There are two tried and disproved methods for dealing with insurrection in a non-Western country. The third and reliable method is not to go there in the first place. The fourth is get out with such grace as is possible, as rapidly as possible. President Barack Obama may be looking at the last option, hitherto not on the policy menu.
The first method is treat the insurrection as a conventional military challenge. Attack en masse to destroy the uprising and its infrastructure, employ shock-and-awe tactics, search for and destroy the rebels’ sources of supply, even when this means invading neighboring countries. Make the enemy stand up and fight the way Americans fight wars. Rely on mass, overwhelming logistical superiority, and the huge American technological advantage.
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In Iraq, in 2003, the United States again went in with fast, high-powered and overwhelming armed force, blasting to shreds whatever was in its way. It was a great success in getting to Baghdad. But the enemy had not been interested in fighting. Several of the most important Iraqi generals had secretly been bought off. The ordinary soldier had no enthusiasm in fighting for Saddam Hussein, nor had the midlevel officers.
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A second classic strategic theory for defeating insurrections is “clear and hold.” This is very much in fashion in Washington now thanks to its advocacy by Gen. David H. Petraeus at Central Command and Stanley A. McChrystal in Afghanistan, and also in two recent books, one by Lewis Sorley, the other by David Kilcullen, both arguing that the Vietnam War was actually won by such a strategy—but too late for the fickle American press, public opinion and Congress to recognize the victory.
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In the Afghanistan case, Gen. McChrystal has suggested that his war, if fought on his terms (with troop reinforcements rising to a total of over 100,000 men at least), would take between 10 and 50 years to succeed.
Afghanistan consists of 652,230 square kilometers (251,827 square miles), many of them more or less vertically inclined, populated by an estimated 28.4 million people. Iraq has an estimated population of 28.9 million people and 438,317 square kilometers (169,235 square miles), many of them flat. The estimates of how many civilians died in Iraq range around the figure of 100,000, with some—such as the Johns Hopkins-Lancet study—much higher.
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20091112_getting_out_of_afghanistan_with_grace/McChrystal is nuts. Get out now.