Quote Originally Posted by William F. Owen View Post
Really? That again calls into question the idea of qualifying something as "COIN." - Insurgents can try to take over legitimate governments. Insurgents/Irregular forces, do not always have a legitimate case. Algeria in the 1990's and Sierra Leone being good examples - and many others. War is politics. Why assume the Government or existing power structure is always at fault?
Military action can and does force "insurgents" to seek non-violent means. That is the aim, as it is in almost any conflict of that type.
That the military can only set conditions and is not the decisive component of COIN. Algeria is much like the Philippines, in that Western governments have declared it "won" several times following a military suppression of the insurgent; to my way of thinking neither will ever be resolved until the governemnts of those countries create mechanisms to extend good governance to the entire populace equitably, and with a surity of redress when it inevitably drifts, so that that those same populaces can apply course corrections short of once again taking up arms.

Reasonable minds can differ. I just personally choose not to buy into the idea that calling in the military every 20-odd years to beat down the complaining sector of the populace as either effective or good governance.