A few more questions about COIN (IX): Future force structure isn’t an either/or

By Major Tom Mcilwaine,
Queen's Royal Hussars

Best Defense guest columnist

Question Set Nine --

a. Will we really have to do this again?

It
is difficult to say. While the future might be light infantry, so long as Iran,
North Korea, Egypt, and Pakistan maintain large armored forces I think that it
is as well that we keep them too, lest we find ourselves on the wrong end of
the asymmetric warfare stick. While there does not appear to be any appetite
for lengthy large scale entanglements in the third world, events have a habit
of changing things dramatically. It is as well to be prepared for them.

b. So do we need a balanced force well-practiced in
transitioning from one to the other?

Probably.
The consequence of getting a high-intensity fight wrong is likely to be
catastrophic, whereas we got COIN wrong for the best part of 12 years without
much in the way of strategic consequence. (The consequences for those who
fought were of course rather more severe.) The first step is getting out of
this binary mindset that it must be one or the other. The philosophy is that we
spend 90 percent of our money on house insurance (in the form of one distinct capability)
but next to nothing on car insurance (other capabilities).