Quote Originally Posted by UrsaMaior View Post
With all respect sir, I tend to agree with Steve Metz
Contemporary insurgencies are less like traditional war where the combatants seek strategic victory, they are more like a violent, fluid, and competitive market.

and Gen. Krulak "I feel it will be Stepchild of Chechnya.".
Please call me Wilf, and with equal respect I disagree with Steve on this one. I agree with Colin Gray. If an insurgency does not have a strategic (change of government?) then it's not an insurgency. People do not take up arms for fun. Violence is instrumental, not recreational.

Good man though Krulak may be, lets not get lumbered with another simplistic analogy like "three-block war."

These 'new wars' or conflicts are not the "clean", collateral damage-free and strategically clear (objective: Defeat Hitler, or the Soviet Union) wars we westerners got used to fight. Especially when no future enemy will 'stand up' to a 'fair fight'.
I'm not sure I understand this. Defeating Hitler was not Collateral damage free. About 27,000,000 civilians died. Allied Forces killed 7,000 French civilians during the Normandy Campaign alone, and about 300,000 German civilians in Bombing raids. That Governments didn't care that much does not define a "new war now that Governments may pretend to care. What you are seeing is merely a form of operations that requires the restriction of force when and if appropriate. It's not new.

If you wish to believe that "no future enemy will 'stand up' to a 'fair fight'" then I would ask where you have found the evidence to support this idea.