The Military Gets it Right

William Lind finally has something good to save about our brave fighting forces:

The Okhrana recently supplied me with a copy of a draft field manual, FM 3-24/FMFM 3-24, Counterinsurgency, which is being written jointly by the Army and the Marine Corps (which is no small achievement in itself). The draft is thoughtful, useful, and frank about the difficulties armed forces designed for conventional wars have when facing insurgencies.

The bulk of its contents is material drawn from the long history of counterinsurgency (more often than not a history of failure). Nothing wrong with that; history must always be the starting point in attempts to understand war, and most other things as well. The manual's authors have done their homework, and if one may lament how much of the manual represents a recovery of lessons learned at a painful price in Vietnam and then thrown away, at least they are here being restored. More than one chapter ends by stressing the need to learn and adapt, with a hint that we have not done too well at that.

Read more on the Marines' new emphasis on counter-insurgency below.