The unintended consequences of COIN

I agree that COIN as an obsession or, worse, a fad, invites large-scale, high-intensity, inter-state conflict or, maybe worse, that mix of inter-state and intra-state conflict called proxy or "indirect" war.

I thought that the late French officer, Gen. Andre Beaufre, did a good job of laying out a robust sprectrum and dealing with the paradoxes of deterrence and war-fighting.

Two things scare me about a COIN becoming a fad, though, rather than just a belated and necessary learning process:

First, the civilian budgets of centrist politicians and the ordnance-fixations of fringe politicians both compound and extend any fad, as the centrists and fringists play a kind of ping-pong.

Second, superficial and faddish politics fueled by stab-in-the-back (fringe) or never-again (centrist) movements risk the worst kind of escalation: elite panic and covering for strategic and tactical failures, civilian or military.

The only way I can think of to mitigate these risks -- and my personal obligation in all of this, since I am a civilian politician, not a soldier -- is to encourage open political controversy and competition, especially over the "sacred cows" (and "black budgets" of the military appropriation process.

That, too, risks previous war syndrome. It does involve discussion the mostly forgotten past, but consider this:

The worst sort of budget-fads I can imagine are those that involve just taking received interests and larding them with bigger and faster stuff. In our case, that involves maintaining precious inter- and intra-service "union rules" as well as procurment-concessions known as the "Treaty of Miami". Those fix and freeze capital budgets of 3, 4, ... n "separate but equal" "branches" of the armed forces, now, with "homeland security".

Another, I claim, is the right-wing and left-wing mix of elite chicken-hawk and pacifist exemptions from "the draft".

Oh, and there is still regular/reserve and line/restricted career/training management. Oh, how about the old public and private shipyard/arsenal controversy going back to the Nye Commission. These are over-arching but unmentionable constraints. I think they owe their rigidity to the dumb premise that defense and foreign policy should always flow from "bi-partisan consensus".

So much is beyond debate, maybe even forgotten. But, just about all of the original strategic context of what is now taken for granted, like the "Treaty of Miami" was the "supreme law of the land" instead of just a joke, was pretty superficial at the outset and has changed since, sadly, including the U.S. constitution itself.

In many respects, we are engaged in things like the COIN controversy while working around stuff set in concrete -- not necessarily resting securily in the actual constitution -- since, oh, the Civil War.

One of these is "the draft". It is, actually, an artifact of all-volunteer arrangements that collapsed under duress. We have never actually had a universal military obligation coterminous with suffrage -- a militia.

A well regulated militia was not compatible with slavery from the git-go and and is now loathed by both economic (right) and cringing (left) "liberals" as well as by "conservatives" or, as they were originally known, "Federalists" or as just "Tories". For "moderates" and "centrists", a universal military obligation is just incomprehensible, for instance, confused with a "draft".

Actually, both sides to the COIN controversy today could be wrong. But, more likely they are both substantially right but now to little political, military, or economic end, since so much is fixed and not subject to reasonable discourse or "change" at all.

I feel its vital to point out that it was Linebacker II that brought the North Vietnamese to the negotiating table.

I also feel it's important to note that while insurgencies are fought hand to hand, house to house, the insurgent is getting his means from a State Actor. In Vietnam, it was Russia, and China acting via North Vietnam (whether the VC were really just a support echelon of the NVA is a whole other discussion.)

In Iraq it was Iran, Syria etc. Neither one of these states have anything like the ability to deter an overwhelming air campaign against them. It is my firm belief that had Bush's statement of "either you are with us or you are against us" was put into practice with the level of commitment comparable to Linebacker II we would not be having this discussion...or retooling our military to fight insurgencies.

It is absolutely ludicrous to suggest that the Iraqi insurgency would not have existed without Iranian and Syrian support, or that taking the war to those states would somehow have made things better. I think billslayer's post yesterday evening must've been a joke.

Christian, your point about the deterrent effect of our current spending, training, and equipping patterns is the one upon which MG Dunlap's argument depends (well, that and the fact that he's in the Air Force, but that's another discussion altogether). I don't find it compelling for a number of reasons, but this is the most important: the threat of interstate conflict is largely obviated by 1) nuclear weapons and 2) the air supremacy we could establish in almost any theater around the globe. This isn't to say that states have ceased to fight one another, but rather that the U.S. can intervene effectively at its discretion in those conflicts that are most threatening to our interests, or those that might be viewed as existential threats.

For the time being, helping other governments to establish control over their territory (and occasionally, helping to stand up new and responsive governments) is a vital imperative for the U.S. military, and a far more likely mission than the employment of massed formations against another modern, mechanized, air-land force.

There's a more sinister side to the "full spectrum" (or anti-COIN, to use a term that is often more accurate) arguments coming from the uniformed military, as well. While they accuse those who emphasize COIN of excusing or even advocating an aggressive, adventurous, even neo-imperial policy shift, it seems more likely that the reverse is true: those who are pro-COIN are doing their best to build a military to win America's current (and likely future) wars, while the anti-COIN types are trying to legislate from the bench, per se -- to build an Army that will make American policymakers think twice about engaging in the small brushfire wars in which they seem to believe we have no place.