Quote Originally Posted by Hacksaw View Post
Hmmm...4. Love 'em like a brother, but you can always count on Gian to take a poke at the COIN "experts" and challenge conventional wisdom. Keep up the fire.
Hacksaw: you just say that because we are old SAMS tailgating brothers. What do you think of a reunion tailgate maybe next year with fast eddie; mo g; tommy k; chuck e; and jimbo d? something to think about anyway.

I actually liked the Kahl piece after reading when it first came out. I thought it was a balanced and reasonable argument, although i thought it played into the Coin meta-narrative too much. You know how that goes, big army screwed up early on except for marines in south and 101 in north, 4 ID fumbled, army continued to mess things up except for ramadi and talafar, but now things are on track with the current command team and the surge.

Anyway I did not care for dpeters' implication that the only way one can be a true "expert" is by having on the ground experience. If that were the case then we should stop reading one of the best military histories ever written, John Keegan's "Face of Battle." Keegan had no military experience whatsoever but wrote a brilliant book on battle.

I think my critique of Nagl's book is valid and i intend to write a fresh review of it and maybe the swj editors will post it for me.

gian