Undergraduate Student, Help w/Counterinsurgency Debate

[jmm99]

from Ken
The downshift to COIN will come with excess violence in the COIN role but it can be done quickly with good well trained leadership who know the basics so that excess violence need not last nearly as long as it did in the downshift in Iraq in some units -- the good ones adapted fairly rapidly. I'd also point out we are and have long been remiss in the basics, so the leadership gets an Attaboy for doing good job qith less than ideal material.

Upshifting, on the other hand requires developing the habit of violence which takes a bit -- it can be done, just takes longer. Thus, to me adapting (nominally at the leader and commander levels) is only part of the problem. Training and inculcating the killer instinct in all the troops is a necessary change and it is more than an adaptation, it is a philosophical and practical change of significant impact and importance. Required also almost always will be a tedious refresher in critical combat skill not require or used in COIN efforts.

If I get it (from above), "adapt" is a more limited adjustment - "turn" is taking off on a new bearing. Agree that, for most people, "thou shalt kill" is a harder nut for them to swallow than returning from that state to "thou shalt not kill". To me, all of that (what you say above) is adaptation down to Willie and Joe.

Whether a soldier doing COIN for a year has less killer instinct than one doing CONV for a year is outside my experience. I'm being observational of possible issues and disconnects - not judgmental.

As to the other three categories, "Why would we want to compare them?". Because they are possible variables - whether they turn out to be relevant and material is another issue, which can be answered only if you look.