from BW
The only ideology I really concern myself with is US ideology....
but maybe you do.

I can't see how you can understand an "insurgency" (whatever the phase) without understanding the ideologies involved and the political action that flows from those ideologies. E.g., Indochina. Ho's ideology (some SovCom, some ChiCom and some VietNat) and Giap's (slightly different from Ho's, but then Giap was a lawyer who became a general - that one for you, Ken). And moving south to - Diem's ideology (leaving an explanation of Personalism on the shelf for a bit); and the ideologies of the military governments that followed - or the lack of same, perhaps better.

I don't think you are saying "don't bother with knowing our enemy", but maybe you are.

If you are saying that we should be a hell of a lot more careful before we engage anywhere, and that our engagement when we engage should accord with our ideology (if we can agree on what that is), then you and I are on the same page as to that general principle of national strategic policy.