Quote Originally Posted by Entropy View Post
I get the sense that Col. Lang is critical of COIN "trendiness" from that and other posts, but he hasn't fleshed-out any detailed criticism yet - at least that I can find - so it's hard to say for sure.
Well, I'm a big fan of Dave's and thought the briefing was quite good.

Looking at my notebook, here are a few of the points I made during my commentary on it:

--If we accept the idea that counterinsurgency operations can actually speed or facilitate the evolution of insurgencies by "weeding out" the less adaptable ones, what can we do with that information? In other words, it is possible to design a counterinsurgency campaign that does NOT speed or facilitate insurgency evolution, perhaps by pulsing and rapidly shifting methods rather than sticking with one thing until it becomes ineffective?
--Is there some other way to inject a pathology into the insurgent adapation process?
--In Iraq today, are we so concentrated on operational success that we're setting ourselves up for strategic failure by empowering local security forces?