Quote Originally Posted by William F. Owen View Post
Obviously you use the tactics, techniques and procedures that have proved themselves as being effective. As a serving officer you are more than aware of those. ( If you really are on a "battlefield" then kill those trying to kill you, and within the constraints of ROE. )

More generally it's mainly down to good intelligence performing the FIND function within the Core functions. How that is done comes down to how well your operations function as a whole and how effective your various practices and supporting agencies are. Context is critical.
It seems that there is a huge movement on the SWJ forums (as opposed to the journal and blog) to get rid of yucky "population-centric COIN" that "wants to win hearts and minds." The biggest critique seems to be that population-centric COIN hides behind catch phrases and offers no real solutions to our modern fight.

I am no longer in the warzone. When I was, trust me we shot at the enemy when we could get PID. Trust me, we designed missions to catch the enemy and kill him. We also did constant hearts and minds. What I want to know is, where are the resources to get intelligence from the population without doing population-centric COIN? If the British Army has manuals or recommendations on gathering intelligence, finding and identifying the enemy and operations to kill them, what are they? It seems like the whole of the military has disregarded the approach, both the UK and the US.

As for a scenario, take the Helmand Province and the current Marine operation there. What is the better option then avoiding civilian casualties as they are right now? Without trying to give support to the population, how do we get intelligence to kill the Taliban, HiG and AQ groups there?