If academia has her hands on the topic, it already is old news on the war front. For the most part, many academics are not fighting in today’s wars (for comments on the academia-military divide in America see Why We Should Get Rid of West Point and ROTC and the Ivies). Academics read accounts that are old, come up with ideas to counteract old problems, and are not as focused on the future as they should be… especially since our enemies are always adapting. In my view, the Ph.D.s in the ivory tower should be attempting to figure out what the next move our adaptable enemies are going to make. I am willing to bet 5GW will be a war on our technology… as I stated in October 2008, “perhaps we should be focusing on the emerging threat of cyber war or other possible forms of war as we leap into the Fifth Generation?”

Finally, I leave you with a link to a post I wrote in June 2008 about cyber war and how vulnerable we are -
Cyberspace Wars: Militarization of Virtual Front.

Best,
Onager
Where is Sam Damon?

If “intellectual edge” is narrowly defined along academy lines, it’s probably not too difficult to prove that significant portions of counterinsurgency theory and theorists emerge from that scholastic mindset. And calling COIN “successful” given the rather limited experience and perspective of the Iraq War, which defines the modern American experience of what is now termed”‘COIN”, seem to be a bit presumptuous if understandable. But why do you think that “intellectual edge” was the main factor contributing to “such a successful doctrine”?