More on Counterinsurgency

Here's an interesting quote from an article by Hugh Gusterson on the probable failure of our counterinsurgency efforts in Afghanistan. The article appears in The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. He concludes:

The Obama administration will be defined by three disasters. The first, the economic meltdown, it inherited. The second, the BP oil spill, it did nothing to avert. The third, the failed war in Afghanistan, it made worse.

The article is a downer, and it arises in a political ideology with which I disagree, but it makes some good points about the overwhelming difficulty of COIN.