WILF,

My profession has little impact on the nature of insurgency, its causes and its cures.

So, be I a soldier, a minister, or a pole dancer, the fact remains, that when the military rolls in and simply crushes that segement of the populace that dares to stand up to the failures of governance, it is not a "Win" no matter how many generals say so in their Memoirs.

So, while the military is not in the role or setting policy, we are quite likely to be the ones looked to to have a sophisticated understanding of insurgency, and if ones understanding is that it can be resolved solely through violence, I would argue that they lack the requisite sophistication required of them as a military professional.

20 years ago perhaps one could get away with an "all violence is war, and the suppression of any violence is peace" approach, but I believe that such cavalier approaches are simply no longer viable.