COUNTERINSURGENCY AND BERNARD FALLContinuing its evolution as a superb resource and site for discussion on military history and policy issues
The Small Wars Journal has put up a transcript of an address by
Bernard Fall entitled
"
Counterinsurgency: The French Experience" (PDF). An excerpt:
"...There is a hard fact of military life which is very often forgotten, and that is you usually learn much more from defeat than from a victory. Victories are particularly dangerous in terms of lessons. For example, the French came out of World War I absolutely persuaded that the key to victory is a strong, deep, defensive system. The Germans, who lost World War I. precisely against the deep defensive system, came out perfectly persuaded that the way to win the war is with deep, air-supported, armored penetrations. It took us five years of bitter fighting to beat them at their own game. "Hat tip to
Jedburgh.