Quote Originally Posted by CharlieDunlap View Post
My view is that we also need to look for options beyond a manpower-intensive one.
- if the only option offered decision-makers is one that requires the deployment of thousands of ground forces, then we may not be offering our civilian masters a really viable option.
I have the greatest of difficulty with the idea that airpower saves on manpower in terms of numbers. The RAF has done it's best to corrupt the operational and historical record with this argument and it just doesn't hold water. Some air assets can give ground forces greater capability, but you can't make a 650-man battalion a 300 man battalion just because of air support. Air power can never have the persistence, endurance, discrimination, precision and proportionality that land forces have, regardless of the threat, and the environment.

I think that we ought to study very carefully what the Colombians have done rather successfully with US support... True, a very different COIN situation than Iraq, but still worthy of real study.
I don't think any study would really be necessary. The Colombian use of air assets seems very simple and very obvious to me. I think it might be germain to ask why the USAF does not have similar types, (or useful numbers of such types) such as the Super Tucano, Schweizer SGM 2-37, and the OV-10 Bronco. On one possibly simplistic level the SGM 2-37 would seem the challenge the high costs associated with Predator procurement and operations.

Yes, we need to have that capability, but I think we also need an Army ready - sooner rather than later - to conduct high-intensity operations against a peer or near-peer competitor - at least in a regional scenario.
At a conceptual level, I agree, but who is a near-peer competitor that is in any way of comparable competence, that may be a threat framed in a possible geo-political reality? I don't see why China and Iran are going to form up in land manoeuvre formations for the convenience of the USAF.

For many reasons, I don't want to see our Army become too much of a constabulary force. I am concerned that in a few years the ongoing Army manpower plus-up, as well as over-investment in certain COIN-only equipment, will drain resources from Army modernization.
As Ken White said, few folks do. I agree the COIN agenda has been misused by some, but I can't see how any focus USAF capabilities corrects that. I also have difficulty seeing any "COIN only" equipment. A lot of the COIN equipment requirements are not ones of choice, but necessity.