The Insurgent View vs. US Military View

[marct]

Hi Gian,

But the implied point is the problem since it is fundamentally a slide that depicts the premise to population centric counterinsurgency and the usual critique of how the American Army doesnt get coin because we dont get the political aspect of it and only want to do tactics whereas the insurgent does and focusses on politics.

Honestly, when I looked at the slide, I didn't interpret it that way; I viewed it as a heuristic to get discussion going. Now, that interpretation is certainly one possible one, but I don't think that it is the only one.

Too, the implication to your slide for the "correct" action on the part of the American counterinsurgent is to invert our triangle so that the majority of our focus is on the political like the insurgents. But the flaw with this approach just like it is with the American Army's current flaw in how we have templated Galula and Thompson which is to treat counterinsurgency as a symetrical response to a perceived people's war.

I would agree that that is one possible implication, but I think there are many others. One the broader issue of "should" the US invert their position, that would be insane. That isn't to say that the US should not widen the top of their pyramid, but how that would be done is a totally subject to negotiation. For example, it is quite possible to define as tactical certain population-centric basics without inverting the triangle.

For me at least, I saw the slide as a great way of comparing conceptualizations of conflict without implying any required responses.

Cheers,

Marc