell counterinsurgency. COIN? As in coin check?