Is it possible to fight insurgents successfully?
The average Iraqi’s opinion is the prize for a successful counterinsurgency. This isn’t a new revelation. Armies have been fighting insurgencies since the dawn of human conflict, and it’s widely recognized as just about the toughest military task out there. There are two basic tracks you can take in fighting insurgents: either kill the bad guys or protect the innocent people. As in Vietnam, we’ve focused almost completely on the former on body counts, on the number of insurgents killed, the number of weapons captured, the number of prisoners taken. But the enemy’s numbers aren’t finite. When U.S. forces kill people while they’re building a school or passing out clean water, we do more harm than good. We anger the people whom we’re trying to help. So how can we fight this insurgency? Instead of focusing exclusively on our offense, we should be setting up protected “cantons” areas in which the locals’ security and comfort are our first priorities and pouring manpower and money into them.
