The Need to Adapt

Returning again to The Atlantic Monthly, Rand Corporation analyst Bruce Hoffman has written an article on the need for the US intervention in Iraq to adapt to the realities of combatting an insurgency. The unwillingness to acknowledge that the old rules of conventional warfare do not apply against guerrilla insurgents has been a frequent criticism of mine, and Hoffman does an excellent job of assessing the situation, finding similarities and differences with past insurgencies and pointing out areas in which the US needs to make adjustments.