Fair point. Crowd sourced discussions enjoy an agility that staid academic peer-review processes cannot compete with.

I suspect the peer-review process also slows the ability to get new ideas into the conversation as well. Like doctrine, the "right" answer is not always the best answer.

I don't know that COIN or CT strategies had much of a negative strategic effect on AQ, but agree that they are not likely to have much effect on ISIS as the government of an emergent de facto Sunni Arab state - other than fragment it back into a loose collection of disparate, competing revolutionary insurgent groups.

The primary piece missing from the US approach to ISIS so far is, IMO, the offering of a viable political alternative to the Sunni Arabs of Syria and Iraq. A re-establishment of the very system they felt compelled to revolt against is unlikely to separate ISIS from their base of popular support.

This was revolution, now it is state on state war, and with success against ISIS it will be revolution once again. Last time we suppressed the symptoms and called it success. We should try for a more durable effect this time around.