I’m reviewing (again) British Brigadier General Frank Kitson’s (who’s still apparently alive, by the way) Low Intensity Operations (1971) and found this:
[Peter de la Billier’s ‘Changing Pattern of Guerilla Warfare’, R.U.S.I. Journal, Dec. 1969] comes to the conclusion that low-level urban insurgency combined with propaganda and economic pressure, is likely to be the most popular form of operation in the future, but it is too early to know whether this prediction will be fulfilled.
Just sharing… talk amongst yourselves about this.
Economic pressure on the population leading to successful counterinsurgency? That might of worked in the 1950s but in a globalized world if you try to economically deprive a population it simply opens the door for your enemy to win hearts and minds by relieving that pressure. Hezbollah’s social programs come to mind…
(Cross posted at Mountainrunner and Soob)We currently see economic pressure at work in the Palestinian territories, where the Arab states and the West are subsidizing operations of Fatah while putting an embargo on Hamas.