Center for a New American Security

Actually, that was a correct

Actually, that was a correct prediction in the sense that the proponents of the machine gun really did claim, at the time, that it would put an end to warfare - wars would be over immediately, and peace could be kept - it was an arms dealer selling point. "Guns for Peace."

That latter claim was false, wasn't it? Consider trench warfare - take your 18th century horse-and-musket regiments, give them machine guns, and let them shoot at each other. Pretty soon, all the horses are dead and they get the bright idea to dig trenches and shoot from protected positions - trench warfare. Then came tanks and aerial bombardment, and trenches largely vanished - but the pistol didn't, nor did the rifle - or the machine gun - or the knife. The claim that "wars would be too terrible to fight" didn't hold up.

Even later, when weapons really "to powerful to use" were developed, they were set aside by both powers and not deployed, despite all the claims you hear about "Total War" in WWII. Those weapons - poison gases like tabun - "a clear liquid with a slight fruity odor" - were far more toxic than the WWI gases - and Germany had developed huge supplies (made in secret I.G. Farben-linked factories). Britain hadn't made such "advances" but they did have a biological weapons program based on anthrax and botulinum toxin.

The reason that those weapons were not used by either side in WWII, even at the height of the fighting, was because of fear of retaliation. This bit of history is widely unknown, but accounts are that on D-Day, Hitler's advisers begged him to use tabun against the invading force, which could easily have blocked the landing efforts. - but Hitler knew if rockets full of poison gas came down on London, bombers would do the same to Berlin. Not a total lunatic, Hitler - unlike Goebbels, who was behind the push. Britain kept huge stocks of mustard gas in active theaters (one even got blown up in Bari, killing many) in case the need for retaliation arose - and the anthrax bombs were never dropped, either. Nevertheless, those plans were drawn up as a precaution, and in the event of poison gas on D-Day, they almost certainly would have been used.

A higher form of killing: the secret history of chemical and biological warfare

This claim of new technology making warfare obsolete is trotted out in defense of every new military technology - the most ridiculous example being the 1980s-era claim that Star Wars missile defense will make nuclear weapons obsolete and create some new technological advantage - pure nonsense.

The real rule seems to be that countries develop weaponry up to the point where it's impossible to actually use those weapons without slaughtering millions of non-combatant civilians - and then they set those weapons aside - unless, as with Hiroshima, there is no chance of retaliation - and fight conventionally, with everything from knives to machine guns to tanks and airplanes. The only problem is that if one side is losing the conventional war, they may be tempted to use their nukes. That's the Pakistani-Indian nightmare scenario.

Of course, this circle of technology has been very profitable for arms dealers, who are always pointing to the advantage that their weapons systems can give countries over each other. See The Arms Bazaar: From Lebanon to Lockheed for some of the history, up to 1980. It's a story of threat inflation, bribery, and other idiocy - but at least they built some decent planes. The SDI stuff, on the other hand, is total crap.

Yeah robbo - but what about

Yeah robbo - but what about ammunition factories? An AK-47 with no bullets is not much use - and even AK-47s wear out. Plus, they already had rough armor - see the armored civil war battles on the Mississippi. Of course, Northern forces would have put a precedent on capturing these new weapons, and any factories that made them. At most, the war would have been prolonged a few years, and the North would still have the industrial base, not the South, and would eventually be able to produce more weapons and ammunition.

As soon as a new weapon is introduced, the technological advantage only lasts until the other side copies it. That's why the claim of new technology "ending war" is always nonsense - and that's what the original quote that AbuM points to is talking about, the claim that the machine gun would end war.

P.S. Here's another good prediction from that era:

It does not appear probably that machine guns will ever play a very great part in battle. Their delicate construction is a drawback, and the fact that, small as they are, they afford the enemy a mark is a great objection to this ingenuous form of firearm. But they have their place in tactics, and South African experiences show that when used with discretion they are capable of performing highly effective service. - Sir Charles Edward Callwell (1900)

Translation: works great for mowing down native tribes armed with spears and bows, as well as your poorly-supplied Boer rebels*, but when facing a European army armed with artillery and rifles, it's not so great. (Trench warfare was not foreseen, nor was the tank-mounted machine gun.)

*In 1901 and 1902, the British torched more than 30,000 farms in the South African Republic and the Orange Free State and placed all the Afrikaner women and children in concentration camps, where, because of overcrowding and unsanitary conditions, more than 25,000 perished.

I'd argue that the

I'd argue that the machinegun, in and of itself, did not bring about a revolution in tactics. What it did do, along with the much more prosaic barbed wire, is slow down attacking infantry and cavalry so that artillery could wreak havoc upon them. The combined advances in artillery (rifled steel tubes and effective recoil systems) and ammunition (more precisely made projectiles and uniformly powerful propellants and fillers) enabled post-1900 guns to effectively place repeated shots into a relatively small area. When these artillery pieces were combined with relatively sophisticated mathematical fire direction techniques and communications systems that allowed for the massing of great numbers of guns, the result for attacking conventional infantry was slaughter. Look at the data on which weapons inflicted the most casualties in both World Wars - artillery far surpasses other weapons as the killer. Indeed, if one looks at battles in World War II where armored forces could not be brought to bear (Italy is one excellent example), one is struck by the similarities to battles twenty years previously.

Oh, Col Gentile just shaved

Oh, Col Gentile just shaved your nuts and skinned 'em for ya, Ex.

Darn, I thought it was the

Darn, I thought it was the electric storage cell.

Always said that if you want to stop WW3 all you have to do is take away everyone's batteries.

Comment by Abu Muqawama on

Comment by Abu Muqawama on August 12, 2010 - 11:43am
I rarely wade through the comments section of this blog save to delete all the homophobic nonsense, but Gian and ADTS are always worth reading.

It's not homophobic, it's homo-centric. Or if you wish, hom-erotic. If my ideas about the Gay brigade, gets into a CNAS white paper for new things to consider to win Afghanistan, then I am only here to help.

COL Gentile and Abu

COL Gentile and Abu M:

Thanks for the compliments - good to be back in touch as well.

A lot of ideas floating around in the ether, so it's hard to synthesize my reply into something coherent (paging Publius and Cynic). But enough preemptive apologizing.

Of course strategy should dictate tactics, just as - if I understand Clausewitz's aphorism correctly - politics should dictate warfighting. As for the 18-month time table, I never took it seriously, and looked at it as a campaign promise which permitted Obama to appease the left side of the electorate (with the troop escalation appeasing the right side of the electorate). I've found Stephen Walt's commentary to be extremely illuminating, even if I'm not sure that's where I got this from. I think the question is, or should be, the extent to which we can win in Afghanistan - by which I mean, reducing violence to "acceptable" levels, not the emergence of Jeffersonian democracy, which obviously seems most unlikely - and the ways in which this might occur - a recurrence of the narrative put forth by the Matrix, to use your terminology, or some other causal mechanisms. I think there are two ways to proceed: one is that PC COIN is indeed a strategy of tactics, and there's nothing wrong with that, because it works (which I'm not advocating), or that PC COIN did not work in its most cited case (at least as of right now), and the Surge succeeded because of other factors.

The machine gun quote actually got me thinking about a lot of the technological innovations that occurred between the advent of the industrial revolution and 1914. I was thinking more about railroads than anything else. And of course the wrongheadedness of the machine gun made me think of Norman Angell's "Grand Illusion" (?) (is that right) in which he declared war obsolete (as has John Mueller, the Woody Hayes Professor at Ohio State, for what it's worth, at least for major war)

I think I agree with you, Abu M, that irregular warfare will still be around in this new century. I suppose the real question is the degree to which it will exist in relation to regular warfare. And the question that should be especially interesting to you: is hybrid warfare really where things are headed?

I tend to disagree that we'll emphasize protecting SLOCs, primarily because we won't need to - who can project naval power the way we can? - and, while I profess marked ignorance on the topic, think cyber attacks will quite possibly be an area upon which the US focuses.

I tend to concur we're creating a generation of Weinberger-Powells - fearful of open-ended "interventions" a la Vietnam - whoops, my fingers slipped, I mean Iraq and Afghanistan. Then again, here too my ignorance is marked - I simply don't know enough military officers (active or retired).

To contradict myself a bit from a paragraph back, I can imagine where command of the commons may become the measure of great power politics. Can one imagine a Chinese naval base in Brazil? Or South Africa, for that matter?

I haven't thought enough about drones (although a drinking buddy of mine who reads the New Yorker is captivated by them!). I really ought to buy Peter W. Singer's book on them before I comment intelligently. As for how doctrine evolves during a war, here too, my thoughts are vacuous, although I thought Timothy Lupfer' "The Dynamics of Doctrine" (deals with the German army, cited in "Eating Soup," available online) was superb. I might think that Gartner's "Strategic Assessment in War" might be pertinent - by his theory, if the dominant indicators weren't oriented around the machine gun and the trench, and the interplay by the two, then one wouldn't have expected to see any doctrinal/actual changes in strategy/tactics. (And incidentally, to bring us back to the beginning, was the trench/machine gun tactical or, to the extent that the tactics largely resulted in a stalemate, strategic?)

ADTS

AbuM: "and protecting

AbuM: "and protecting ourselves in terms of cyber attacks."

You have got to be kidding, right? Yet another bloated defense contracting business for the private sector? And nothing at all about the failure of those private intelligence contractors in Afghanistan to produce useful intel? Why would they be any better at cybersecurity? Cyberinsecurity is more like it, if you bring in a bunch of grey area contractors with dubious loyalties.

The one fundamental tactic that hasn't changed is to deny supplies to the enemy - seems like the Taliban are doing a better job of that than NATO is, too. Another result of rotten private contractor intelligence, isn't it?

In this respect, note that if Germany had not developed nitrogen fixation for explosives in WWI, they'd have run out of war material in six months. Likewise, in WWII, if the Allies had thrown everything at smashing Germany's domestic fuel apparatus, the war would have ended in eight weeks. The synfuel program wasn't even targeted at all until 1943, too, and not heavily enough. That's the true story of WWII - American submariners cut off Japanese fuel lines, as did British forces with critical help from British codebreakers like Alan Turing, who read Rommel's requests for fuel and intercepted his supplies.

A tank mounted machine gun with no fuel is a very useless thing in war.

COL Gentile: I don't think

COL Gentile:
I don't think it's fair to limit the discussion of Afghanistan to a change solely in tactics. The strategy in Afghanistan is the major factor that changed. Obviously the tactics had to change with it, but the question is whether the new strategy can save the mess that has already been created.

Whether Iraq has been an example of a COIN success or other factors serendipitously creating success on its own, it isn't fair, nor is it wise, to discredit COIN principles based on Iraq and Afghanistan. If we're going to draw from past instances, we used COIN in the Phillipines and the Phillipines was a success. We used COIN in the surge in Iraq (which was a radical departure from the strategy and tactics that had been used from 2003-2006) and it has been successful. We did not use COIN (or at least only implemented it half-heartedly when we did) in Vietnam and Vietnam was a clear failure. This is not enough evidence to conclude that COIN doesn't work and/or is a faulty strategy. As for Afghanistan, the mess that has been created there from our policies and strategy from 2001-2009 basically set the worst possible conditions to implement COIN. If it fails here, this will not be conclusive evidence that COIN doesn't work, however a success here would seem to close the book on the debate.

As for Publius' comment about the fire-breathing generals asking for more time to accomplish their mission, we basically made every conceivable wrong decision in the outset in Afghanistan, to include diverting military power that should've been used to achieve success to begin a quagmire in Iraq, and we spent the next eight years watching Afghanistan fester while we continued to focus on Iraq. We've allowed Afghanistan to become a horrendous mess, so yes, Any strategy that would set out to achieve success now will require lots of time to do it. No general thought "hey if we just switch to COIN in 2009, by 2011 war's over." The only people who had the delusion that success would be achieved by 2011 were the American people listening to Obama's rhetoric, even he knew the real situation which is why he's toned down the rhetoric since then.

Gunboat:
Any smart enemy is going to attack us where it is most beneficial for him and most detrimental for us. AQI, the Taliban, and AQ have chosen to attack us with an insurgency as opposed to a conventional war because A) our conventional ability greatly outmatches theirs and B) we're not well suited for fighting against an insurgency. A smart enemy will see that we are very weak on the cyber front, and that if he can develop the capability this is the prime way to attack us. Better to develop a good defense than to sit back and hope no attacks come.

ADTS:
AM is probably right about the sea lanes. Those Somali pirates haven't gone away (incidentally, Japan for the first time since WWII has approved the construction of a base on foreign soil. They're setting it up in Djibouti for just this reason).

The Macabebe Scouts and

The Macabebe Scouts and Their Reputation
By DR. JOHN ALAN LARKIN

ONE OF the first pieces of Philippine folklore (tsismis?) I heard when I began my research in 1963 was the dubious contention that “the Pampangos were untrustworthy.” Untrustworthy about what was not immediately evident, but the notion seems to have had its origin when 81 Macabebe Scouts were instrumental in the capture of Emilio Aguinaldo in Palanan, Isabela, in March 1901. They used the daring ruse of bringing supposed American prisoners into General Aguinaldo’s secret camp and then turning on the Philippine president, thus helping to bring the war to a conclusion. So the story of the untrustworthy Pampango started in the Republican nationalist lore of the turn of the century. What needs to be emphasized, however, is that the actions of those particular Macabebes did not reflect the attitude of most Capampangans towards the struggle going on at the time.

Two points should be made about the incident at Palanan to put it in perspective. First of all, the action reveals the cleverness and bravery of the Macabebe Scouts who were experienced soldiers with a long history of military service. Second, the Scouts were mercenary troops, soldiers who served different governments for wages. Born as a force of resistance against the Spanish, the soldiers of Pampanga, and Macabebe in particular, used their military skills as a means of livelihood during the colonial period. One of the conditions under Spanish domination was the necessity to develop a diverse economy, and mercenary service was just one way to make a living, along with crafts, trading and farming. For example, it was the Capampangan Pandaypira who cast brass canons for Spanish ships.

The history of the Macabebes as soldiers harks back to the time of Spanish conquest of the Philippines. In June 1571, troops from that town, one of the earliest of the province’s known historical settlements, served under Rajah Soliman, perhaps from Lubao, against Spanish forces in Tondo, under the command of Martin de Goiti. The Spaniards must have been impressed by the military prowess of the Pampangos for, three years later, after the conquest of Pampanga, the colonials employed natives of the area in the defense of Manila against the pirate Limahong. Thus began some four centuries of Pampango professional military service, and troops from Macabebe and its later off-shoot Masantol formed a significant part of those contingents.

The record of the Capampangans as soldiers in the colonial service is a long and durable one. Units from other ethno-linguistic groups, including Visayans (Cebuanos and Negrenses among them), Ilocanos, Samals and Tagalogs, also served under Spanish command; however, the Pampangos seem to have been the ones with the most professional reputation and experience. Consider just the known service from the Spanish era. In 1603 and 1640 they assisted the Spanish in exerting control over the Chinese community in Manila. They served in Mindanao and the Moluccas against the Moros and the Dutch, and they helped repel the British invasion of the 1760s. It should be recalled that Bacolor was the Spanish capital, ably defended by Capampangan contingents, while the English controlled Manila.

The reward for such service could be substantial. In the 1660s, Don Juan Macapagal received the lofty title of maestre de campo and an encomienda for raising troops to suppress a local rebellion and later to fend off a threatened invasion by the Chinese pirate Koxinga. Macapagal was one of the only natives to be so honored.

In the mid-19th century Pampangos joined the Spanish and French in the invasion of Vietnam, ostensibly to defend the Catholic missionary enterprise in that kingdom. Little has been written about this military action by the natives of Pampanga during this campaign and the subject would make a good research topic for some enterprising scholar with a grasp of French and Spanish.

Given this history of dedicated, professional service, it is not surprising that the Macabebes, under Colonial Eugenio Blanco, should have been enlisted to defend the Spanish cause at the time of the Revolution and, later to soldier for the United States during the Philippine-American War. It was a matter of vocation, not politics. The whole question of loyalty in the province to the Malolos government is a complex one, and demands extended treatment elsewhere. Here I can suggest that the Macabebes had an occupation which they pursued in a competent (if harsh), experienced fashion.

During the American period the Macabebe Scouts continued their service and formed the backbone of the Philippine Scouts. Many of their successors belonged to units that made the heroic stand at Bataan in defense of the Philippine Commonwealth. That tradition of professional soldiering continued into the post-World War II era. This pride of service is expressed in the following quote by Marcelino Paras from “The 1964 Masantol Yearbook” of the town fiesta:

It is with deep pride to note that this is a town of bold warriors and brave soldiers. As early as June 6, 1570 (sic) when the Spaniards under the leadership of Martin de Goiti came to Manila to impose the Spanish sovereignty in our country, they were met by Rajah Soliman, reputedly a native of this place, and a handful of bold warriors from Macabebe. The Masantoleno as a soldier saw action in three wars, namely, the Spanish-American War, World War I, and World War II. As a soldier he is second to none in gallantry and bravery under fire, earning for himself medals of honor which he could leave as worthy legacy to his children. With the coming of the Americans who implanted the seeds of democracy in our soil, he served under the American flag in all these wars. He saw action in Bataan and Corregidor. He joined the infamous “death march”. During the enemy occupation, he joined the guerrilla movement, more particularly the two outstanding guerrilla organizations the 320th Squadron (LGAF) under Major Robert Lapham, and the Banal Regiment, under Alejandro Poblete, alias Jose Banal. It is no wonder that today, there are some 570 checks that pour into the town monthly, amounting to P250,000, more or less. These are pensions for our disabled veterans and their dependents.

Clearly the people of Macabebe and Masantol take pride and feel loyal to their calling.

The reputation of the Capampangan for duplicity is obviously undeserved. Like any other group in the Philippines they were forced to make some compromises with colonialism. But in the case of soldiering the Pampangos used their skills in ways that ultimately reflected well on the province. Professional soldiering is an ancient profession, practiced by colonial and non-colonial peoples alike. It should not be confused with patriotism.

Publius: You're welcome -

Publius:

You're welcome - richly deserved.

I did mean carrier operations when I thought of the aircraft, and was thinking of carrier task forces island hopping (as you were, too). A thought, though. Is it the technology, or the ability to *use* the technology, that constitutes the innovation (revolution?), and paves the way for strategic versus tactical utilization? The following is something of a response to your post, as well as an opportunity to discuss the issue of strategy versus tactics. First, what if a weapon that could be used strategically was used only tactically, because doctrine for its use as a strategic weapon was not created or disseminated? Second, I've read of tacit knowledge before, and by chance, was just reading Stephen Walt's foreign policy blog where he went on a carrier, and noted that a bunch of smart people sitting in a room couldn't come up with a system that would allow us to perform at the level at which we now perform. Carrier operations are a result of accumulated experience (the good ones, at least). I imagine the LST's utility on, say, June 6, 1944 (to take but one date and theater of operations) was the result of prior amphibious operations - how could it not have been (Rick Atkinson argues in "An Army at Dawn" that the North Africa campaign was beneficial if for no other reason than "hardening" what was in many ways a "soft" army (my terminology, not his, at least as far as I can result))?

I may be straying off topic - the point isn't necessarily (or wasn't originally, I think) whether it's the hardware (technology) or the software (the doctrine and organizational routines to utilize said hardware*) that constitute an innovation; **the original point was whether PC COIN is viable or wise to pursue, and also, perhaps as a corollary, what constitutes strategy versus tactic, as well as whether there is a viable strategy for pursuing our contemporary conflicts.** But as a corollary, we might get more analytic leverage by examining when weapons systems are strategic rather than tactical. I suppose the answer might be, it depends on how the weapon system is used. *Perhaps it's possible that clear-build-hold, and other PC-COIN actions, can be both tactical and/or strategic?* Should one incorporate Congress's compliments to Petraeus as an element of strategy that must be considered, ie, any strategy that fails to take into account of Congress is doomed to fail. (Robert Timberg's account of Oliver North and Robert MacFarlane makes this point.) *Perhaps it's also possible that the use of a weapon, tactic or tactics is context-specific.* To return to weapons systems, I didn't mention it before, but to me the railroad is a perplexing example It's not really a weapon, to begin with, but was it tactical or strategic? *I can certainly see the case for the former (tactical), but I imagine there's a case for the former (strategic).* As room for thought, can a weapon be *both* tactical and strategic, and can this be known before the fact? Again, the machine gun in WW I comes to mind - while the defenses utilizing or centered around the machine gun may have been tactical, if it take three years to overcome the machine gun's effects resulting in a general stalemate, then it may have been strategic, or at least had strategic effects (yes, I am omitting, among other things, artillery. I'm somewhat partial to your argument regarding nuclear weapons being the only true revolutionary weapon of the era, and that it may have changed warfare and international relations. Perhaps at a lower plane, though, I also think of 2006 (ie, Lebanon) and wonder to what extent information operations may be more important than before, even though I can't see social media as a weapon (which might say more about me than about it). If hybrid warfare becomes dominant, and it places more emphasis on information, then perhaps I *should* social media as a weapon (reference the IDF in 2008/Cast Lead/Gaza).

But again, I stray. The aircraft carrier and LST were two innovations one might be reticent to, at least initially, define as strategic; at the same time, I would of course concur their use had incredible strategic implications. **Perhaps the key question to ask is why and when certain tactical weapons and tactics, techniques and procedures become strategic rather than tactical, and whether this can be known before the fact (that is, before the next war)** (interesting, eh, that Abu M stated the US had a lot to learn from the IDF in terms of TTP, but nothing, or at least little, at the operational or strategic level? And for that matter, is PC COIN at the level of tactical or operational?)

Finally, and this is directed more at COL Gentile, isn't it at least prima face possible that it is okay for the "strategy" for PC COIN to be one of tactics? My sense is your response will be, strategy deals with higher level issues - eg, a nation's willingness to wage war - but nonetheless, is it appropriate to dismiss out of hand Krepinevich's finding of fault with respect to the Vietnam War, at least as a hypothesis to be explored? I imagine your response will be that the hypothesis has been explored already, and the "new historiography" of the Vietnam War (eg, the Elliotts) allows one to reject that hypothesis. Still, I'd be curious to get your take on this proposition.

ADTS

* Eliot Cohen, in his book about military failure, makes the point that Americans were more interested in technology during the Second Battle of the Atlantic; Thomas Mahnken makes the sense point in prewar American attempts to understand the British integrated air defense system, and possibly elsewhere, if I recall correctly, in "Uncovering Ways of War."

ADTS: No, strategy if done

ADTS:

No, strategy if done correctly must absolutely apply tactics and operations to achieve policy aims. The classic case of doing strategy well is Lincoln and Grant in the American Civil War. That is the essence of it. So yes one can imagine strategy applying population centric counterinsurgency as an operational approach but in so doing good strategy would weigh the costs of applying it, consider what it would take in terms of time and resources, etc. My point all along with regard to Afghanistan is that a reasonable strategy using logic and clear thinking could not come to apply pop centric coin in the place relative to the president's limited political objectives there. However, if the President said that my political objective for you the military is to turn the place into a new and functioning nation then an honest strategy would tell the president that accomplishing such a goal will take generations and not simply a couple of years.

With regard to Krepinevich's book on Vietnam it has to be read and understood in the context it was written in the American Army in the early to mid 80s. In fact so much more current scholarship has overtaken it and it almost should be read as a primary text for insights into the intellectual climate of the 80s rather than a current and reasonable interpretation of the Army in Vietnam. His book was hugely important and should be read by any serious student of the Army of the 80s and for the various competing interpretations over the Vietnam War. But it is a deeply flawed book on an interpretive level. Others have significantly already challenged it (Andrade, Birtle, et al). The interpretation it provides, when juxtaposed to the actual situation that confronted the American military in Vietnam in 65 with all of its political constraints etc, is actually quite fanciful. In fact Westmoreland's operational approach, when acknowledging the failed policy and strategy that put it into place, was actually quite logical. K's, Nagl,s Sorley's hero in Abrams would most likely have done the same thing if he had gotten the call in 64 instead of Westmoreland.

gian

LOL @ the "Gay Brigade" with

LOL @ the "Gay Brigade" with Chapstick and Vaseline! LOL!

Yes, the Gay Engagement Team

Yes, the Gay Engagement Team is the answer in Afghanistan!

We've engaged their females, we've engaged their Islamic scholars, but in the end, it's the enemy's boots on the ground, and since they are crazy about Bacha Bazi and other like activities, let's send in our best trained Gays and parachute them in.

Let's give our gays the chance to shine in this conflict. Chapstick and Vaseline (Astroglide also) are ready to donate gallons of their product, all the US military has to do is give a nod to the Prop 8 overturn in CA and do some anti-DADT speech and send these Gays in.

It's raining men, hallelujah!!! Shock and awe!

COL Gentile: No, I agree

COL Gentile:
No, I agree that we shouldn't always default to the maximalist approach of PC-COIN. IMHO, it should be used as a last resort, and if we're doing things right in future conflicts, we should be able to plan to set the conditions that will nip any nascent insurgencies in the bud before they're able to flourish.

Unfortunately, my assessment of the situation in Afghanistan is that it is so bad that if we are to accomplish Obama's goals ("Don't allow terrorists to operate from this region. Don't allow them to create big training camps and to plan attacks on the U.S. homeland with impunity."), PC-COIN is necessary. If the Taliban gain control of Afghanistan, it will be a safe-haven for AQ with alot more resources than the FATA and the former NWFP currently provide them. They would be able to use this base (this القاعدة if you will) to continue planning attacks on the US and its allies (including cyber attacks with the much better technological infrastructure of Afghanistan relative to their current hideout). The Taliban insurgency has been allowed to fester for so many years that if we withdraw a substantial level of troops and focus solely on counter-terrorist operations, they will be able to roll back ANSF and establish control of the country (in some places in Afghanistan they've already established shadow governments that provide essential services the local population needs, strengthening their influence with them). If we can break the back of the insurgency, while training up ANSF forces (in COIN best practices) at the same time, we can eventually bring the insurgency down to a manageable level and transition control to ANSF, leaving them with a relatively secure country that can resist Taliban encroachment.

In addition, the position that we should move to a purely CT operation doesn't sit well with me because a proper counter-terrorist operation is heavy on intelligence, light on operations (that is, the enemy is easy to kill once found, but extremely difficult to find). The reason COIN is the best method for a CT operation is that the best intelligence comes from the people. As long as the people fear retribution from the insurgent, as long as he maintains his grip on them (or worse receives active support because the counterterrorist has alienated the people) they won't provide the counterterrorist with the intelligence he needs to conduct his operations. If, through COIN, you can convince the population that they no longer have to fear the insurgent, that the counterinsurgent is able to effectively provide them with security (and allow for economic prosperity in the best case) they will begin to come forward with the intelligence the counterterrorist needs to conduct his operations.

COIN is the best strategy because it enables proper targeting of the terrorist organisation (eventually leading to its demise) while simultaneously setting the condititions for perpetual stability disallowing the insurgent from gaining control of the country and establishing it as a base for future terrorist operations against America.

I'm reading about the Marshall Plan right now and I see alot of parallels between it and COIN. There was active Communist influence throughout Europe in the immediate post-World War Ii era. America's solution to combat this influence was to provide the continent with economic recovery while simultaneously bringing them under the wing of our defense with NATO. We showed them the reality of Communist oppression while juxtaposing it against our benevolence as a provider of security and economic prosperity, establishing them as stable nation-states with their allegiance tied to us, not the Soviets. This is a crude analogy, but I see the same principles that led to the success of the Marshall Plan at work in effective COIN.

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