A Counter COIN:

Air University’s Air Force Doctrine Center recently hosted a four-day conference for subject-matter experts to “fast track” the Air Force’s “Irregular Warfare” document, which the service wants to print in June. Service leaders want an Air Force response to the just published Army and Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Doctrine, which relegates airpower to a supporting role. “It doesn’t always have to be about having lots of ‘boots on the ground,’ “ says Maj. Gen. Allen Peck AFDC commander. Peck maintains that airpower “brings asymmetrical advantages” to combat counterinsurgencies or any other form of irregular warfare. The new Army COIN—which basically covers airpower in a five-page annex to the 335-page document—is partly the work of Army Lt. Gen. David Petraeus, the new Multinational Force Iraq commander. (Read more about the Petraeus doctrine in this month’s “Washington Watch.”)