The Army's much anticipated new counterinsurgency manual (pdf)has been released to the public (see the military's news release here (pdf). And pundits and armchair military strategists are wasting no time weighing in.
But most of the commentary has been outside the mainstream media. The only op-ed on the subject we've seen in a major newspaper is Ralph Peters' column in today's New York Post. And it was certainly among the strangest takes we've seen. Peters reviews the new manual like it's a political tract, casting its formulation as a battle between those who want to coddle terrorists and those who want to kill them. This passage was particularly strange:
While the sometimes-you-just-have-to-fight realists are in the ascendant at last, the military's academic side still has too much influence. You see it plainly in the illustrative vignettes chosen to accompany the text: They emphasize soft power (doesn't work - sorry) over the need to kill implacable murderers to provide security for the innocent.
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