The "Nouveau-COIN," is like the MW crowd, they don't just cherry pick, but they are also generally poor military historians, in that they assume there is something distinct called "Counter-insurgency," -which you can study in isolation, and that from that you can develop "COIN Theories."

The worst thing they try to tell you is that military force isn't the primary method by which insurgencies are defeated, and as evidence cite cases where military force was stupidly or badly applied, or ignore and denigrate it's absolute necessity in creating the conditions where the political solution could be achieved - so none of them read Clausewitz either.
From this we see, in the last 7 years, is body of literature emerging , that says nothing new or insightful, about so called "counter-insurgency."
Once again Wilf you jump on the same soap box and start the "they" and "Nouveau COIN" labeling in the interest of bludgeoning anyone who might have a different idea than you or your near idolic worship of CvC.

Careful reading of Kilcullen, Nagl etc does not state that COIN is won without force; they do state that COIN campaigns are lost by an overapplication of force. That I definitely agree with and have watched it happend from the ground.

As for assuming that you can study COIN as a distinct element in warfare, perhaps. It is part of a spectrum of operations and as such boundaries are unclear. That I would say is better than ignoring it or worse banning it as a subject to consider.

Is all the scholarship of the past 7 years wasted? Hardly and as for the good professor, his own assumptions are equally glaring.

Tom