...Get too wrapped around the people bit and you'll expect things you'll never see. Yes, the focus is on the people rather than on the enemy forces but it's entirely too easy to determine that a specific pattern of operation is the holy grail. I doubt that any one size fits all is going to adapt totally to all situations and the tendency to adopt a mantra and make it a dogma exists.
I find Ken's point here exceptionally insightful. This goes along with what i have been arguing about dogmatism today in the American Army with the dominance of Coin. The notion of the people as the center of gravity and the Principle--turned law--turned rule to "protect the people" has become dogmatic and keeps us from being creative. Generally yes in Coin the people should be the focus, but if we make that the rule all of the time then we might find ourselves comitting lots of combat brigades to whatever little problem confronts us because we believe we have to go in and "protect the people."

And WM your description of why i wrote the thing is correct:

If Gian's intent was to get COIN true-believers to recognize that warfare includes much more than just counter-insurgency operations, then I suspect a few more of the 9 principles need to be amended in order to get their attention.
That is what i was trying to explore with the piece; If we are dominated by Coin in the American Army and those true believers are not listening to Ken White et al and think Coin is the wave of the future and the only kinds of wars we will be fighting then lets just lay it on the line and start taking away some of the Principles and replacing them with Coin specific ones. That is why in the piece i limited myself to the original nine so to put two new ones in i would have to take two of the old ones out.

gian