I just got finished reading Into the Fire by Meyer and West and it provided a worms eye view of "COIN", or our idea of it in Afghanistan. Basically you drive into a village for an afternoon every couple of weeks and ask what they need, how is security and have you seen any dushmen. They need everything, security is fine and no we haven't seen any but that next village over is suspect. I have no idea what that is about but anybody in his right mind knows that kind of thing can't work. You can't win any war, large or small, being that stupid. Anybody who successfully prosecuted small wars in the past, and there are lots that were successfully prosecuted, would be completely mystified by that, along with force pro, big bases, short tours in theatre, contracting practices and all the other goofy things we do. If you use "COIN" as a synonym for 'stupid', I'll go along with that but not that small war practices don't often work or that these conflicts can't be won.

Where did people get the idea that small wars don't involve fighting? If you actually read what went on in those wars you can't get that idea. West's account of Binh Nghia was ambush patrol after ambush patrol and fight after fight. Galula's account of his time in Algeria stresses the number of ambushes laid and how they never slacked off on the number. The Philippines was fighting and figuring how to get at them, or cutting them off from the people by moving the people. Plenty of application of force. Anybody who didn't figure that wasn't paying attention. Again, if "COIN" means stupid, ok.

That bit about societies being innocent naifs until some small war unleashed the devil within is nonsense. Militarized police, surveillance and all that stuff was happening anyway, in my opinion. To think that mature bureaucracies won't try to grab power is naive. They didn't need some small war to set them along that path. If Ms. Arendt has a different opinion, that is all she has, an opinion. There ain't no way to prove it one way or another.

It always seemed to me that one of Gian's motivations was to rationalize failure of the establishment big military. The argument seemed to be that small wars couldn't be done therefore big military couldn't be blamed for being stupid when they didn't get it right. A support for that is the either/or approach, we can be good at big wars or small, but not both. That is organizational self serving nonsense. You can be good enough at both, if the leadership is good. Gian's argument is sort of a martial manifestation of a modern American cultural trait, it is never my fault.