Quote Originally Posted by Chris jM View Post
'Hearts and minds' is a concept that is easily acceptable, politically expedient (i.e. easy to sell to the media and one's own government) and sounds, on the surface at least, logical. Throw in the 'as history shows' comment by referencing success in Malaya as being brought about by a good 'hearts and minds' campaign and there is very little need to doubt or question the concept. Also, 'hearts and minds' is an exceedingly easy way of 'teaching' population-centric COIN as it currently stands in doctrine.
Well if you use bad history and extrapolate ideas from bad history, you're stuffed. I sometimes feel no one in the US POP-COIN community has even vaguely studied the Malayan campaign.