You can't kill your way to success in a counter insurgency effort. You have to protect the people, get the civil military balance right, train the locals, and practice effective strategic communications.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
You can't succeed in beating the insurgents unless you can convince the people that they can be protected.
The most stupid mistake a counter-insurgency operation can make is alienating the population. If you alienate the population, you're finished.
The overriding goal of counterinsurgency is to make friends: You make friends with the people; you isolate the insurgents.
Counter-insurgency, as you know, is a roller-coaster affair.
You can't talk about defeating insurgencies in the same way that you can with a conventional army.
Offensive operations and hunting down the enemy is an integral part of any counterinsurgency approach.
The only way to kill militancy, to reduce it, is to provide opportunities to people who have no opportunities. I've always told my American friends that.
The Pakistani Army, the Frontier Corps, the Frontier Scouts and Police have carried out quite impressive counter-insurgency operations.
Guerrilla leaders win wars by being paranoid and ruthless. Once they take power, they are expected to abandon those qualities and embrace opposite ones: tolerance, compromise and humility. Almost none manages to do so.
I never call it an insurgency. I call it terrorism.