Quote Originally Posted by Bob's World View Post
My point is simply that insurgency (violent political struggle within a state) and conventional warfare (violent political struggle between states) are different.
Doh. Of course they are. I think Surferbeetle says that quite well...

My points were and are that the difference is a policy, not a military issue and that COIN no more goes against human nature than is effective conventional warfare "at the essence..." of it. If that statement were remotely true, we would have more conventional wars, not fewer as is the historic trend. You then say:
When tasked to help suppress an insurgency...say to that Civilian leader is along the lines of :

"Yes sir, we can help solve this problem; but understand that the fact that we are faced with an insurgency is a pretty damn good indicator that the government is failing a significant segment of the populace in a major way. So lets meet back here in two weeks. I'll have 2-3 solid COAs on how the military can assist in the operation and you should have a good idea as to how you plan to address the failures of governance that brought us to this sad point where you are prepared to employ our military against our own populace. I'll also have with me a letter of resignation that I hope I won't have to submit, but if your position is that you simply want the military to punish that segment of the populace that dares to act out, you will need to find another man for the job."
You obviously live in a dream world. First, the mantra that poor governance is the cause of all insurgency has been refuted by many here over the past few months -- that is a dangerous misperception. While that is frequently touted by the insurgents as 'their' reason it often is far from the truth and that FACT is amply demonstrated by the number of successful insurgencies where the new government is worse than the one it replaced...

Secondly, you try to tell the average Politician who thinks he's in charge that you'll get back to him in two weeks and see how far that flies. Telling him or her that to acknowledge their failures flies in the face of your own logic:
"Also that politicians are better at seeing the faults in the actions of other nations governments than they are in their own."
Threats by military people to resign are welcomed by politicians; that way they can reach down and get compliant folks to the top...

My points not only are directly related to yours, you implicitly acknowledge with this:
At no point did I address the differences of the military aspect of either of those two types of political conflict; merely that the military should be aware of differences of the political nature between the two, and not apply a one size fits all solution.
that my initial statement was and is correct:

"Warfare is not at all complex -- policy pertaining to warfare is quite complicated. That is true of MCO and COIN -- and all other variants..."

Thank you for your support.