by Zack Beauchamp
That's how Robert Wall titles this intriguging nugget of a post:
Too many decisions, including targeting, are being looked at through a counter-insurgency lens rather than applying a state-on-state conflict mentality, bemoans one military planner. He argues that the conflict playing out in north Africa is more appropriately viewed as state-on-state war, which brings with it a different mindset when it comes to how to employ force.
As Wall goes on to note, this has interesting implications for the future. If true, it would provide some evidence for the claim – that I've always believed to be poorly established at best – that involvement in COIN conflicts degrades the military's ability to fight conventional wars. Given that one of population centric counterinsurgency's most prominent proponents wrote a major work criticizing the U.S. military's ability to adapt to new environments, there would be some irony here.
The Dish 