Now look to the British school of hard knocks and the strategic lessons they learned (but seem to have also largely forgotten) in regards to the true drivers of, and resolution to resistance insurgency warfare and recolutionary insurgency illegal democracy.
First, why make the distinction? Simple, because warfare solutions work against war, but political solutions are necessary for democracy. War is a violent political conflict between two distinctly separate entities. Illegal democracy are those illegal, and often violent to a war-like degree, activities to coerce change of governance within a single system of governance. Historically we call the military suppression of revolution a COIN "win" for the state. Truly "good enough for government work," but in reality, unless governance evolves to address the driving issues, this approach makes the actual insurgency worse even as it tamps down the symptoms for 10-15 years.
British lessons began in the Northern Ireland and American colonies, though took a century or so to sink in. The mid-1800s resolution to grant to the British colonists in Canada, South Africa, New Zealand and Australia the same rights previously ask for by and denied to the American colonists is one example of strategic learning. This paved the way to the relinquishing of colonial control and fostering the emergence of self determined governance in Malaya a century after that.
Those lessons were somehow lost on Americans who deluded ourselves to believe that our superior rationale and lighter touch for imposing our political will onto others would somehow make us exempt from the laws of human nature. So while we often borrow British tactics, we cling to American strategy, with tragic results.
Why have the British COIN efforts embedded within US led operations failed to yield durable strategic results? Simple, because good tactics cannot overcome bad strategy.
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