...to quote one of the guys in our S2 shop - "if it ain't enemies or terrain, I don't do it!"....
Interesting thread - I guess an insurgent is one who insurges, no?
If anything, the thread highlights how mainstream military "buzz-ism" takes words or concepts, which as Bob's World highlights have very specific meanings, and stretches them in the name of the "military innovation" or just plain trying to sound smart. Every few years, this bug hits military journals and service schools and if you have the right buzzwords, your paper is "current" and you know how to win wars. It was maneuver warfare that was the key to victory, then it was Revolution in Military Affairs, then - for a quick spell - it looked to be 4th Generation Warfare which quickly lost to "COIN".
Now I see proposals for "COIN forces" and "COIN Aircraft" and organizing for "COIN" - as if shooting a rifle or dropping bombs on bad guys constitues COIN or "not-COIN" (I'm sure an antithesis will be derived shortly).
Is labeling everyone in Afghanistan who isn't on the side of the Karzai government an insurgent similar to the past search for "communist bandits" or other such broad brush strokes? Are we guilty, as a profession, of reducing what is (and should) be something complex to a fad with its manual and trends?
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