Gen. Flynn's article brings to the forefront a core discussion that has been moving under the radar screen since 2007. It highlights the core difference between anti-insurgency which is focused on kill/capture and the elimination of IED cells/networks or true counterinsurgency which focuses to a high degree on population control and security.

It is interesting that FID and unconventional warfare which were the bread and butter of Special Forces from their inception to the early 1970s was forced into extinction by the big Army as they drove to disband Special Forces who had to rebrand themselves as the "Strategic Recon types" in the 80s/90s in order to survive. This rebranding cause internal problems for SF when they discovered the need to shift back to FID/UW.

Now we are back to FID and unconventional warfare and big Army went left in Iraq and that is now not working in Afghanistan which went right and is a true insurgency with characteristics of a full blown phase three guerilla war. It is refreshing to see a Spad called a Spad.

Now just maybe big Army can focus in learning just what is insurgency, what drives an insurgency, and how does that insurgency evolve--and not learning it out of the COIN FM or from CTC scenario rotations. It is amazing that many in the old guard (Vietnam vets) have pointed to key lessons learned about FID, but were brushed off and now there is the sudden interest in books written about FID in Vietnam--lessons learned though from the Special Forces CIDG program seem on the other hand to still be ignored. One of the most important books written in the early 80s "Silence As A Weapon" written by retired COL. Herrington goes along way in describing the use of silence by an insurgency in the control of populations.

Since Gen. Flynn has gotten some attention on the MI side maybe attention should be paid to a concept developed by John Robb called "open source warfare" (2004/2005) and just recently scientifically verified by the Nature magazine article "Ecology of Human Warfare". For the first time via computer research one can make specific outside changes/impacts to the insurgency environment and see the results on the insurgency movement without having boots on the ground. And it goes a long way in explaining the media impact of their operations which can be verified by the impressive increase in video releases on the part of the Taliban in Afghanistan since 2008.