In reading the Long proposal, it looks neat and clean, and almost sterile of sorts...nice little packages that are able to employ significant freedom of maneuver in order to get the job done. It also makes me think on Takur Ghar mountain, and the challenges faced by similarly-equipped task forces going into a prepared action against particular targets.
It also makes me think of the Rhodesian Light Infantry, C Sqdn SAS, and Selous Scouts...but those folks were fighting pure COIN in a very classical sense. And the insurgents still "won". There were a ton of other factors at play, but they still won.
Long seems to totally wave off the arguments presented by Bruce Riedel and Michael O'Hanlon in their Op-Ed piece, and I've seen that trend apparent in other folks who opine that we should transition to a CT effort. That we can transition to said effort isn't so much the question (we've become particularly adept at dropping from the sky in the dark of night to spirit bad guys away or kill them outright), as is the issue of "well, so what?"
I don't buy into everything presented in the O'Hanlon and Reidel argument, but the Long piece seems...just odd. The outline of his CT force reads like something I could find in a Popular Mechanics article, or worse yet, on some Call of Duty clan board. I've seen how this works at the pointy tip of the spears, and it takes a lot of "beat cop" sort of work that comes from patrolling, key leader engagements, patrolling, project work, patrolling, security force training, patrolling...you get the picture by now. Bottom line is that it requires a ton of intelligence that I don't think Long can really appreciate because he simply hasn't been part of a targeting cycle for a mission that really counts.
I like your points Entropy, as I like this snippet from one of the posters to the KOW thread:the debate is now so intense that it’s in danger of also acquiring a cartoon-like quality to match it’s blind-faith style structure.
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