Great post.But this case of FM 3-24 is different which seems to pass over most of the blog postings on this issue up to now. FM3-24 is not your garden variety army doctrine. It is not at all like for example the doctrine I used for reconnaissance in a heavy brigade when I commanded an ars. This was one of the main points of the Price piece. This FM3-24, at least the way it has been hawked to the public, is unique in that the perception created by Nagl, Con Crane, Gen Petreaus, McFate, Sarah Sewall, et al is that they as scholars had a very strong hand in writing it. So Price's point is that in this case you shouldn’t have it both ways. If as scholars would they see it as acceptable to use direct quotes or ideas from another source without somehow crediting it? I would not even if I wrote parts of or entire chapters in the new Coin manual. Also, the new Coin doctrine is intentionally built not so much on previous and contemporary army experience in coin (because of so much what many coin experts always say that the army up to the Surge was basically horrible at it and discarded any lessons from previous coin ops) but on historical cases like Galula and Thompson and on social and anthropological theories and models. So FM3-24 is different and Price's point that a different standard concerning the crediting of sources should apply.
You know sitting back as an outsider to the majority of thinking of the writers on this blog most of you have your hair stand on end when certain things are attacked or questioned. Those things are: anything that John Nagl or Dave Kilkullen writes; anything that questions the perceived success of the Surge; anything that fundamentally questions the efficacy of Coin operations to include its operational doctrine. The only topic I have seen on this blog that had drawn serious and deep debate is the discussion currently ongoing over waterboarding and torture.
gentile
Adam
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