Quote Originally Posted by Dayuhan View Post
In many ways the Second World War started a permanent alteration in the Small Wars balance of power, and the Cold War cemented that change. In Asia in particular WW2, as mentioned above, permanently destroyed the myth of the white man's invincibility. On a more practical level, the widespread assistance given to local resistance movements fighting the Axis, even in very small numbers, made a huge difference: the natives learned to shoot, and learned the rudiments of irregular tactics. Once introduced to the basics they proved quite adept at improvising on their own and at spreading the knowledge.

During the Cold War both parties made extensive use of proxies, and in the process discovered an incentive to provide their proxies with arms and training, often discovering that neither arms nor training would necessarily be applied only to the goals originally pursued by those who provided them. The genie ain't going back in the bottle.
I never contended that the genie was going back in the bottle. What I was pointing out was that the "white man's invincibility" had been a myth for some years prior to World War II and that there were small wars prior to the Boer War. Artificially starting the "small wars clock" at that point risks missing everything that came before, as does focusing the examination on European colonial possessions in the Pacific region.

There's nothing wrong, obviously, with giving those conflicts careful and thoughtful study. But there are other regions and periods that would repay examination.