Mike,

Small wars are operations undertaken under executive authority, wherein military force is combined with diplomatic pressure in the internal or external affairs of another state whose government is unstable, inadequate, or unsatisfactory for the preservation of life and of such interests as are determined by the foreign policy of our Nation.
Starting off the same ole tired caveat this is simply my opinion, and that opinions should always be open to persuasive arguments, otherwise they become dogma

Getting directly to your question, who is patrolling? Please look at the definition for Small Wars (from the SWJ homepage) above, and note the key adjectives inadequate and unsatisfactory. If the host nation security forces (assuming they exist) are inadequate and our government has determined (policy) it is in our national interests to pursue our objectives in country X militarily, then until the host nation forces are adequate and “willing” to carry on the fight, we may well have to do it (and are doing it). I’m not a big believer in getting involved in these types of conflicts unless it is absolutely necessary, so I think we have to assume that our government has made that determination (agree or disagree), so now we just need to do it.

Ideally less is more, but the fallacy behind that assumption is due to the over touted through, by and with mantra. The so called indirect approach assumes the world will be our surrogates and will fight for our national interests (mercenaries may, not others), but the reality is that the indirect approach only works in situations where we have mutual interests. We’re assuming that employing a FID like response is always the best response to every Small War situation and that may not be the case.

I agree with your comments on Iraq to a point, but for whatever reason we demobilized the Iraqi Army and the Iraqi police were never a credible force under Saddam, so assuming that the Iraqi army would provide security in the first place, we still effectively took that option off the table.

If the US sends ten advisors (SF or MTT team) to assist a HN BN or BCT, then the responsible remains on the HN. You stated that sometimes we must intervene in mass if the HN is incapable and it's relevent to our national security. I don't disagree with that statement, but I will caution that we should use discretion and discernment due to the unforecasted, unintended consequences that arise with being in charge. Iraq (2006-2007) is probably a good example of when we had to go unilateral, but we did so to stop a civil war and localized genocide
.

I agree with your statement, and would add that I have also stated that we should consider narrowing our objectives in some cases to punitive operations to deter future attacks, instead of engaging what some may label as imperial hubris. There are times when it is appropriate to occupy and rebuild, and times when it isn’t feasible (or worth the costs). I think we too often confuse hope and positive thinking with good strategy.