Forthcoming National Interest Article on COIN

[Rank amateur]

But the point I was trying to make is that the strategic costs of extensive, protracted involvement in counterinsurgency outweigh the damage that a hostile regime can do to us. Put differently, we're good at regime removal but we're not so good at counterinsurgency. So rather than break our military and our budget on a counterinsurgency, we make a modest effort and, if it fails, we just go to the new regime and say, "If you do X, Y, and Z (e.g. support transnational terrorism or support insurgents trying to overthrow your neighbor), we will come in and remove you. Then we'll leave. But you will no longer be in power."

Nice to see my thoughts expressed by someone people might actually listen to. We might want to add, "Bomb the hell our of your palaces, party headquarters, army, secret police etc." Since new regimes will understand the US reluctance to take causalities, they are much less likely to call our bluff if we threaten bombing which we can do without causalities.

Phrased differently, we need a strategy of "tough love."

Thirty percent of the country is going to call that "cutting and running." How could we execute your recommendations in the current political environment?