[bailaviborita]

The COIN manual was put together without input from SF or SOF in general (not that we weren't at fault for that). Many disagree that what it says is the only way to do COIN. Many others would argue that each COIN instance is unique and that some call for more force, others call for more presence, and still others call for more soft power tools. Unfortunately, our COIN doctrine worked okay in Iraq- so many are arguing (the latest person I heard was Palin...) that we just need to so the same in Afghanistan.

The Army is on the brink of accidentally turning themselves into a truly flexible force capable of much more than just Major Combat Ops (MCO) or COIN in semi-developed countries (think Iraq)- at least at the conceptual level. China writing about hybrid warfare is nudging us further down that road- but those who want that kind of change are up against some powerful interests: those who think the Army should only prepare for MCO and those who don't want to get away from the "dress-right-dress" standardized, better-than-the-Wehrmacht force we have so meticulously created since post-Vietnam (everyone has their reflector belt over the right shoulder).

Bottom line is that there are plenty of examples in history of different tools being put to successful use depending on the context of the particular insurgency threat faced. That most of these were found out through trial and error and giving massive freedom of action to the lowest-level units possible is something that many have for some curious reason chose to ignore. That lessons can be pulled out of these actions for use in MCO is obvious- it would seem- to only the Chinese...