 passive or reactive posture. An understanding at all levels of these realities and the reasons for them should help to prepare the soldier for policy decisions which at first sight may defy military logic, and give units involved in counterinsurgency a realistic expectation of "success."
The aim should never be a spectacular but possibly isolated success for one arm of the government. Rather it should be a sequence of successes that combine to work in complementary ways toward a single strategic goal. There will be multiple lines of operation (economic, legal, and military), working through a series of decisive points, but they should all complement the campaign's main effort--the primary line of operation--which must be political. The military commander will identify his decisive military points, which are then arranged onto lines of operation to achieve the desired military aim. The military plan should be based upon a number of operational objectives, understood and refined at each level, which help to destroy the insurgency by marginalization and focused selective strikes, and also provide assistance to the work of other agencies. Decisive points might include restoring public order, controlling routes, or clearing "no go" areas. Resources (the means to achieve the specified ends) should be allocated accordingly.
The strategic campaign plan should be directed in such a way as to sequence and coordinate the various agencies' individual lines of operation according to the overall strategic requirements at the time. The intent is to overlap each operational plan with all the others. These concepts translate directly to counterinsurgency, but contrary to the military aim in warfighting, the overall campaign director has a far more complex range of events and options to weave into a coherent plan: a "campaign" in the broadest sense.
To illustrate the concept, assume that during a counterinsurgency campaign an inter-governmental initiative has succeeded in improving cross-border security cooperation (a decisive point on the dominant political line of operation); the military commander concludes that he can best exploit this advantage by reducing the flow of arms and munitions into a particular area (a military decisive point). This entails a shift of main effort, and tactical success in the border zone leads to a fall in the level of terrorist violence in the hinterland. This in turn creates a brief opportunity for a change in police tactics (a police decisive point), which improves relationships with the local community, and so forth. An example of this measured use of military power was offensive cross-border operations during the confrontation with Indonesia. Decisions regarding individual company ambushes were taken at a high level and closely controlled to complement the prevailing political tempo. In contrast, although French operations in Algeria were undertaken in accordance with a sound analysis of where the military decisive points lay, they were never properly harmonized and integrated with an effective overall strategy, and therefore missed the center of gravity.
Success in Operations
In counterinsurgency physical destruction of the enemy still has an important role to play. A degree of attrition will be necessary, but the number of insurgents killed should be no more than is absolutely necessary to achieve success. Commanders should seek "soft" methods of destroying the enemy; by arrest, physical isolation, or subversion, for example. The use of the minimum necessary force is a well-proven counterinsurgency lesson. In an era of intense media intrusiveness--one in which legality, from domestic and international viewpoints, will become ever more important--sound judgment and close control will need to be exercised over the degree of physical destruction which it is possible, necessary, or desirable to inflict. For example, the killing of a teenage gunman could be justifiable in military terms, but its possible effect on his community could jeopardize a potentially far more significant though less spectacular He