Not sure what you mean because of grammar, but the Swiss will want to disagree if my suspicion about what you mean is correct.Originally Posted by OfTheTroops
@Bill;
he's easily a top tier military affairs analyst if "highly naive" is the worst that can be said about his articles. There's not much shining competition...
I personally don't agree with his idea to about the direction to go (pop-centric COIN) and would if at all rather treat this as a political fight (=deal with those who have influence, don't try to influence millions of people directly).
I do believe he's more right about the "losing" thing, and consider your and dayuhan's position as rather reflexive partisan - especially in the case of Iraq, where the troubles were started more by occupation mistakes than in Afghanistan.
Furthermore I wouldn't place so much trust in the core competence of winning battles. The American way of warfare works well against near-defenceless opposition (at least superficially) and it works well with overwhelming resources. Competence is yet to be demonstrated in battle, and especially so in crisis. The 101st in Bastogne was probably the only U.S. Army ground forces formation that prevailed in a crisis with inferior resources - ever!
That's not much to show for. Too many Kasserines to contrast this with.
The current doctrine and near-total radio comm dependency of the entire army still needs to be proved to be an effective system in a conflict against a great power. I've got my doubts about the viability of the entire concept in such a scenario.
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