Quote Originally Posted by reed11b View Post
What your (in bad taste) revision of Wilf's quote fails to acvknowledge is that COIN fighting can be done without aircraft, but not the other way around. Defensive snarling does not a good counter-argument make either.
Reed
Didn't mean at all to come across as snarling (I did put a wink in there!), though I admit that in my lengthy post last night I was defensive and in a sour mood. In general, I do not like arguments that boil down to service parochialism unless they have some measure of substance behind them. Being based largely on perception, they are too easy to make and my alteration of Wilf's original comment was meant to demonstrate that. How can Wilf or some Army officers possibly know that the Air Force is "worried" about Army PGM's? Without any evidence, they can't. In the same way, how can I possibly know or reasonably claim the Army is "worried" about USAF PGM's? I can't. Both arguments, lacking any substance, have an equal measure of validity, which is to say hardly any.

Furthermore, what need is there for me to acknowledge that COIN fighting can be done without aircraft when the original comment was about aircraft and artillery in the current conflict? I agree completely that COIN fighting doesn't require aircraft and would add that it doesn't require artillery or a lot of other things either. Or rather, those things are unnecessary in theory, but not in actual practice in Iraq and Afghanistan.