Sure. What of it?
The U.S. military’s “new” doctrine on COIN (FM 3-24) was lauded as a revolutionary moment. With the “new” doctrine in hand, the U.S. military could now effectively win its unconventional wars. However, comparison reveals the new COIN doctrine is strikingly similar to that developed during the Vietnam War. Why does the U.S. Military forget how to conduct the types of conflict it is more often engaged in?
We’re witnessing it happen right now. The military finds itself in a nonconventional conflict, adjusts on the fly haphazardly, eventually gets some systematic doctrine written down, and once the war is over it goes right back to preparing for near-peer competition. With troops still stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan actively engaged in combat, the Pentagon is already shifting focus back to near-peer competition with the new 2018 National Defense Strategy. [emphasis added]
The article asks why we forget COIN when most of our post-World War II missions have been irregular rather than conventional.
I'll tell you why, and it isn't something that needs to be corrected. An Army trained for COIN pushed into a high-speed intense conventional war will be destroyed; while an Army trained for conventional warfare will likely be unable to win--yet have the time to reorient without being destroyed to eventually win.
I argued, when the Iraq War surge was still going on, that any good soldier makes a good counter-insurgent--as long as the officer corps has the knowledge to use them in a good campaign.
Mind you, the author seems mostly on the same page as I am, but you need to get to the end:
Thus, the problem lies less with the military’s forgetfulness of how to conduct low-intensity operations, but with the nation that asks them to perform such operations whilst remaining ready for a near-peer war. States shouldn’t demand a military that can do everything somewhat well, but instead a military that can execute operations that serve vital interests incredibly well. Civilian leaders shouldn’t expect their militaries to be “jack of all trades” organizations. If American leaders ask the military to be good at stability operations they risk them being bad at countering existential threats.
The question is whether the Army and Marines are making sure that the officer corps retains the institutional knowledge of COIN even as they necessarily refocus on conventional combat.
