That said, I can't resist plugging for Armor officers.
A salient point was made by an SF LTC to me at the Carr Center conference. He pointed out that the majority of successes and best conventional COIN commanders from Iraq seemed to be Armor guys. He was asking me (an Armor guy in a COIN schoolhouse assignment) why that was. My best answer (I'm really not sure) was that most of the people he was citing (Chiarelli, MacMaster, Hickey, MacFarland, Mansoor, May, White, Tien) had Cavalry backgrounds. Cav is to Armor what Airborne is to Infantry (no flames from the airborne guys, thanks). Cav trains a decentralized, high initiative mindset that encourages innovative solutions with little higher guidance. Armor is more controlling and top down. That's my best explanation.
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