SWJ SNQ

New feature here: Small Wars Journal’s Saturday Night Quote (SWJ SNQ). Once a week we’ll highlight a quote of particular note, insightfulness, or just damn funny – or maybe two or three if our site visitors are on a roll. The inaugural winner, and probably no surprise to our regular viewers out there in SWJLand, is Schmedlap. In response to “After 9 years, where it matters, we don’t get COIN” he had this to say:

I’m starting to think that I never will. The shortcomings that you cite seem, to me, to be not unique to COIN. But inability to “get” them seems to always be held up as evidence of not getting COIN.

Risk aversion, blind adherence to SOP, unwillingness to partner and embed, obsession with PowerPoint, excessive force protection, neglecting personal relationships, lack of coordination – it sounds to me like we don’t get war. Of any type. I don’t understand why our lack of knowledge is so often characterized as a more narrow deficiency of not getting COIN.