COIN comes home to assist policing

[Ken White]

...Mao's three phases with a zero phase added to the front end.

Understood -- my point on Viet Nam was simply that was NOT an insurgency when we got involved and really only became one as we increased our involvement and that our increasing involvement had little to do with the perceived need for FID support. Much the same thing is true of Iraq.

As JMM illustrates, the Armed forces, the entire national security structure under Eisenhower wanted nothing to do with it; only when the new and overly idealistic Kennedy crowd got in did that change. Overall point being that we did not get into that FID situation for any of the reasons most stated for our involvement nowadays. That and the fact that the Politicians who make commitments to go to war do not often listen to their Armed Forces with respect to the advisability of their intended effort...

As you well know we were just as spun up in the late 50s and early 60s over Communist ideology as we are today over islamic ideology.

No, not really -- what I do know is that some people in some administrations get wrapped around those dipwad axles. Kennedy got embarassed by Kruschev and then came back and said Viet Nam was a likely place to show we weren't going to be pushed around. He used the SEATO treaty as a lever and did something that didn't need to be done. The Politicians used Communism as a hammer to smack each other; most Americans of the day ignored that BS.

That's in contrast to W. who did something that needed to be done that his four predecessors from both parties allowed to fester and build into a problem. Unfortunately, his Army couldn't do it right.

...30 years from now it might be Scientology ideology. The only ideology I really concern myself with is US ideology, and as I have stated previously, I believe the bedrocks of that are our Declaration of Independence, the Bill of rights, and the rest of the constitution in that order. When we start worrying about the other guys ideology we start making bad decisions. When we abandon our own ideology, we make horrible decisions. We did both in Nam, and a dozen other places.

I agree with that.

So, I don't want to get off track by focusing too much on what we actually did, the lessons learned being sought here are in terms of the over all environment at the time (populace, governance, outside parties, etc) how could we have approached the problem differently for better effect.

I'm not sure anyone's off track; as you note "We did both in Nam, and a dozen other places." Sort of behooves us to look honestly at why we intervened I think. I went to VN twice as Grunt and elsewhere in SEA as a SF troopie, no regrets about it all, I was a pro and it was a job -- that doesn't change the fact that it was stupid, poorly run and was really for domestic political reasons, not to save the Viet Namese or insure their right to self determination or anything else.

Clearly the people of Vietnam did not want French Governance re-imposed on them. Understand that at the time we were justifiably concerned about any expansion of Communism, but in retrospect that all seems a little silly.

That's not correct -- I disagree with 'justifiably;' it was a political scare tactic that our very ignorant media parroted because they knew no better. Our 'concern' was vastly overstated and hyped and most Americans realized that. Not the media, then as now all they wanted was pain and sorrow to make headline items.

I suspect in a decade or two we will look back on countries that have adopted what we call 'extreme' aspects of Islam in their governance and look back on that as silly as well.

Same thing, a political scare tactic -- that is not to say that Communism in the day (or today) did or does not have persons who are truly concerned with some justification that it is dangerous and the same applies to Islamic fundamentalism. There was / is cause for concern but it is /was vastly overblown by politicians for their own purposes. Most people have more sense than to pay attention to that blather.

Getting off track, but it all relates back to my core tenants of staying true to our values as a nation, not forcing them on others, and being more proactive in phase 0 periods to be a champion of the principle of self determination for people everywhere.

That's where we part company; been my observation that such 'proactivity' (another word that needs to be banned ) leads to bad mistakes because we are impatient and do not study all the tea leaves and nuances --and because we are clumsy -- we mean well but we screw up constantly. I also suggest that being a 'champion' for the principle of self determination is a good idea -- but some caution in how assertive we need to be in the process is in order.

One of the big problems in the US Armed forces is that inclination to 'proactivity' -- do something even if it's wrong. That attitude insures that quite often, it will be wrong...

My point is still that my questions MUST be asked and honestly answered before any implementation of your model is begun.

That and the fact that in our last three reasonably large sized wars, the principle of FID, propping up a failing state and defeating an insurgency were not the issues that caused us to enter the nations involved.