War is War

[Bob's World]

Disagree Tom (despite the fact that Dan gushed over you when I was in his office a couple of weeks ago). We're talking about something with strategy, policy, and legal implications. We dont define those from the foxhole perspective.

And just as all orgainized violence is not war I would add that everyone helping to deal with an insurgency is not conducting COIN either.

Sadly, confusing other peoples COIN issues for war, and our own assistance to the same for COIN has put a lot of good men in holes indeed, but they weren't rabbit holes.

(But then I also am strongly of the opinion that it is governments who cause insurgency (or at least the conditions of insurgency that others then come in and exploit to their own ends) rather than some malignant internal or external force that comes in and "radicalizes" the populace. Poor Governance is what radicalizes a populace, those malignant forces just take advantage when government lets that happen.)