Think COIN but practice FID

The more ingrained an institution, the more impenetrable its jargon. The U.S. Army that I reluctantly served in the 1950s was bad enough, but today's military has a language of its own. Take the headline above: It's inaccessible to most of the world, but it happens to be very good advice. It comes from a Green Beret colonel who argues that the Army's current fascination with counter-insurgency (COIN) is all very well, except that most of what American troops are called upon to do isn't countering insurgency at all. COIN, as we read on the Foreign Policy website, is what a government and military do when they are threatened within their own borders. So the COINsters in Iraq are the Iraqis; in Afghanistan, the Afghans. What the Americans and other outsiders are trying to do in those countries is better defined as Foreign Internal Defense--hence the FID. The colonel argues:

Tactically, the indirect approach requires clear-eyed recognition that U.S. capacity will be applied through -- and not around -- the host nation. This paradigm seems simple, but it runs counter to U.S. military "can-doism" and requires a long-term view and immense operational patience. The indirect approach does not satisfy appetites for quick, measurable results.

Robert Haddick of Foreign Policy adds that this is a hard sell to an administration that has already announced the date when the troop drawdown is to begin. Blue skies! -- Dan Ford