Warrior Ethos

[CPT Foley]

Sorry but that's rubbish. No one in the military, or military thought takes the Toffler seriously. Are you seriously advocating the Tofflers over Clausewitz?
Killing someone is an act of disrespect. Did any of the US beheadings on the internet cause a strategic shift? Of course not.
The only news stories that can create strategic effect are stories about events which have strategic effect. Do not confuse the two.

It is only a competition is that if effects a political end state or outcome. Insurgents sometime do not need the support of the population, they just need to scare them into submission. I witnessed this in Sierra Leone.
My narrow mission oriented approach comes from being trained in "COIN" as a very young soldier and studying and reading about COIN for over 28 years. Since I am not American, COIN is not new to me. It is merely a form of warfare.

I am pretty sure Warfare and war in the next 20 years is going to be like the last 20, with Sierra Leone, Georgia, Gaza, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Darfur, and Machetes, High Explosive and AKs will create more political effect, than 24 hour news channels.

I'm not suggesting Toffler replaces Clausewitz, but they aren't necessarily mutually exclusive. Sorry, but the idea that the military establishment scoffs at Toffler only confirms my sense he's probably on to something. To suggest that the media/internet doesn't have enormous impact on strategic events seems to defy credulity, e.g., Abu Ghraib, Gitmo, etc. By your reasoning these are just military detainment facilities. The mission is to keep prisoners from escaping and extract intelligence information. Why would we interfere with such military police operations with fuzzy public relations concerns? Because COIN is a big PR battle. It impacts support at home, host nation, IGOs, NGOs, coalition, etc.

I genuinely respect your considerable service in the COIN environment, but I find David Galula's views more persuasive, as best illustrated in his work "The Pacification of Algeria."