Quote Originally Posted by SteveMetz View Post
I've also been concerned that in terms of counterinsurgency, TOO MUCH expertise can be an impediment. As the U.S. military has re-engaged with it, I've heard a lot of people with deep experience go to great lengths to cram Iraq into the box of El Salvador or even Vietnam. Sometimes it takes someone without deep experience to think creatively.
I think this is an exceptionally important point that Steve makes. Too much experience especially when it is combined with lots of reading and analysis on a subject can produce in some folks arrogance and a positivist approach to fighting a counterinsurgency war. This is actually the main point that I make in an article running online now in AFJ, The Dogmas of War. This is also why I like to offer strident critiques of Nagl and Kilkullen because i think they are good examples of folks who have become just a bit too cocksure about the way ahead in places like Iraq. Nagl just reaked of positivism when he appeared on the Daily Show. Too, his book, Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife, has gone from being an important book on how organizations learn to a way overrated and incorrectly perceived "history" book of vietnam and malaya. It in fact is a poor example of the latter but to highlight and take a step further Steve's point, we seem to be trying to cram Nagl's purported lessons from Malaya and Vietnam into Iraq; thereby causing us to become dogmatic there.

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