You all posted so many questions it takes a bit to counter

The American Way of war is unique. Therefore, the US cannot enter into a military intervention without falling back to its root culture. The US has the capacity to and should exploit its penchant towards overwhelming organization and overwhelming force, the Powell-Weinberger doctrine. Failure to utilize the capacity to overwhelm, to play towards the US strength, to plan for all aspects of the inevitable conflict to include stabilization reconstruction and transition leading to withdraw of forces is foolhardy. (Note: planning for something is not wishing it away, nor making false assumptions it is just being prepared).

From the General Order #20 issued by General Winfield Scott in the Mexican war to the Lieber Code of the US Civil War and on to the USMC Small Wars Manual and the Army and Navy Manual for Military Government and Civil Affairs in WWII the progression of US military stabilization and reconstruction efforts has [in parallel to US warfighting doctrine] been guided by certain principles. The primary principle is the belief in liberal democratic government and that war is waged against the government of a state and its military not against the people of the state. There is also inherent in these doctrines the concept of the application of force, the appropriate amount of force necessary to achieve the desired end state [including unconditional surrender and overwhelming force], the defeat of that regime and the army that supports it. This has required the destruction of the infrastructure that supports the warfighting capability of the regime and the army. These doctrines were set aside with the advent of the UN Charter and the Geneva Conventions which prevented interstate wars but allowed for internal conflicts. New doctrines arose, doctrines that called on US forces to support regimes or to act in a neutral and impartial manner separating warring factions. With today’s pre-emptive strike strategy, with the resurgence of state building as a legitimate use of military forces [and the addition of transnational threats] there is a need to restructure the doctrine.

BUT there is no need to deny the US culture of warfighting in the process so long as the COIN version of Powell Weinberger focuses on developing techniques and tactics that fit. When preparing for this type of intervention the US must recognize certain facts. The first being that the conflict will be asymmetric: a conflict between insurgents and counter-insurgents (or freedom fighters vs. foreign occupation). Secondly, in this conflict the US is the foreign occupying force and will inevitably play the role of counter-insurgent. Therefore, the US must plan to seek the end state in the role of the government forces.

Again there is nothing in the P-W doctrine, other than its previous application, that cannot be adopted wisely into COIN. The previous use of P-W did focus on force on force/state vs state. That doesn't make its tenents incorrect. This is the box I was talking about. View P-W in regard to a multi-dimensional DIME effort. The premise still holds and is a good guide for the use of America's entire arsenal of democracy.