Reading Philip Carter's Intel Dump blog tonight I was struck by the following quote from Bobby's World.
"But too many of our leaders-- both military and non-military-- do not understand this fundamental difference between a guerrilla war and a maneuver war. They look to the old way to find solutions to new problems, while failing to comprehend the important differences that must be taken into account. For the military, that means a preference for "kinetic, technological solutions" and "large-scale decisive maneuver based on operational shock" (to quote Aussie Lt. Col. David Kilcullen) when we should instead be focusing upon a politically-based, intelligence-driven action that supports information operations and targets the enemy's strategy. For the NGOs, looking to the past means believing that the Geneva Convention and historic neutrality will provide them protection on the battlefield when, in fact, they do not understand that their activities-- even those as benign as feeding a child or teaching a little girl to read-- are inherently NOT neutral to the enemies of Afghanistan and that they are therefore being deliberately targeted by an enemy who never agreed to the Geneva Convention and would never do so in the future." (my emphasis)
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