Pop-COIN and ‘The Death of American Strategy’ (Updated)
Pop-COIN and ‘The Death of American Strategy’
by A.E. Stahl
Defenceiq
Gentile states that “American armed nation building at the barrel of a gun simply does not work and strategy should discern this basic truth.” Again, Gentile is correct. The idea that one can simultaneously engage in warfare and nation building is comparable to mixing oil and water. They do not and cannot blend. As the article clearly states, Gentile, Peters, Long, Biden, and others are not against assisting a nation in reconstruction efforts if that is what the U.S. government decides is best for its national interests. However, as should be clear given our historical treasure chest of over 3,000 years of the history of warfare, the wars first need to be won — again, hardly an original notion. That is, if a country has chosen to engage in warfare, the focus of one’s efforts and the means at one’s disposal must be on the physical attrition of the enemy to the point that the enemy’s will to continue violently resisting has been broken. Once will is broken and once one’s political condition has been imposed, post-war reconstruction projects can then commence at will, but only if that is what the policy calls for.
The COIN war: B.H. Liddell Hart and T.E. Lawrence Edition
by Gulliver
Ink Spots
In 1928, T. E. Lawrence wrote to his friend Basil Liddell Hart on the subject of the latter man's advocacy for what he called the Indirect Approach, a concept that emphasized dislocation of the enemy through rapid, unexpected strategic and operational maneuver and held out the hope of bloodless, battle-free victory.
A surfeit of the "hit" school brings on an attack of the "run" method; and then the pendulum swings back. You, at present, are trying (with very little help from those whose business it is to think upon their profession) to put the balance straight after the orgy of the late war. When you succeed (about 1945) your sheep will pass your bounds of discretion, and have to be chivied back by some later strategist. Back and forward we go.
Lawrence was highlighting the cyclical tendencies of the never-ending debate about strategy. First come the proponents of maneuever and wars of position – Frederick, Vauban, Bulow, and even Jomini, to a certain extent – then the purported advocates of mass, destruction of the main force, decisive battle – Napoleon, Clausewitz, Moltke, Mahan, Foch – before returning to indirect approaches in reaction – Douhet, Liddell Hart, De Gaulle, Guderian, etc.
