Originally Posted by
Granite_State
I read Peters for the first time a few years back, initially liked him a lot, but in the wake of Iraq some of his stuff looks increasingly irresponsible and indeed ludicrous, the article about redrawing the borders of the Middle East being the best example. Saw him speak in DC once about four years ago, did enjoy him and thought he held his own with the likes of Christopher Hitchens.
I agree about the Parameters pieces, especially the one on warriors, prescient for when it was written. But he seems to rely on emotion and instinct far, far more than evidence, as others have noted. I didn't find his piece on the dreams of the Arabs all that persuasive. And I remember a cover story he did on suicide bombings for the Weekly Standard a little while back, was excited to read it but it became virtually unreadable about halfway through.
Here's a question though, bit of a digression from the original thread: does the "mailed fist" even work? Didn't seem to for the Germans in Yugoslavia, nor the Russians in Afghanistan, although us arming the mujahideen changed the playing field obviously. German genocide in Africa pre-WWI did the trick though. The Romans, of course, "made a desert and called it peace." Other historical examples are escaping me at the moment, not sure where you'd put Israeli COIN, certainly not genocide but not hearts and minds either. So even if we were to remove all the media and political consequences, is there a level of violence we can use, short of actual genocide, that would defeat a strong insurgency? I think Bill Lind, for what it's worth, would say the Hama model works, you can be very violent, but it has to be quick.
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