Your grandfather's Oldsmobile
I don't have Kilcullen's latest, but your description of his Figure 1.1 Surface and Subsurface Elements of an Insurgency (p. 8) clicked a residuary brain cell.
Back in the 1960s - the era of muscle car Oldsmobiles (your grandfather's big block rubber stripping 442), SORO (American University, Special Operations Research Office, a non-governmental agency operating under contract with the Department of the Army) published two studies:
1963 Undergrounds in Insurgent, Revolutionary, and Resistance Warfare - SORO.pdf
1966 Human Factors Considerations of Undergrounds in Insurgencies - SORO.pdf
Both are on the "Suggested readings on insurgency and counterinsurgency" from That Place on the Hudson.
The 1966 study had a pyramid (Fig 6) which looked like so:
SORO Pyramid.jpg
So no one will have to squint, I'm attaching a pdf file with Fig 6 and SORO's explanation for its pyramid.
The question is whether the 2010 muscle car is an improvement over the 1966 model. It also may involve the ultimate Wilfian concept that nothing under the sun is new.
Your analysis of these two 45-years-of-separation vehicles is sought.
Regards (from your grandfather Ransom, who is happy to see you screw off every now and then)
Mike
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