Hi Norfolk--
Although I disagree with your conclusion, I will concede that you may be right. But if you are correct, the reasons given in your post are wrong because the US has a different military history, different governmental structure, and different doctrinal terminology than much of the rest of the English speaking world.
1. Since 1690 the US military has fought mostly SSOs - read either as Stability & Spt Ops or as Smaller Scale Ops. We have fought only 5 declared wars as an independent state: War of 1812 (Invasion of Canada), Mexican War, Spanish American War, WWI, & WWII. We have fought only 2 other conventional wars: the Civil War and Korea. All the rest were SSOs, including Vietnam (I would argue).
2. The US military has always wanted to fight conventional wars and done its best to forget the lessons of the SSOs (by any of their 100+ names).
3. FM 100-20, Military Operations in Low Intensity Conflict, (published in 1990 jointly with the USAF as AFP 3-20) was conceived of as a CAPSTONE FM equal to FM 100-5, Operations. That view never took hold although there was a significant chapter on SSOs in the next edition of 100-5 (1993).
4. The US, like Canada, is a Federal system, but unlike Canada has no national police force comparable to the RCMP (which provides local policing to communities without their own police). US federal police forces all have very limited jurisdictions in terms of the kinds of policing they can do. FBI can investigate all Federal crimes. ATF (by whatever its current name) can deal with alcohol, tobacco, and firearms; Secret service financial crimes; US Marshalls transport federal prisoners. In earlier days a Marshall had general law enforcement authority in territories before they were admitted to statehood, but that is moribund. Over 90% of US policing is done by local police - state police generally have very limited authority often confined to policing the state highways. We have no constabulary police like the French Gendarmerie or the Italian Carabinieri nor do we have national police like most European and Latin American countries.
5. In our Westward exapnsion the US Army provided police functions even after Posse Commitatus limited that authority in 1878.
6. US military doctrine does not use Support to the Civil Power as a category even if it would be a better description of some of the things we do. We do have doctrine for such support but it is more limited than the British and Canadian concepts.
If your argument is to be viewed as correct, then it must be made from a position that takes account of US military history, doctrine, and governmental structure. Only then can it be legitimately compared with the way the world is perceived in other countries like the UK and Canada. Indeed, this is a wholly appropriate approach and would make a great comparative article for the SWJ Magazine.
Cheers
JohnT
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