![Quote](images/misc/quote_icon.png)
Originally Posted by
Bill Moore
Steve,
I can't open your paper from my work computer, so I'll read it this weekend. I don't disagree with what you're saying, but as Slapout pointed out on another thread we are still left with a void when it comes to a solution...
. . .
I tire of hearing that the American people don't have the political will to stick with COIN. There are many cases where COIN has been successful throughout our history, because the cost has been relatively low in dollars and blood (Greece, Philippines in the 1950s, El Salvador, etc.). I don't hear the American people clamoring to pull out the Philippines, the Horn of Africa, and numerous other locations where professionals are quietly doing their job. In the few cases where America lost their political will to endure, we employed large conventional forces at great expense (blood and dollars), and pursued the wrong strategy. By the time we got the strategy right such as GEN Abrams did in Vietnam, and now GEN Petraeus in Iraq, the will of the American people was already wore thin.
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