The President's Guerrilla Expert Vietnam
26 December 1969 issue of Time Magazine - The President's Guerrilla Expert (Hat Tip Tom Ricks via Warlord Loop).
Quote:
Though Viet Nam has been his specialty since 1961, Sir Robert Thompson was never influential with either John Kennedy or Lyndon Johnson. It was Richard Nixon who embraced his views wholeheartedly—most likely because they coincide with his own.
Suave, controlled and bearing a striking resemblance to the late actor Herbert Marshall, the Cambridge-educated Thompson, 53, was knighted for devising the strategy that ultimately defeated local Chinese Communist terrorists in Malaya in the 1950s. He was then Britain's secretary for defense of the Federation of Malaya; later (1961-65), he served as head of the British advisory mission in Viet Nam. Now retired from government, he is an occasional consultant for the Rand Corp., the noted U.S. think tank. His experience in Malaya convinced Thompson that counterinsurgency does not require massive forces, large-scale bombing or continual pursuit of the enemy. He contends that such tactics play into the hands of guerrillas by increasing casualties and enlarging the scope of the combat. Thompson emphasizes localized "police" actions to protect the population against guerrilla attacks and to ferret out subversives. That proved easier in Malaya, where the terrorists were often ethnically different from the local population, than in Viet Nam, where friend and foe may be indistinguishable. The Malaya guerrillas also had no handy sanctuaries across nearby borders...
OPERATIONAL vs STRATEGIC Thinking
Quote:
Originally Posted by
SteveMetz
OK but I still insist that the deification of Thompson, Galula, Kitson etc. can be a problem. It leads to a tendency to approach counterinsurgency by asking, "What would Sir Bob do?" or "What would Frenchie Dave do?"
That's of course true.
All these COIN gods were acting at the OPERATIONAL level of war. But a STRATEGICALLY hopeless situation can't be solved by operational art or good tactics.
BRUZ
Some Rwanda and Congo Sources
Hey mate,
You would have to look at my book ---and hopefully Ambassador Dave Rawson's once he gets it out--as the first half of the story.
For the second half, turn to Ambassador Bob Gribbin's book and also Colonel Rick Orth's writings for some publications.
Don't forget the conspriacy theorists as well. Rick like Dave Rawson, Bob Gribbin, and yours truly has been vilified by Mr. Conspiracy Wayne Masden.. I am waiting for a copy of Ambassador Krueger's book due out from University of Texas; Dave Rawson and I are the subject of an entire chapter concerning our roles with the RPA.
Another interesting article on the Congo War aspects of this is by Bill Thom who was DIO for Africa.
Best
Tom
Trust as the lubricant of military operations
Quote:
Originally Posted by
walrus
Trust and cooperation are regarded as "externalities" (zero costs and values) by economists, but Fukuyama points out that this is wrong, because high levels of trust and cooperation reduce transaction costs. Conversely, it is very very expensive and time consuming to try and do a deal with someone you don't trust, or who does not trust you, if that is, you can do a deal at all.
I think this is absolutely on target. As anyone can attest who has ever worked in an organization (any kind of organization) that had someone within it who was known to be a frequent liar, progress grinds to a halt, because you can never be sure what's going to happen next, even with your supposed allies.
A very important online paper on this topic is "Trust: The Lubricant of Military Operations" by Jonathan Shay. If internal friction is one of the obstacles to military success, then trust is the internal lubricant that reduces this friction.
I'd be very interested to hear other people's opinions of Shay's paper.
RJO