Bin Laden is a threat and must be captured or killed (though how and when it happens will have important IO implications- we have to be ready to exploit the success) We have to conduct intelligence and when feasible military operations to stop him and his network.
Conducting COIN around the world is a different problem set. I would ask in which other country to we expect to conduct operations on the scale of Iraq and Afghanistan? Kenyan, Sudan, north Korea, Colombia, Pakistan??
What we have to understand is that the US cannot win a COIN fight unless the US is the nation directly threatened. Only the indigenous people can win their COIN fight. The US can only provide external support to the government and its security forces. The US cannot win the COIN fight in any country other than our own.
We handily achieved military victories in both Iraq and Afghanistan. We deposed totalitarian regimes and and both nations were left with no functioning security forces (a political decision that can and will be long debated in Iraq). This made the aftermath more difficult and complex. But I would ask where are we going to commit forces on this scale again to conduct operations such as we are in Iraq and Afghanistan. I would submit that the better examples (and they are each different and unique in their right) are our commitments in Colombia, the trans Sahel, the Philippines, and even Indonesia (with virtually no military presence, less some small CA and PSYOP there but a strong assist from our intelligence organizations). In all of these situations the local forces are in the lead with our support. A deployment of large scale US forces would be counter-productive because it would undermine the legitimacy of the host nation government and we would not be capable of achieving long term success. Just my 2 cents.
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