In this episode, I will be a heretic to the current military establishment in America and the west. They can't do unconventional warfare and I must be very specific in the conditional problem I propose: the western military has no capability to conduct long term partisan warfare in concert with indigenous forces fighting an insurgency in a non-permissive environment. It doesn't have the language skills, cultural IQ, sophisticated intelligence/communications infrastructure to support stay-behind missions, isolated stand-in force capability (nor does the USMC for FD2030 fantasies) comprehensive bushcraft and primitive skills for long loiter missions nor a fighting force that is capable of living in third world conditions for years (rotational longevity) at a time. This is Part One of a two part series in which we will discuss the converse capabilities conundrum in counter UW for the west in Part Two published o/a 26December 2023. Email at [email protected].