Phil Walter's Five Rules for Counterinsurgency from a U.S. Perspective
Phil Walter
On December 19, 2018, United States President Donald Trump ordered the withdraw of U.S. military personnel from Syria[1]. On December 21, 2018, Trump also ordered the withdraw of approximately half of the 14,000 military personnel currently deployed to Afghanistan[2]. The optimist in me hopes that Trump's decisions mark the beginning of the end of 17 years of wars that pursued unachievable political objectives, were conducted in a manner counter to the U.S. preference for and competency in state-on-state warfare, and were an unjust[3] expenditure of lives and treasure. The pessimist in me wonders if Trump will follow through on these decisions.
As I am prone to do, and in order to be as useful to the reader as possible, I have distilled all my thoughts related to counterinsurgency in the five rules below. Please note that these are not guidlines, not principles, but rules[4]. As such, adherence to these rules is not optional, unless you desire to fail. My greatest hope is that the U.S. does not engage in counterinsurgency ever again and thus my five rules are never needed. My long experience tells me that the U.S. will absolutely engage in counterinsurgency again and I hope my five rules below can be of value whenever that time comes.
https://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/phil-walters-five-rules-counterinsurgency-us-perspective
