New Testingstan

I look at it this way: They didn't have a choice, now they do. Plus they fucking love us now.

True. I guess I can't very well support a peoples right to determine their own fate and then be upset they don't choose the one I want.

if only increasing freedom linearly increased quality of life as told in the book of Washington

the real question is how long this is touted as 'successful nation-building' when we just blew shit up in someone else's war

nation - built

Time for a cold one.

we owe you many beers

a long hard nation needs a big cold beer

and the best cold beer is vic

VICTORIA BITTER

man if i moved to melbs i would totally start a blog called 'victoria bitter'

who am i kidding

it'll already be a camwhore site

in addition to promising sharia law same dude also promised free and open elections in 8 months so who knows what they're even doing

anyway i don't know if it'll be better or worse but at least they'll get to make it that way themselves instead of having it done to them by some crazy asshole with shit sunglasses

starku wrote:a long hard nation needs a big cold beer

and the best cold beer is vic

VICTORIA BITTER

man if i moved to melbs i would totally start a blog called 'victoria bitter'

who am i kidding

it'll already be a camwhore site

you mean foster's

australian for beer

free elections after a violent revolution

sounds like democracy to me :V

starku wrote:free elections after a violent revolution

sounds like democracy to me :V

very american even

i'm just jaded

and lets be frank i don't care neough to be informed

you and the rest of sdn

odds of revolution improving sitatuion are generally low

the attitued that 'its over now' in the west is a giant laugh

at least we can be relatively sure that america won't prohibit elections if they don't like the outcome this time

Well I guess you could say the easy part is over (relatively), now they have to try and hammer out a functioning government.

artemas wrote:you and the rest of sdn

look buddy stas picked up the taint of islamism AGES ago

he is a prophet

mohammed said lt stas mcnamara?

look buddy stas picked up the taint of islamism AGES ago

he is a prophet

i think not

when i was in the australian army i left on leave to go to indonesia to live amongst the people and write my dissertation, i made friends with the locals but not with two arabs who were terrorists but i dont call them jihadis cause that doesnt hurt their feelings so i call them heretics because its more emotionally distressing that way


i may not have done this

haha I have an old copy of that dissertation that another postgrad gave me sitting on my shelf

I keep meaning to read it

what are you talking aboutttttt

america's favoured son

actually I had this idea for a research project right

'the role of the guru in western counterinsurgency'

I was thinking you could look at Lansdale, Thompson, Kilcullen...Western militaries treat conventional conflict as a complex problem and the solutions to fighting it are built up over generations within the institution

but when it comes to COIN - which they realistically fight as often, if not more often, than conventional conflicts - it's all 'fuck we need a mystic who can gives us all the answers'

maybe to build up traditional solutions they need solutions that work first :V

yeah, its very true, and i think one of the reasons that develops, is the institutional death of COIN after the fact. it takes a bit of a "keeper of the grail" idea in an individual to basically just ressurect old ideas. look at galula, he wasnt even that influental with the French, but after Petraeus gets him translated all of a sudden hes "father of the COINtry". the official blog for the war studies school at kcl even named their COIN category after the guy.

but yeah, its difficult to build up institutional knowledge fast, so just relying on a figurative guru is a really tantalizing shortcut; moreso given that need for knowledge is time sensitive

You know, I don't think it's that the tactics are ineffective at killing the insurgents, it's that we always lack a plan to win over the populace. That's more of Foreign Affairs bag then DND.