In all the flap about SecDef Gates’ criticisms of NATO armies in Afghanistan its worth looking at what he was actually asking for:
"I'm worried we're deploying [military advisors] that are not properly trained and I'm worried we have some military forces that don't know how to do counterinsurgency operations," Gates said in an interview.
He’s not just asking for larger armies, but for armies geared around the skills necessary to occupy successfully other countries for an indefinite period. It’s the same mentality which developed Africom, seeding the continent with counterinsurgency teams in places without insurgencies.
Just because you’re bringing a few anthropologists along for the ride and handing out the frisbees and microloans doesn’t mean that people aren’t going to balk at the policy implications of all this.
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