Tuesday - February 13, 2007
Counterinsurgency
In Knowing
the Enemy, a fascinating article by George Packer that appears in The
New Yorker, we learn, specifically, why America is having trouble in Iraq, what
the problems really are, and how they might be fixed. Informed mainly by David
Kilcullen, a counterinsurgency expert, Packer explores how fights against
insurgents have been won and what lessons the US needs to learn to succeed in
Iraq and the rest of the Islamic world. It's not a matter of ideology or
military might, but of understanding what people need and why they turn to
insurgence rather than peaceful protest.
The problem is that the US military is tuned to fight other countries, still largely organized to deal with Cold War era battles. If it can change itself to focus on people and help people rather than make them resentful, they may have a chance of succeeding.
For those of you thinking of skipping this article, none of this is your typical positions on the war. There's no debate here about whether starting the war in Iraq was a good idea, but about dealing with the situation that we have and looking for the best solution, because regardless of your opinion on Iraq, extremist Islam is a global threat, and it appears we're going to have a long, slow fight against it, one village, one person at a time.
The problem is that the US military is tuned to fight other countries, still largely organized to deal with Cold War era battles. If it can change itself to focus on people and help people rather than make them resentful, they may have a chance of succeeding.
For those of you thinking of skipping this article, none of this is your typical positions on the war. There's no debate here about whether starting the war in Iraq was a good idea, but about dealing with the situation that we have and looking for the best solution, because regardless of your opinion on Iraq, extremist Islam is a global threat, and it appears we're going to have a long, slow fight against it, one village, one person at a time.