Mental Sine Waves

Abu Muq and my go-to Pakistan expert F.A. alerted me to this amusing item.  It's an editorial by a former ISI head urging the Pakistani Army to fight the Taliban.  He argues, counterintuitively, both that the Army's limited knowledge of COIN is not a hindrance, and that its training in conventional operations is the essence of COIN.  The funny thing is, I've heard this same contradictory line of argument from American Big Army advocates.  

Every time I learn something new about the Pakistan/Afghanistan situation I take another step down the mental rabbit hole.  For instance, the Pakistan developed the Taliban (I knew that) so that the Pakistani Army could take refuge in Afghanistan in case of an Indian invasion (rabbit hole).  

I oscillate between seeing the Pakistani military/intelligence community as COIN-fumbling buffoons and hard-headed realists.  I suppose the truth is somewhere in between.