The Insurgent’s Playbook: Start Cumulative, Go Sequential
The Insurgent’s Playbook: Start Cumulative, Go Sequential by James R. Holmes, The Diplomat.
So let me try out a hypothesis on you. This week was Vietnam (and Malay Emergency, and Huk Rebellion) week in our course. Each time I review or write about these historical cases, it strikes me afresh that you could sum up the insurgents' strategy in a bumper sticker: start cumulative, go sequential. As Admiral Wylie counsels, echoing Clausewitz, pounding away at enemy forces repeatedly – landing blow after blow until they succumb – is the key to victory. For Wylie and Clausewitz, then, it takes a sequential campaign to bring the ultimate triumph. Cumulative operations – scattershot actions unrelated in time or space — make a useful adjunct but are indecisive in themselves…