Beyond the frontline: watching ISIS

[davidbfpo]

A perceptive WaPo commentary, albeit with a Middle East focus, so IMHO not a global fact today. Three phrases:

We see Islamist fighters becoming skilled soldiers...These fighters are now well-armed, well-trained and well-led and are often flush with cash to buy or bribe their way out of difficulties. (At the end) As terrorist groups turn into armies, pairing their fanatical dedication with newly acquired tactical skills, renewed intervention might generate casualties on a new scale — as the Israelis have been painfully learning.

Link:http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinio...265_story.html

The authors are:

Robert H. Scales, a retired Army major general, is a former commandant of the U.S. Army War College. Douglas A. Ollivant is a fellow at the New America Foundation’s Future of War project.

This also appears on SWJBlog, so link added that a thread has been started.

[carl]

This is something that shouldn't be a surprise. It has happened before. It probably always happens.

For example, it is described from the insurgent's side in Tom Barry's Guerrilla Days in Ireland. He was a former British soldier that trained up the flying columns to a very high level of small unit proficiency, thereby upping the ante. One of the things he said was that a group of intelligent and motivated men could be trained to a level of tactical accomplishment equalling the best regular troops in a week.

It was an excellent book by the way and should be on the small wars required reading list.