Quote Originally Posted by Bill Jakola View Post
This contract between the society and the profession is what distinguishes the profession of arms from an occupation or trade. For example, as Dr. Snider points out, in 2003 the society asked the profession to conduct COIN but the profession did not have any COIN expertise. This was a failure of the profession and this is why we need to have this conversation. We need to ensure our profession of arms maintains the required expertise across the full spectrum of operations. This is our mandate from the society we serve.
I think you have got this just backwards. The contract described in the quotation, if there is one, is what makes what armies do more like tradecraft. (BTW I doubt that such a contract has ever existed. Appeal to a contract here, just as in Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau, is a useful fiction or myth not unlike the stories pre-scientific peoples tell to explain things like thunder.)

The armed forces of this country were unprepared to perform COIN because America "hired" its military to defend it from aggression--what the Preamble describes as "provide for the common defense." How conducting COIN in Iraq or Afghanistan provides for the common defense of the USA escapes me.