Thanks, all, for the comments on recent threads.

I'm going to be off the net for about two weeks. Maybe some occasional browsing, but little more. Stupid reality will be interrupting my online activity.

As a note to myself, I'm leaving this link. Upon my return, I hope to explore the topic a little deeper (and hopefully the conversation continues without me and I find more fodder to mull over).

The whole "COIN skills" thing, imo, is a fatally flawed concept. There are no COIN skills. There is a profession of arms which formulates responses to different problems by applying its skills in a variety of different ways. There is not a different set of skills for each situation. The skills are simply applied differently.

Some think that COIN has necessitated new skills. I think this is a flawed notion. Modern warfare has necessitated a need for leaders to integrate more than just combined arms. As the world becomes more interconnected and "flatter", the profession must be able to integrate more readily with non-military elements of power (much like businesses have had to alter their structures from tiered hierarchies to flattened networks). This is not unique to COIN. It is unique to modern war. Thankfully, for the vast majority of our Soldiers, it requires no new skills. It only requires greater emphasis on neglected instruction at our staff colleges.

Anyway, more on this in two weeks or so. Feel free to post any initial thoughts below. I probably will not comment for two weeks, but I will likely read comments in the meantime.