Quote Originally Posted by Larry Dunbar View Post
While it might be old news, it is new news to me. I thought the most stunning conclusion was that Alpha was the structure of the insurgency and this structure followed the same slope downward for all war. This means that it doesn’t matter what the structure of an insurgency looks like, it follows the same path.

Of course, right now that slope (path) is actually moving upward for the war in Iraq, which is really bad news. It probably means that the surge worked well at first, but has now out-lived its usefulness. The surge was able to isolate the fragmented insurgency into separate orientations (that were more deadly, but less able to freely carry-out attacks) to control the number of attacks (as you said on another post, command doesn’t really have control), but then something else has happened. The insurgency has become more fragmented and more deadly.
Really? that would be news if it were even close to the facts on the ground. The "surge" was not a monolithic event and neither was the insurgency.

Because, according to the data, it doesn’t matter what the insurgency looks like, it looks like a whole new war has broken out. Sean didn’t say where, spatially, this war was taking place, but I am not sure what will keep it from spreading, if the surge didn’t work. Of course I am also assuming the US forces are trying to maintain the surge, and I may be wrong on that. It could be we are adapting to this new war or the Iraqi Security Forces have the lead.
Again that would be very interesting if it looked that way on the ground. Your assumption on the "surge" is much dated. ISF are very much in the lead.

It doesn’t look like the Iraqi Security Forces are prepared to handle this insurgency as the Iraqi Security Forces are largely unfunded (let's hope this doesn't happen to ours) and (perhaps) unwanted.
Who is unfunded? The ISF certainly is funded; there are issues with Iraq's budget but the ISF are hardly unfunded.

As I commented on Drew’s post, it doesn’t appear like our troops are ever coming home. As this new war spreads, we will simply become more and more involved. It also might be that our forces or nation doesn't understand another war has broken-out since the surge, if that is indeed what the data is telling us, and I think it is.
Again a new war as opposed to an old war? Who has issues understanding what?

If we don't understand the situation, it is very easy to get sucked-up into a very nasty one, without our vertical and horizontal forces being prepared.

Perhaps a "fake" science, like social science, will tell you the vertical or horizontal forces don't need to know, I think that is a lie
I agree that understanding is mandatory; exactly what are vertical and horizontal forces?

Do us all a favor and introduce yourself so we could put your comments in context.

Thanks
Tom