Quote Originally Posted by Global Scout View Post
The Air Force and Navy are attempting to undermine irregular warfare concepts and instead develop an alternative strategy (Gun boat/ship diplomacy) that is dependent on our high tech Navy and Air Force weapons system? Um, isn't this the strategy that has failed us so many times before? I wonder what belt way bandit industries were pushing this concept? Pardon me, but I smell other agendas than national defense here.

Exactly how are we going to intervene in a failing state with significant oil reserves with Air or Naval power? Let's assume Nigeria finally fails as a state and various tribes are competing for control of the oil fields, so our only military response will be to bomb them? That will secure our interests?

We're seeing something else here, and it isn't honest intellectual discussion.
There are several threads of thinking in the idea. First, the idea that internal war would lead to a long term cut off of oil exports is somewhat implausible. Insurgents, a new radical regime etc would be highly motivated to continue petroleum exports since that would be their primary source of the funds they need to reward their followers.

In places like Nigeria (and Saudi Arabia), the petroleum production areas are near the coast or off shore, so the United States isn't going to need to occupy large areas of the country to stabilize it.

Third, if an internal war really did threaten to take a major oil producer off line, it's likely that other nations would contribute to a stabilization effort, so the U.S. wouldn't have to do it alone or nearly alone.

Bottom line is that if we truly want to be able to occupy a Pakistan or Nigeria, we need about four times the ground forces we have now. That's such an unlikely scenario that Congress and the public is not going to be willing to pay the massive costs of funding such a force (and probably instituting a draft to get it).

While my thinking isn't exactly the same as the Air Force's or the Navy's, I develop what I've sketched out here a bit in this paper.