One of the lessons taken away from my recent two week trip to train is that the "Engagement" war fighting function is currently being trained as a euphemism for "stability operations."Yeah.
The Army doesn't have a doctrinal reference for "engagement" at this time, just a TRADOC pamphlet describing in very broad terms the things that make up engagement. Foreign Internal Defence, Foreign Security Assistance, Civil Military Assistance, joint military training, etc.
If it sounds a lot like all the crap we've done before, well that is because it is. Just now we are doing it as part of the "Elements of Combat Power" if you follow the doctrine.
The problem with "stability" is that it is always going to be the bastard stepchild of "offence" and "defence" in the trinity of "unified land operations." The forces that are tailored to conduct stability operations such as Civil Affairs, Military Information Support Operations, Public Affairs, Foreign Area Officers, and the like are in short supply in the formations actually conducting "unified land operations."
They rebranded Counter Insurgency, put it in a sparkling new package and its the same old brew....SOCOM, element of the US Army & Marine Corps...in other words the COIN Mafia has won. Considering the news in Ukraine and the thoughts about arming their forces we can expect "Engagement" to be a word tossed around to justify increased involvement.
Nation building forever (we should call it what it is...not small wars but nation building).
Read AM's take here.
Sidenote: Another word should grab everyone's attention now that I think about it. "Shaping". I don't know when psychology rose to prominence in the halls of the Pentagon but influencing behavior and thoughts seem to be more important to some than winning on the battlefield. Its a fools errand though. You can't make perpetual war popular unless you can show that its in a nations interests. That is the problem with the US way of war lately. We're fighting for others...not for ourselves.
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