As part of a long-term counterinsurgency strategy, successive British governments poured billions into Northern Ireland not just to meet the paramilitary threat through a vast security apparatus but in addition to reform and rebuild.
His overview conceded that the navy needs more small, fast ships for the asymmetrical counterinsurgency warfare of the 21st century (eg pirates), just as the RAF needs more choppers, as Afghanistan has shown.
While serving as commanding general of Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and the US combined arms training center there, Petraeus masterminded an update the army's field manual on counterinsurgency strategy – usually shortened to COIN.
In addition to the capture of Alzate, a US-trained general who oversaw a counterinsurgency task force, Farc fighters in the past two weeks had killed two Indians and captured two soldiers during a firefight in north-eastern Colombia.
IRA veterans of the "armed struggle", such as gunrunner Gerry McGeogh, will tell you that they were moved sideways by Donaldson not just to suit the Adams agenda but also that of the British state counterinsurgency strategy.
The engagement of reconcilable enemies, application of effective counterinsurgency tactics, and training of local security forces are some examples that could apply.DIA: Do you think the Obama administration is on a path to victory in Afghanistan?Mr Zinni: Too early to tell on Afghanistan.
And as he notes, that would have consequences for the counterinsurgency.
Back home after two tours in Iraq, he used the time to digest the lessons he had learned to rewrite the army's field manual on counterinsurgency (COIN).
A new manual for the American army and marines suggests that counterinsurgency work requires a different mindset for soldiers (it even refers to "armed social work").
Meanwhile, cynics who have seen this kind of thing before repeat the old saw that you can rent an Afghan, but you can't buy him.Yet nothing seems to get in the way of America's big-money, industrial-strength counterinsurgency effort under way in Marja.
America's coffer of goodies is big: $1.5 billion in aid for each of the next five years and nearly $3 billion in counterinsurgency military aid.
