Quote Originally Posted by William F. Owen View Post
With respect, I think that statement needs to be held to rigour.
The basics of the Platoon attack have not changed since 1919, but yes a Platoon Commander can now call and adjust Corps level artillery fires - but that's really a "so what" issue. It's not hard to understand.
The same man can use a hand thrown or ground crawling UAV to do the same - so what?
The tactical level is not and has not become more complex. If so how?

The biggest problem I have is teaching people the limitations of all the new toys. EG: 28 knot surface wind, and most hand thrown UAV's will fly, etc etc etc.
No argument that most tactics produce very similar results at the tactical level; though just as the rifled musket forced modification of tactics to take into account a formation receiving 6-10 aimed volleys as it closed with the enemy vice the 1-2 they had received over the few hundred years preceding; so to do many advances like UAVs, guided munitions, etc; shape tactics today. But that is not what I am talking about at all.

What i am talking about is the strategic effect expected based on historical experience from COIN tactics simply is far less likely to be achieved due to the enhanced communications tools available to populaces (and therefore insurgents) everywhere.

This is the essence of the AQ phenom. The ability of a non-state to act like a State to conduct UW across many states while protected by the sanctuary of their status of not being a state, so having no state-based vulnerabilities that can be either targeted or deterred in a classic sense.

The strategic environment has changed incredibly; both because the artificial construct of the Cold War polarity that all of our policies and international organizations are based upon no longer exists; because that in it self also served as a catalyst for those oppressed by it to seek the opportunity to achieve change; and because the information tools that are fueling globalization have empowered these organizations to be more effective, more resilient, and longer reaching, than ever before.

The fact that it still only takes one bullet to kill one man is immaterial and moot to this discussion.