Quote Originally Posted by Ken White View Post
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: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: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: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.

Ken,

While I have tremendous respect for the SWJ community, and certainly there are many very keen insights posted here, I offer just this in response to your middle point of:

"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."

So, because you and a handful of others disagree with a theory it becomes a "dangerous misconception?" You may have taken the recent Ken White thread a bit too seriously. If I claimed that everything I either didn't understand or disagreed with "a dangerous misconception" I'd be a bit of a lunatic.

No, it may not be 100% accurate, but I've yet to find a better theory and I've been looking, and listening. Are there exceptions where a small group with a distinct agenda takes on the government in a country where the populace is largely satisfied with the goodness of governance? Sure. But that's not insurgency as it lacks the key ingredient to be an insurgency: popular support. Where does popular support come from? The populace. When does a popualce support such movements? When it feels it is a better option than what they are getting from the current team, and when they also feel they have no way within the law to exercise that change.

If I am considered a bit of a lone ranger on this, that is a position I am quite comfortable with. I'm sure my thoughts will continue to evolve, and I suspect yours will as well.

Bob.