Victor Vescovo

You can have the best troops in the world, but if they don't have beans and bullets, you're going to lose.

But that also gets into a completely separate discussion, which I know you and many of your former guests have spoken about, which is counterinsurgency.

I've been fascinated by, at the academic level and the practical level, of how to win a counterinsurgency.

And it's really, really hard.

And I fear that the United States...

just still doesn't get it of how you actually have to win a guerrilla war based on history.

There are four conditions and they're hard.

Counterinsurgency, winning a counterinsurgency is one of the most difficult things you can do in warfare.

Amphibious operations are right up there, but counterinsurgency is one.

Number one, you have to isolate the battlefield.

If you do not

restrict the ability of guerrillas to go and rest, resupply and come back, you're almost never going to win.

Every successful major counterinsurgency has done that.

We did not do it in Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh Trail.

We did not do it in Iraq, Iran and Syria.

We did not do it in Afghanistan, Pakistan.

How can you hope to win?

We were in Afghanistan for 20 years.

We never sealed the border.

So they were constantly able to rejuvenate.