Tell that to the Brits. I refer of course to the guerilla war in Malaysia, and not to be forgotten Americas war with the guerilla's in the Philippines in the 1900s.
If I may
Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam (Paperback)
by John A. Nagl, Peter J. Schoomaker
http://www.amazon.com/Learning-Eat-Soup-Knife-Counterinsurgency/dp/0226567702
Book Description
Invariably, armies are accused of preparing to fight the previous war. In Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife, Lieutenant Colonel John A. Nagl—a veteran of both Operation Desert Storm and the current conflict in Iraq—considers the now-crucial question of how armies adapt to changing circumstances during the course of conflicts for which they are initially unprepared. Through the use of archival sources and interviews with participants in both engagements, Nagl compares the development of counterinsurgency doctrine and practice in the Malayan Emergency from 1948 to 1960 with what developed in the Vietnam War from 1950 to 1975. In examining these two events, Nagl—the subject of a recent New York Times Magazine cover story by Peter Maass—argues that organizational culture is key to the ability to learn from unanticipated conditions, a variable which explains why the British army successfully conducted counterinsurgency in Malaya but why the American army failed to do so in Vietnam, treating the war instead as a conventional conflict. Nagl concludes that the British army, because of its role as a colonial police force and the organizational characteristics created by its history and national culture, was better able to quickly learn and apply the lessons of counterinsurgency during the course of the Malayan Emergency. With a new preface reflecting on the author's combat experience in Iraq, Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife is a timely examination of the lessons of previous counterinsurgency campaigns that will be hailed by both military leaders and interested civilians.
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The Savage Wars of Peace: Small Wars and the Rise of American Power (Paperback)
by Max Boot
http://www.amazon.com/Savage-Wars-Peace-American-Power/dp/046500721X/sr=1-2/qid=1161267280/ref=sr_1_2/104-1207478-3799909?ie=UTF8&s=books
From Publishers Weekly
As editorial features editor of the Wall Street Journal, Boot (Out of Order: Arrogance, Corruption, and Incompetence on the Bench) has a reputation as a fire-breathing polemicist and unabashed imperialist. This book addresses America's "small wars" in chronological order, dividing the action from 1801 to the present into three sections ("Commercial Power," "Great Power" and "Superpower") to argue that "small war missions are militarily doable" and are now in fact a necessity. Beginning with a description of going to work on September 11 as the World Trade Center tragedy displaced the WSJ newsroom, Boot quickly gets down to some historical detail: from the U.S. expedition against the Barbary pirates to violent squabbles in Panama, Samoa, the Philippines, China, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, Mexico, Beirut, Grenada, Somalia and Bosnia. Examples of wars "that were fought less than `wholeheartedly,' " of wars "without exit strategies" and wars "in which U.S. soldiers act as `social workers' " are decried. Each of the 15 short chapters might have been the focus of a separate in-depth book, so Boot's take is once over very lightly indeed. While America's and the world's small wars certainly seem more and more related, Boot's historical descriptions are too thin to provide a solid foundation for relating one war to another.
If I remember correctly, we didn't wring our hands over the sensitivities of the combattants in the Philippines, and we didn't have the overwhelming preponderance of the news media motivated against the expedition.
You cannot win ANY war, "guerilla" or otherwise, by being Mr. Nice Guy.
You must strike fear into the enemy, because fear, over time, breeds respect.
"Let them hate us, as long as they fear us."
The United States will never be loved by more than a few people here and there in foreign nations. That's a given. The foreign press all over the world hates us. I have been to a few countries and have seen this. I saw it all over the European and South American television news.
The United States is not even loved by a substantial minority, perhaps even a majority, of the people living here!
Perhaps a more clear characterization is to say Americanism is hated, even though it was Americanism that gave the world the vast preponderance of all the technological, medical, and financial benefits they all enjoy.
Sometimes I feel we should just withdraw from them all and let them kill eachother and rot.
As for the Islamo-nazis, they should be put on notice that any attack carried out on US soil will be met with the evaporation of Mecca by a nuclear-tipped ICBM.
For Kim, he should be put on notice that his next declaration of war upon us will be taken seriously, whereupon we will evaporate PyongYingYang with a nuclear-tipped ICBM.
I'm fed up with trying to "understand" and trying to "be nice" and trying to fight a "guerilla" war on the terms of the pansies at the UN.
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