Sitting through panel of warfighters (all services) and hear this one: suicide bombers drive a huge wedge between our troops and the people. Successful counter-insurgency (COIN) is about maintaining connectivity with the masses (lots of mini-forts and humint). Losing the COIN is suffering disconnectedness either through your enemy's kinetics (e.g., bombs) or his follow-on ideological exploitation.

You connect the dots or they disconnect you.

As one guy says, it's more important to know when NOT to pull triggers than when you need to. Trust and credibility are huge assets in COIN.

Think CENTCOM and SOCOM aren't learning in this Long War? Think again.

In my mind, you leave a commander like Abizaid in his current job for as long as possible. Man is creating a huge intellectual wake.

Less Clausewitz, more Sun Tzu.

You can never have enough friends in this battlespace.