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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.

You know as well as I do that counterinsurgency is a very nuanced type of military operation.

Counter-insurgency, as you know, is a roller-coaster affair.

Offensive operations and hunting down the enemy is an integral part of any counterinsurgency approach.

I think the whole policy of pre-emptive war is a serious, serious mistake.

What's happened is that an incessant, an insidious insurgency has repeatedly attacked the key infrastructure targets, reducing outputs.

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.

You can't talk about defeating insurgencies in the same way that you can with a conventional army.

The word 'insurgency' had connotations that really sent a shiver down the spine of folks in Washington, in the United States - for good reason, because it means this is something much bigger than just a few terrorist cells.