Time for a FM 3-24: Counterinsurgency Update

[JMA]

The population will support who ever has POWER, by having the monopoly on armed violence. ONCE that is done, then the political fixing can start.

Exactly... and that is why western or civilised countries can't "win" counterinsurgencies or suppress rebellions.

Take Zimbabwe for example. Mugabe, that darling of western liberals (in the US sense of the word) faced a rebellion of sorts in Matabeleland through the actions of a number of armed dissidents.

Didn't take him long to suppress that rebellion and not a word of protest heard from the West or anywhere.

Mugabe saw the dissidents as fish swimming in the water (of the general population). Kind of hard to find the dissidents if the population won't report them (through support or fear) so leave the fish and focus on the "water".

IF you "poison" the water so that the "fish" can't survive in it then you win... yes?

Yes.

Conservative estimates were that Mugabe's (North Korean trained) 5th Brigade killed 30,000 men, women and children until the Matabele population reached tipping point. The Matabele were crushed.

That's the way you do it... and you don't have to fix the political thing because even today if the people of Matabeleland hear of soldiers in the area wearing red berets the whole nation has a collective bowl movement. All you need to say if they become problematic again is "do you some some more of the same"?

Then (in a tamer example) we see Sri Lanka first securing support from China (that great nation with supposedly thousands of years of civilisation but still no human rights conscience) then they too apply a little "poison" to the water in which the (Tamil Tiger) fish were swimming. The rest is history.

That's how you put down rebellions and win counterinsurgency wars... brute force.

Now which western country would dare employ such an approach? So that is why in most cases one has to give away the farm to "win" the war. Always a Pyrrhic victory to be sure.