Quote Originally Posted by tequila View Post
... small wars, of course! My own list is below, but what are yours? What insights and knowledge can we gain from the experiences of insurgents and counterinsurgents in these unjustifiably overlooked wars?

My top ten, in no particular order, restricted to the gunpowder age:

Syria in Lebanon (1976-1990)
In summary, the lessons:

  1. Stay there a long time (at least a quarter century).
  2. Switch (local) sides often. Arm everyone at one time or another.
  3. Shell population centers to signal displeasure. Enforce curfews with summary executions.
  4. Stultify domestic political discourse with heavy secret police presence.
  5. Assassinate recalcitrant political leaders (Junblat), but not too many (Hariri) or it all backfires.
  6. Allow your officer corps to enrich themselves by facilitating drug and trade smuggling--it keeps them happy, offsets low military wages, pleases local farmers too, and really keeps electronics prices low in Damascus.
  7. Risk/threaten to restart civil war if policy goes wrong.


As successful as Syrian stabilization operations were in their day, I vote we don't copy this one!