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How to win the real war
Michael LedeenAs the Baker/Hamilton club considers America's options in the Middle East, its members would do well to browse two currently hot books on counterinsurgency, the better to understand the way our strategists are thinking. The first is Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice (1964) by the late David Galula, a French commander who fought in Algeria. It has been reissued with a dandy introduction by an US Army lieutenant-colonel, John Nagl, the author of Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam. Both are stimulating, thoughtful and serious. Galula and Nagl agree that insurgencies are revolutionary wars and that the outcome will be determined by control of, and support from the population. This does not mean, however, that counterinsurgents should concentrate on message and propaganda. Galula is in the Lyndon Johnson camp: if you've got them by the balls, the hearts and minds will generally follow. More on this in a minute. Posted by: anonymous5089 2006-11-21 |
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