USAFSOC planners want irregular warfare wing

[SteveMetz]

I'm somewhat surprised it took this long for the USAF to try and get in the COIN game.

Good idea.

This is just one of many efforts. Maj Gen Charles Dunlap is leading a conceptual attack on 3-24 (mostly, in my opinion, because of the Air Force's institutional interests). He advocates a model of counterinsurgency which relies on stand off force. After all, the firepower model worked so well in Vietnam. I believe this is a reflection of the Air Force's proclivity to equate war with servicing targets. Strategic success comes from destroying the "right" targets. Any time that doesn't work, airpower true believers contend that either the right targets were selected or "political" concerns kept them from effectively destroying the right targets. After all, we wouldn't want to mix politics and war.