They are not "either/or" or mutually exclusive - they can be mutually supporting and reinforcing if applied correctly.
Max161

I agree with Max on this comment that direct and indirect, DA and CMO, and any other ying/yang combination we can come up with can be mutually supporting, but what we haven't mastered in many cases is the "if applied correctly". There should be one battlespace owner that dictates the supported/supporting relationships between units and their missions to avoid a situation where unit A conducts an operation setting back unit B's operations.

For example, if unit B (any conventional combat arms unit) is focused on providing local security and building rapport with the locals using civil-military operations, etc., then all the sudden Unit A come into their battlespace unannounced to whack to some bad guys they were following creating undesired secondary effects in unit's B's AO that set them back several weeks. This is an example of an unsupported and unsupporting command relationship. Crap happens on occassion, but many times this crap could be avoided if we used our doctrine, and all operations were required to be approved by the battlespace commander. Special Forces and Conventional Combat Arms units (after years of COIN experience and training) are quite capable of doing both the Ying and Yang approach simultaneously, while other units are strictly Ying, no Yang. As a community we need to figure out how to use their Ying more productively, because Ying is good when used right.

As for SOCOM, I think ADM Olsen's comments speak for themselves (see bourbon's post), and I also think SOCOM is now on the right track. SOCOM needs a world class direct action capability, and they have it. They also need a world class indirect capability, and they have that also relative to other nations, but we can get better in this area with more command emphasis and we will.

and it ain't looking good for the home team barring some reform in Congress...
Ken

As for the interagency process and Congressional reforms, I won't hold my breath. We need to figure out how to win with the real world political environment we live in until enough good people run and get elected to make substantial change in the system.