http://www.washingtonindependent.com/person/13964 Fri, 07 Mar 2008 17:29:49 GMT Comments by Marcus Stanley <p>This is a brilliant article. You&#8217;re a couple of steps ahead of the rest of the media (though I&#8217;m not sure one has to be brilliant to do that).</p> <p>small thing&#8212;counting probable Iraq/Afghanistan spending we are at around 5% of <span class="caps">GDP</span> on the military, not 4%.</p> <p>Counterinsurgency and &#8220;nation-building&#8221; are sort of the same thing. Counterinsurgency only makes sense as a support mission for a wider political strategy with popular legitimacy that is building a state that can make it on its own. Otherwise it&#8217;s just a more efficient way to screw up. Can we do that in an Islamic country?</p> <p>Also, I think this is crucially connected to the debate over whether we were winning Vietnam post-Tet. There are some military thinkers doing revisionist history on that.</p> <p>Finally, using the Phillipines as an example of successful counter-insurgency is interesting, given the level of civilian casualties there (sheer butchery for a while).</p> http://www.washingtonindependent.com/view/the-colonels-and-the#content_16922 http://www.washingtonindependent.com/view/the-colonels-and-the#content_16922 Fri, 07 Mar 2008 17:29:49 GMT Marcus Stanley