Yep, September. Time to beat the dead horse again.

If the Armed Forces can be equally prepared for both COIN and conventional ("it's easy...the clouds are fluffy...the British Army handled it just fine...I believe we can) why did SEC Gates in the latest NDS specifically say we'll have to accept risk by concentrating on the wars we are currently fighting? Why is field artillery broken? Why have we virtually stopped training for conventional warfighting above the company/battalion level?

Look, being prepared for war at any level goes well beyond training in the field or on the ranges. It includes buying the right type of equipment, training staffs, building force structure, allocating time in institutional courses, writing doctrine, allowing senior leaders the chance to move around units larger than battalions, building the right type of logistical pipelines. To say that we can have companies or maneuver battalions trained for both coin and con misses the point. To say that all we need is enough time or money ignores the fact that we have neither.

People say we can be prepared for both. I look around and see that we have apparently stopped preparing for conventional warfighting. I would love to have somebody point out to me how we are keeping our powder dry should a conflict arise with larger stakes than those bet on Iraq or Afghanistan.

I remember in the first Gulf War how the British Army absolutely gutted itself to field a single armored division. Just as one example, whole regiments of operational tanks in Germany had to be cannibalized to provide spares for the Gulf. I'm afraid we are heading toward a similar crunch.

Choosing between COIN and Con is not a false dichotomy. It's moot to say that armed forces can be prepared equally for both; armed forces won't, not in the real world of constrained resources.