Quote Originally Posted by Old Eagle View Post
Slap

I was one of CSA's "LIC" guys back in the 80s when John T, Max Mainwaring, Bill Olsen and others were doing their work. And when there were proxy wars raging in the developing world.

The issue is the definition of "low intensity". As one of my former bosses pointed out, if you're an infantry platoon leader who just sprung an ambush on the lead element of a main force NVA regiment, your conflict is about to become anything but low intensity.

At the other end of the spectrum, President Duarte of El Sal, speaking at NDU made the point that the Salvadoran insurgency was low intensity for the US because if the FMLN prevailed, life in the US goes on as usual, whereas the gov't of ES was in fact playing for all the marbles. Not very low intensity for them.
We never have found that one good label as all fall short of being a description that suggests a solution.

A "small war" can be very conventional and between nuclear states; or it can be little more than Mr. Shay's rebellion.

Similarly "intensity" has little to do with the nature of the conflict either. (Though I would offer to President Duarte, that while his government may be playing for all the marbles, the nation of El Salvador I am sure would endure the change in stride.)

Certainly considering all to be "insurgencies" to apply COIN upon is equally flawed.

Even if one goes with "inter-state" vs "intra-state" conflicts it still leaves a wide range of options, and more often or not will include elements of both.

I suspect that a pretty good decision-tree could be crafted, that allows one to key their way down to one or two of a dozen different options by focusing on the presence of absence of key indicators, and then assessing ones own role as to how they fit into the mix. I haven't seen anything along those lines, but if anyone out there has, I would love to see it.

Bob