The Failure of Counterinsurgency

Submitted by Donald Butler (United States), Dec 21, 2016 at 09:22

I wrote my dissertation on the failure of counterinsurgency operations.

Unfortunately, I think that Israeli forces in Judea/Samaria are viewed very much as French forces were viewed in Algeria during the 1954-1962 Arab insurgency, even though, by 1954, France had been in Algeria for 124 years. When resisting a perceived 'foreign' presence, post-1945 insurgencies have rarely ever admitted defeat; I know, because I served in one of them.

While I wish the Israelis good fortune in their counterinsurgency efforts, all those things mentioned have been tried in other counterinsurgency campaigns and eventually cast aside.

Either settle in for unending counterinsurgency and ever-increasing radicalization of the population, or try the one-state (which will swamp the Jewish character of Israel) or two-state (which will potentially serve as 'a dagger, aimed at the heart (actually, the narrow waist) of Israel') solution.

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