Well, I guess it was bound to happen sometime. I just saw this linked at SWJ. There is now a top ten list of so-called COINdinistas. This is a typical feature among the pages of color photos and surface-deep thinking that has come to be expected of Foreign Policy, which is kind of an international affairs publication for people seeking an all-hype, no substance version of the news. It is the Newsweek magazine of international affairs.

The article reminds us that a handful of military officers who spent a very small amount of time leading Soldiers or deployed to combat are now kind of a big deal in DC and apparently deserving of a lot of credit. Good for them, I guess. There are also a couple of currently-serving officers on the list, one of whom is a pop-COIN skeptic added to list as a show of respect by the author, and the other is General Petraeus.

I guess my biggest issue here is that the list purports to tout “the brains behind counterinsurgency's rise from forgotten doctrine to the centerpiece of the world's most powerful military.”

If that is the case, then there are some startling omissions from the list.

Brigadier General H.R. McMaster actually operationalized COIN in Tal Afar and his work was kind of a living case study that these high-brow Washingtonians could point to as evidence to support their claims. I guess BG McMaster has not attended enough cocktail parties to be part of the in-crowd.

Captain Travis Patriquin explained, in very basic terms, the gist of how to get the job done in Anbar Province and helped to get the ball rolling in Anbar before he was killed in action in 2006. Clearly, he was not in attendance at any fancy galas in DC.

Colonel Sean MacFarland was in command of 1st Brigade, 1st AD and helped to bring the Anbar tribes on board during the initial Awakening movement in 2006. Oops, but he is kind of a party-pooper, too, because he has pointed out that the Artillery branch is not doing enough conventional training. No invite to any Georgetown function for him.

Just to be clear, I've got a lot of respect for some of the people on this list: Petraeus, Gentile, Dilegge, and Sepp in particular. But why no mention for the guys who actually got the job done on the ground and set the example? They were the guys who showed how to do it and demonstrated that it could work. Considering this list could have been compiled and written in about 10 minutes, I doubt that Ricks spent much time pondering life outside of the DC bubble. It is interesting to see what draws praise.