A somewhat tardy post related to Dr. Fishel's El Salvador comments:

In a 1988 visit to eastern El Salvador, I accompanied Ambassador Walker as a junior officer horse holder. In San Miguel, we heard 3d Brigade Commander Colonel Ponce tell us that he was more interested in protecting the population than killing guerrillas, and that he preferred turning a guerrilla to killing him. We saw this policy in action when we flew up to San Francisco Gotera, the capital of Morazan Department. Colonel Barrera, the Military Detachment Commander in Morazan, showed us a FMLN fighter who had surrendered to ESAF troops. Colonel Barrera told us that that the fighter had been a guest at the cuartel for a week and had been receiving food and shelter with no attempt at interrogation. They were waiting for the fighter to cooperate, something that they predicted would happen soon, given the good treatment and the fact that his ex-companeros were convinced that he had gone over to the other side.

It may be a somewhat simplistic formulation, but it seems to me that the ESAF COIN strategy evolved from killing the villagers whom they believed to support the guerrillas in the early 1980's, to chasing guerrillas during the middle 1980's, to considering the population as the center of gravity in the late 1980's.