Quote Originally Posted by carl View Post
Where did people get the idea that small wars don't involve fighting? If you actually read what went on in those wars you can't get that idea. West's account of Binh Nghia was ambush patrol after ambush patrol and fight after fight. Galula's account of his time in Algeria stresses the number of ambushes laid and how they never slacked off on the number. The Philippines was fighting and figuring how to get at them, or cutting them off from the people by moving the people. Plenty of application of force.
The Americans still lost in Vietnam, and the French still lost in Algeria. The Philippine conflict was a war of colonial conquest; it belongs to another era and has little or no relevance to today's conflicts.

Would more application of force have "won" in Afghanistan? Maybe, in some places, for a little while. It wouldn't have made the GIRoA any more able to govern, and it wouldn't have made "nation-building" a viable construct.

First step to winning any war, small or large, is a clear, practical, achievable goal. Not sure we ever had one of those in Afghanistan.