Few points...

Quote Originally Posted by Uboat509 View Post
...but I think that when you don't define the type of war that you are in or preparing to be in ie COIN, LIC, conventional etc. you leave it up to the listener to decide what the term war means to them.
That presumes the listener understands what you mean by your professional terminology. The public is not the problem; the politicians are -- and they are mostly clueless, more so than is the mass of the public.
The US military has always prepared for war pretty well.
My life and experiences in it tell me you're way wrong on that. I spent forty five years training or helping to train for a land war in Europe. Never even been stationed there but I've eaten a heck of a lot of rice on multiple occasions in five countries while getting shot at. If we had been prepared for war, full spectrum, none of those would've been a problem. Because we prepared for the wrong kind of warfare (HIC vs. MIC and LIC), all of them were problems.
Ask any of the commanders what they have been doing since Vietnam and they will tell you that they have been training their men for war, just the wrong kind of war.
Not all of them, just most -- and at the direction of their commanders...
I think that these other terms like LIC and COIN and conventional warfare, which all broadly fall under the definition of war but have different requirements, are needed in order help keep commanders focused.(emphasis added / kw)
I agree and I really like your choice of words...
...Currently there is not one. Russia is rebuilding but that is going to take a long time. China lacks any real force projection capability and seems to be enjoying here growing economic power. The ROK army will Kim Jong Il's lunch if he tries to bow up. And Iran wouldn't likely be a conventional fight. I suspect it would be a repeat of Iraq with the part of insurgent being played by a professional army with much better equipment.
All true. You left out Venezuela -- another LIC??? -- and the EU, not to mention a few others. Or that the ROK Army will expect some support. Or the new Prez decides to go to Sudan with a coalition...

Hard to predict the future. We'll see what happens.