1776 and All That - Andrew Exum, The Guardian
SWJ friend, former Soldier (he led a platoon of light infantry in Afghanistan following the September 11 attacks and subsequently led a platoon of Army Rangers as a part of special operations task forces in Iraq and Afghanistan) and King's College of London PhD candidate Andrew Exum stirs things up over at The Guardian (see the comments section).
... But maybe the British army was never that good at counterinsurgency warfare in the first place. In fact, the very existence of the United States of America points toward an 18th-century counterinsurgency failure of epic proportions. At the moment, Americans are reliving their revolutionary era through HBO's slick new mini-series on founding father John Adams. But this interest in the American Revolution surely opens the door onto an interesting thought experiment: What would have happened had the British army applied contemporary counterinsurgency doctrine against those pesky colonists in the 18th century?
This question is one currently being asked by several smart US army and Marine Corps officers who have taken their experiences fighting insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan and applied them to historical analysis of other American wars...
More at Kings of War - Could the British Army have fought successful COIN in 1776? by Dr. David Betz.
More at Abu Muqawama - 1776 and All That by AM.