Busy day for Defense Secretary Robert Gates. In the afternoon, he’ll meet with President Obama for a private White House session in which he’s likely to discuss Afghanistan and Pakistan. In the evening, he’ll tape a joint appearance at George Washington University with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton about the future of American power. And this morning, he stopped at the annual Association of the U.S. Army confab — it’s the San Diego Comic Con for the Army — to deliver some remarks on where the service is headed.

With counterinsurgency on everyone’s mind, starting with Obama’s, Gates addressed whether the Army is too focused on counterinsurgency, to the detriment of traditional war-fighting competence. Not surprisingly, he defended the concept of “full-spectrum operations,” the service’s new construct that gives COIN a seat at the table but not the entire table:

For the last few years, there has been a concern that our force is too focused on counterinsurgency, and has lost its edge for complex, conventional operations involving multiple brigades or divisions. The experiences of the British colonial army before World War One and the Israeli military in Lebanon have even been cited.

This is a legitimate concern, and we continue to work toward finding the right balance. But the notion that the changes we have seen amount to turning the Army into some sort of counterinsurgency constabulary that is losing its core competencies – above all, to shoot, move, and communicate – does not reflect the realities of the current campaigns. Take, for example, the battle of Sadr City last year. In that campaign, U.S. troops had to synchronize air power, artillery, and ISR [intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance], all while maneuvering through an incredibly complex urban environment and coordinating with numerous dispersed units.

And let there be no doubt that modernization plans for the full spectrum of warfare continue. The Army is accelerating the development of the Warfighter Information Network and will field it – and proven FCS spinoffs – across the entire force. I remain committed to the Army’s ground-vehicle modernization program – but it has to be done in a way that reflects the lessons we’ve learned the last few years about war in the 21st century, and that incorporates the Department of Defense’s nearly $30 billion investment in MRAPs.

We have to recognize that the black-and-white distinction between conventional war and irregular war is an outdated model. Simply possessing the ability to annihilate other militaries in a conventional fight in no way insures we can achieve our strategic goals – a point driven home in both Iraq and Afghanistan. In reality, the future will be more complex. Where all conflict will range across a broad spectrum of operations and lethality. Where even near-peer competitors will use irregular or asymmetric tactics and non-state actors may have weapons of mass destruction or sophisticated missiles.

Even as we prepare for the future and pursue modernization plans, we must always recognize the limits of technology – and be modest about what military force alone can accomplish. Advances in precision, sensor information, and satellite technologies have led to extraordinary gains that will continue to give the U.S. military an edge over its adversaries. But no one should ever neglect the psychological, cultural, political, and human dimensions of war or succumb to the techno-optimism that has muddled strategic thinking in the past. That is especially true for the ground services, which will be in the lead for – and bear the brunt of – irregular and hybrid campaigns in the future.