I wonder if the Small Wars Journal has anything on this yet. Perhaps your question is slightly related to the FAO skill set. DoD recognizes the need to split out the specialty even though conventional officers can sometimes do the job when thrown into it. Also, the dude at the tip of the spear has to do the thing no matter what the training pipeline is–he’ll get good or sink, but where do you put the guy the next three tours, and how do you grow all the skills the guy needs?

COINistas aren’t necessarily good at conventional warfare. Some people are good enough to do it all; some ain’t. McMaster succeeded in several environments to include COIN, but others did not. Some officers do great at one level of control but fail at another, as well–leadership isn’t monolithic.

Another interesting question is how a COINista does inside his own organization. If COIN makes the leader, how come that skill set and mindset disappears for decades at a time? Why is it that the good people at those skills don’t usually show up at the top of the organization as a recognized COINista?

Moyar, if I’m reading the reviews at the link correctly, is arguing for outstanding leadership. Outstanding leaders tend to be good at lots of things. Conversely, a good leader too inflexible to ‘get’ a novel way of seeing or executing warfare isn’t being a good leader, so you need a COIN leader for COIN.

Finally, a point about COIN as a fad. I can also read “all good COINistas are super soldiers” as expression of a flavor-of-the-year. COIN is of course useful and should have been grokked years earlier, but all waves of thought have their undertow. It will be interesting to see in the future how COIN gets overapplied, slapped onto other forms of planning to fit the current style, and undergone a backlash after a failure requiring mainly other skills.