I don't find the observation that "war is hard" to be particularly novel. Some old fogey mentioned two hundred years ago that in war everything is simple and the simplest thing is very hard. Was there an expectation that in the absence of a strong uniformed conventional army, war would be easy ("I doubt six months...")? If so that (hypothetical, of course) expectation is inexcusable and would show a stunning ignorance of history. A focus on kinetics because the rest of it is just too hard would be similarly inexcusable.
That said, I do understand the need to remind people that "remember this is still really hard." Since the COIN manual came out, talking heads on TV seem to think "Oh, well now we've got the right plan, success will be easy!" But I don't think the specific audience that reads AFJ needs to be told that "this stuff is difficult."
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