Galula and Mexico

Here's a thought from the late David Galula that remains relevant for Mexico.  While Mexico is not facing a widespread political war, the country is facing a number of mini-insurgencies that cripple the state.  Just replace the word revolution with subversion or war of subversion, as the fight still remains a competition for power, control and influence.  Metaphorically speaking, the series of mini localized insurgencies can be compared to aneurisms that cripple a body...causing a system to be blind, crippled, inept, unable to function effectively as a state.  Worse yet, aneurisms can kill...implying the state as we know it can die as well.

A quote from the late counterinsurgent David Galula that is worth understanding and directly applies to the general's position.

Source:  Counterinsurgency Warfare:  Theory and Practice

"It can no longer be ignored or applied unconsciously in a country beset by a revolutionary war, when what is at stake is precisely the counterinsurgent’s power directly challenged by an active minority through the use of subversion and force. The counterinsurgent who refuses to use this law for his own purposes, who is bound by its peacetime limitations, tends to drag the war out without getting closer to victory. How far to extend the limitations is a matter of ethics, and a very serious one, but no more so than bombing the civilian population in a conventional war. All wars are cruel, the revolutionary war perhaps most of all because every citizen, whatever his wish, is or will be directly and actively involved in it by the insurgent who needs him and cannot afford to let him remain neutral. The cruelty of the revolutionary war is not a mass, anonymous cruelty but a highly personalized, individual one. No greater crime can be committed by the counterinsurgent than accepting, or resigning himself to, the protraction of the war. He would do as well to give up early."


and


"The strategic problem of the counterinsurgent may be defined now as follows: “To find the favorable minority, to organize it in order to mobilize the population against the insurgent minority.” Every operation, whether in the military field or in the political, social, economic, and psychological fields, must be geared to that end. To be sure, the better the cause and the situation, the larger will be the active minority favorable to the counterinsurgent and the easier its task. This truism dictates the main goal of the propaganda—to show that the cause and the situation of the counterinsurgent are better than the insurgent’s. More important, it underlines the necessity for the counterinsurgent to come out with an acceptable countercause."