Quote Originally Posted by Rank amateur View Post
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Just my opinion, but I'm beginning to think that COIN is being asked to achieve the impossible. COIN can prevent a group from hijacking the political process, but I don't know if it can create "legitimacy" or force "compromise."

If it could, then the metrics would be evidence of legitimacy and/or compromise.
just to achieve an acceptable solution in the eyes of all parties. That's all one is ever going to do in COIN -- and there's always going to be a disgruntled disagreeing cluster on both sides. The key is to make those clusters so small as to be of limited or no impact. It generally does this not by forcing compromise but by making compromise a slightly better solution than continuing the insurgency.

The only thing that creates legitimacy is legitimacy.

Metrics are a dangerous myth in most fields of endeavor, they're really dangerous when one attempts to apply them to human conflict. Quantify your relations with your wife...