Quote Originally Posted by Old Eagle View Post
He is therefore a master of framing arguments to suit his purpose. If you're busting some guy, you want him as a prosecutor. If you're up on charges, you want him defending your butt.

1. He indeed frames his argument as either/or and once you buy into that, then much of his rationale indeed follows.

2. Gian is right in that the Army is overwhelmed by COIN. Not by choice. We are simply too small not to have everyone engaged. Our PME is definitely not COIN-only, nor should it be. And our senior leadership is definitely not COIN only.

3. 3-24 is not a Boy Scout handbook and it does not say that kinetic operations are unimportant.
Agreed with all - more later - the either/or rhetoric is tiring and severely underestimates the intelligence and flexibility of our officers and NCO's - and the role of kinetic ops. I've beat that dead horse in other threads - here, here, here, here, here, and here.

Bottom lines - a) force is not necessairly bad in COIN, you just have to think about it before you do it - and COIN doctrine doesn't state otherwise b) we have smart, adaptable leaders who need grounding in COIN theory before being asked to execute it (not true prior to 2003), c) Dropping bombs and shooting artillery has its uses, and d) there is a leadership disconnect issue in the army that is driving many promising junior officers away, e) we need to get away from this amateurish either/or debate about competencies and define what our leaders SHOULD look like for the future. HINT: it's neither a COIN/IW or a MCO specialist, but somehwere in between - finding what that is should be our direction, and get past this COIN/MCO focus name calling.