Keys to a successful surge

Sending more troops to Iraq will work only if the U.S. changes its ways.

By Max Boot
LA Times

While politicians debate whether more U.S. troops should be sent to Iraq, just as important is how those troops will be utilized. In the Boer War, a "surge" of soldiers helped. In the Vietnam War, it didn't. The difference is that the British had a sounder strategy.

In formulating the right strategy, there is no better guide than a slim 1964 volume, "Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice." Its author was a French officer named David Galula, who saw service not only in World War II but in postwar China, Greece, Hong Kong and Algeria. If there is a Clausewitz of counterinsurgency, Galula is it.

Although much has changed in recent decades, most of his admonitions still apply, which is why so many are echoed in the new Army-Marine counterinsurgency field manual. U.S. forces have gotten better at this demanding type of warfare in Iraq, but even now they're still falling short, often through no fault of their own, in carrying out many of Galula's key precepts...