Victor Vescovo

Regeneration is the dirty secret of counterinsurgencies that I'm sure you know.

You can kill and kill and kill your adversaries, but they're going to keep regenerating if you don't cut them off from their base of supply.

Number two, you have to isolate the population.

We started doing that in the latter stages of Vietnam and it was somewhat successful, but the British did it ruthlessly and very effectively during the Boer War.

And the British won the counterinsurgency known as the Boer War in the early 1900s.

And they put the population in camps where they could not support and interact with the guerrillas.

Number three, you do have to have hunt and seek and destroy missions.

You do have to hunt down the bad guys and keep them on the run and exhaust them just like a wolf going after a buffalo.

Run and run until they're exhausted and then you can take care of them.

And if they can't then regenerate, you're winning.

And then number four, very importantly, you have to have institutions in place that can take over when you leave.

Solid institutions.

Americans, wonderful as we are, we think democracy is the answer to everything.

And I love democracy, but we have to acknowledge that there are some cultures and places in the world that don't have institutions or cultures strong enough to handle the rough and tumble of democratic institutions that can be easily corrupted.

You need enduring situations.

The United States has won a guerrilla war.

We've actually won two in our history.

We won it against the indigenous peoples of this continent.

And it was ruthless.

We isolated them from the battlefield.