Roger Trinquier - A French View of Counterinsurgency

A French View of Counterinsurgency 1960 (scary how much it applies to today.). A Must read document by "Roger Trinquier"

http://www-cgsc.army.mil/carl/resources/csi/trinquier/trinquier.asp How to win against an insurgent!!!

It is an excellent read but I didn't see much meat on political implementation.

As far as an application to Iraq, I think it is clear that we need to improve in the area that has been so overlooked. This is to say that we need to invest in recruting inhabitants to become informants. This I have translated for today as follows: setup the cells (2-3 men) of informants (these are the inhabitants that we establish as those who are in the know and of tribal/local influence) - district, block, section of block. We (the USA, Iraq, Afghanistan, and other Nations) have been training Police and Army but we need to train and back Informants, Interrupters, Government Personnel, Secret Service, etc. (unless we already are and I don't know yet). The informants then can call or message any of the following 1-police, 2-military, 3-local government, (later we can expand local government to a more diverse structure to include more ways to help the districts and informants - listed in order of importance of which first to implement i.e., most critical - but not laid in concrete) 4-argicultural (food/water), 5-shelter, 8-employment, 9-medical, 10-educational, 11-secret service. With these services available over time based on informants' performance, any country can fight an insurgency. Today's military must adjust and entrench within it's ranks the governmental influences (as discussed above 1-12) to aid the informants, police, and military. Without this we are fighting blind. Ian Bach

Note: I know the article I linked above is mostly military in nature and Trinquier does mention torture as ok since the combatants are not in military dress, but today that part is out of date. But overall he has written the best on this topic and it's a blown away feel first time anyone reads it. As he saw modern warfare after WW2 as not being tanks but being terrorist and cells, and it looks like Taliban and Al Qaeda took a page from his book.

Professor Nagl's War

Major John Nagl also has been a great source of information on counterinsugency methods. He now writes extensively on this topic. Click his name above to view the complete NY Times article by Peter Maass.

"Maj. John Nagl approaches war pragmatically and philosophically, as a soldier and a scholar. He graduated close to the top of his West Point class in 1988 and was selected as a Rhodes scholar. He studied international relations at Oxford for two years, then returned to military duty just in time to take command of a tank platoon during the 1991 Persian Gulf war, earning a Bronze Star for his efforts. After the war, he went back to England and earned his Ph.D. from St. Antony's College, the leading school of foreign affairs at Oxford"