Quote Originally Posted by Steve Blair View Post
My take is that they in essence view warfare as a zero-sum exercise: you are either at war or you are not. If you are at war, you should be able to use all weapons and methods at your disposal to defeat your opponent.
Probably because I simply was not looking for it, I failed to see evidence of this statement. But then I came across this article this morning:

http://aimpoints.hq.af.mil/display.cfm?id=21646

Of particular interest is this quote:
The doctrine defines irregular warfare as "a violent struggle among state and non-state actors for legitimacy and influence over the relevant populations."

But Peck cautioned this was not necessarily the same as a battle for hearts and minds.

"It doesn't have to be kinder and gentler," he said, citing the Viet Cong, who he charged had "won influence over the population how? Not by going in and immunizing the kids and building schools. Â… They'd go in and they'd grab a couple of the tribal elders and hang them."
I'm not quite sure how to take this. I've reread it several times to try and gleen a different read, but it just seems like he's calling for a sort of total war -- kill them all and let God sort this out. I'm flabbergasted. Even in COIN there is a need for putting steel on target and even being relentless in doing it, but surely it shouldn't be the rule. Like I said, maybe I'm misreading but, especially in today's globalized and liberalized society, we can't take a butcher and burn approach to COIN.

That being said, there is a statement that I believe does make sense.

The storyline that "They are afraid to fight us face-to-face but not to bomb us from the air and kill our women and children" is "a good recruiting tool for the enemy," he said.

"I don't even know how to respond to that," said Peck, when a reporter put Richards' views to him.

"I take great pride in the fact that we can do these things without putting our forces at risk -- to me that's the goal. We don't want to fight a fair fight."
I don't buy into the argument that we should make ourselves available as target simply to adhere to some machismo version of fighting because the failure to do so taints our image in the eyes of our adversary. Who cares? Killing your enemy without being killed has been the goal since the beginning of time. We have simply developed better ways to do it. Within the confines of the laws of war, I completely agree that we should not engage in a "fair" fight if we can gain some sort of advantage.

Also, I'm not sure that this is a great recruiting tool anyway (the failure to fight aspect; civilian casualties will always play a role in recruiting). I guess it's possible that some may join the insurgency solely for this reason, but I doubt the numbers are significant. In their minds they have plenty of other reasons for joining. However, once engaged in the fight against the US, wouldn't the enemy become frustrated at their inability to kill US military personnel? I would think so.