"Winning Hearts and Minds" is a Terrible Policy for a Military to Adopt.

Bin subtie, “I cannot really tell if Con is serious or just a troll…” Trolling with logic and good intentions are clearly possible so pro starts with a false dichotomy or that the only options are a troll or a serius person which would make for a pretty dull existence. [1:35]. Anyway, time for the First Argument: “‘Galulan tactics, (i.e. Winning Hearts and Minds) are a series of tactics developed by David Galula[1]. A French Officer in the French-Algerian War, Galula felt that the best method of maintaining French control over the Algerians was to win them with friendship.’” Friendship is a false analogy as in, “The fallacy of incorrectly comparing one thing to another in order to draw a false conclusion [1:40]." The main goal of war is obviously not to gain friends and it’s incriminating that Pro uses this analogy. Who would go to war to make friends? No need for quotations when you are citing your own ideas. To quote Poes first source, “A victory [in a counterinsurgency] is not the destruction in a given area of the insurgent's forces and his political organization. ... A victory is that plus the permanent isolation of the insurgent from the population, isolation not enforced upon the population, but maintained by and with the population.” The goal is permanent isolationof insurgency which is the exact opposite of friendship. Pro’s source is clear that the goal is to build a functional community while avoiding as much hostile action as possible. “Galulan tactics certainly contributed to France's defeat.” This is just an assertion not an argument. “Buying Friends, something every mother tells their children not to do.” I would add that as number 1) to the list of things all mothers tell their children, the second being that Santa Claus is real, that we should reconsider. Everyone buys friends but some tactics lead to resentment or bitter feuds rather than quality friendship. Here’s an example of a friendship that may work well between friends S and B. B, “I like to read about psychology and sociology but I’m not very good at math.” S, “Great I’m good at math which is useful in business. I could teach you?” S, “I’m asking because I could use some help with my psychology homework.” B, “Sounds like a plan Stan. Do u like all the arts?” S, “Yes, anything from the books to the beats.” B,”Great, this may be the start of a terrible friendship.” Said no one ever. It’s clear they can trade interests and buy time together. Friendship works because there is a lot of give and take vs a one sided forced relationship. “If we examine the US Foreign Policy up to the Surrendur of Imperial Japan in August of 1945, we see that the Military was not used to make friends, but to defeat an enemy. In no war were the Americans known to try and make friends with their enemies. And up through the Second World War, the United States never lost a war.” I’m not sure you’ve historyed before. Japan and Germany are now great allies. Last I checked their cultures remain in tact (unfortunately even bit coins won’t buy this) and we have great relations with them. “However, post-1945, the military history of the US (which was a hegemonic power until the 2010's) tells a completely different story. The United States and its allies (mainly Britain and the Republic of Korea) fought the Chinese and North Korean military to a draw in the Korean War of the 1950s. Galulan tactics were not present as of yet. The idea of buying frineds was first experimented with in the Vietnam War, although on very seldom occassions. However, the seeds of defeat were sown when William Calley was tried for the My Lai Massacre. [2] To quote General William Tecumseh Sherman: "War is a cruel thing, and the crueller it is, the quicker it will be over." Instead, the US in Vietnam tried to take the moral highground (of which there is none in war). The Vietkong, after signing the Paris Peace Accords, violated that treaty and proceeded to invade South Vietnam starting with the 1975 Spring Offensive [3]. In short, for the first time, the enemies of the US were not afraid of the American military.” So by your own add mission the war strategy you object to was not used in Viet Nam. From the beginning there have been rules in war. They used to just line up and shoot each other in the face. Maybe they were using the golden rule? Now a good general rule is don’t use nukes. “Of the next three wars the US would engage in, it only won a single one of them, Desert Storm. The War in Afghanistan still rages with the US having to maintain a military present in order to prop its puppet government against insurgent forces that it can't quite eradicate. We now come to Iraq. As soon as the Americans left, feeling the puppet state of Iraq was stable and safe, it collapsed into the Islamic State. This is because the method of buying friends only works as long as one keeps paying for these friends. Handing out food packages was great in theory, but as soon as the US forces left, the people no longer cared and some of them joined another group that promised them things.” While I’ll agree that community building is important and friendship. Some may even use war to intimidate others in order to intimidate anyone who provides criticism seeing that help as an accusation. You need to continually pay for friends and they need to pay you or you will likely stop being friends. This is why countries that trade a lot remain allies. “War is won through fear, not through niceness.” The history of war has lead to increased trade, cooperation and alliances. Of course it will ultimately lead to the evil world order when we can all agree on a common set of rules *shudders*. Kindness is a big part of war. We were too harsh with Germany and this ultimately led to world war II. While fear is ultimately part of a war it is in no way the most effective or or single strategy. This is another false dichotomy from ‘Pro’. ;‘War’ is simply bad for business so we have less and less reason to engage in ‘Wars.’ Even the language of war is not really helpful such as a war on obesity. One last thought on fear and war. Thomas Hobbes wrote, "my mother gave birth to twins: myself and fear, and fear has been my constant companion for my entire life." Hobbes was raised in war and profession help was not readily available then to cure him of his ailment. [1] http://utminers.utep.edu...