Innovation or Inertia--COIN is a Toss Up

David Ucko's new article is up at Orbis-Innovation or Inertia the U.S Military and the Learning of Counterinsurgency link at IRG. Ucko has some very nice words to say about the American military's ability to turn and burn on a dime, BUT, notes that DOD still still thinks of COIN as optional glitz not main fare meat and potatoes. Follow the money, Ucko states. Where are the investment in budgets going. Not into COIN. Even the Marine Corps, with its point man investment in Boyd, can only afford one week of COIN training at a training village for 03's. What's their investment in the Osprey whirly bird? Gazillions and years? At any rate, Ucko's article is worth the read even if you are going to find that COIN is still a toss up with DOD. What did you expect? The DOD is a humongous dinosaur with a walnut size brain that takes years to receive msgs that it has been kicked in the ass.

FM 3-24 "Dishonest and Cowardly" "Terrific Manual to Refight Vietnam 1963" : Peters

FM 3-24 will be out, supposedly, in its final version next month and already Army/Marine Corps counterinsurgency doctrine for Killing Jihad Jockeys and their thugmasters is getting less than rave reviews from Retired LtCol Ralph Peters. Peters, not one to sugar coat his views calls FM 3-24" .... dishonest and cowardly." Peters is outraged that the military establishment is pussy footing with politically correct opinions that could lead to needless American casualities by ignoring the fact that we are at war with faith based terrorism. " the doctrine ignores faith-inspired terrorism and skirts ethnic issues in favor of analyzing yesteryear's political insurgencies. It would be a terrific manual if we returned to Vietnam circa 1963, but its recommendations are profoundly misguided when it comes to fighting terrorists intoxicated with religious visions and the smell of blood." "Islamist terrorists who regard death as a promotion are not going to reject their faith any more than an ethnic warrior can - or would wish to - change his blood identity." Peters has a point and a damn good one. Repeatedly, the jihad thuggies and their thugmasters have clearly stated their mission and precisely how they are going to accomplish same. But as Peters states: "...the doctrine writers ignored today's reality."

"Al Qaeda and other terror organizations have stated explicitly and repeatedly that they're waging a global jihad to re-establish the caliphate. Yet the new manual ignores religious belief as a motivation." (FM 3-24) is....morally frivolous and intellectually inert, a pathetic rehashing of yesteryear's discredited "wisdom" on counterinsurgencies and, worst of all, driven by a stalker-quality infatuation with T.E. Lawrence, "Lawrence of Arabia," who not only was a huckster of the first order, but whose "revolt in the desert" was a near-meaningless sideshow of a sideshow."