I stated in an earlier post that "war" is "war" is "war." In my opinion, same thing holds true here. The principles / fundamentals / considerations for a successful relief-in-place operation in Korea in 1951 were the same they were for Chamberlain in 1863 and the same they are today in Iraq or Afghanistan, namely, exchange liaisons, know the battlespace, do a detailed recon, bring key leaders, UNDERSTAND OR IN "BOYDIAN SPEAK" ORIENT ON YOUR ENEMY, execution of the RIP is the most dangerous part of the operation because the enemy has exeprience on the ground and you don't, etc. Not much changes in most operations. Except today, because, as JCustis points out, some have lost their tactical skill or professionalism, we need Kilcullen to write rules such as "prep for your turnover from day 1" so that we remember how important it is to arm our successor with information about the enemy, the terrain, be this "human" or physical, weather, etc. when conducting a RIP.

WRT Small Wars might not involve opposed breaching, etc. Not always the case. Experienced much of this in Najaf in Aug '04. Insurgents rolling 55-gallon drums of fuel down hills at our tanks, booby-trapped entry ways, the entire cemetery being rigged with "IEDs" not mines. This was "war" in every sense of the word, and very similar to what Israel recently experienced against Hezbollah in S Lebanon. This is also why I think we need a balanced force that trains across the entire spectrum of operations. Dealing with this fight was very hard, but then again, trying to figure out the complex nature of the Mahdi Army after the shooting stopped was just as difficult, if not more difficult. And then rebuilding indigenous forces, fixing everything we blew up, etc. was an entirely different challenge.

WRT to differences for higher level commands and staffs... not sure that I agree. A battalion commander today generally has a much larger AO and units dispersed all over the place. I'd argue in many ways this is harder to command than a battalion consolidated in vehicles pushing North along a highway. Depending on training, maybe the battalion's lost some of the art of Desert Storm Combined Arms warfare, but even here, how realistic is it that an enemy in the future will sit in the open desert against a western military. This was one of Israeli's biggest problems; Hezbollah "hugged" the IDF ground forces, fighting from well-concealed and fortified bunkers that often didn't engage until the IDF was within danger close of most supporting arms or CAS. As to differences in intel functions, I definitely think we short-changed intel in the past and are now only catching up. For example, in OIF I, in the "conventional" phase of the war, when pushing North along Rte 7 to Al Kut and later up Rte 6 to Baghdad, I would have never thought to nor was I ever asked to take a picture of the enemy that we encountered, have a runner pass this to S-2 or e-mailing it up... yet, doing this would have armed the S-2 and potentially the entire battalion if not MEF with more info on who we were fighting based on uniform, weapons, fighting positions, etc. This would have subsequently allowed us all to better "orient" on the battlefield.

Changing subjects a bit, I find those who argue Boyd and his OODA loop are too obvious or useless, interesting. Most junior officers and SNCOs that I know, after reading Coram's book on Boyd or being introduced to the more complex version of the OODA loop, the one that emphasizes the orient phase, find this model extremely valuable in understanding the decision-making process, particularly when tryiing to understand enemy motivations, strategy, intent. These same Marines often wonder why they were never introduced to this model in formal schools...