Bob Woodward has a new book out and he is making wild claims about a new method of assassination that is so effective, that it unwound the Iraqi insurgency (here's the logic behind pin-point liquidations). While this fantastical tale of insider knowledge may help Woodward sell books, it's wrong.
The REAL reason that the US threw out COIN and adopted open source counter-insurgency (the 'IBM strategy' I mention in this 2005 article in the NYTimes). We embraced the insurgents. We gave them autonomy (based on primary loyalties to tribe/sect) from the government. Gave them protection from the Mahdi army, weapons, training, and jobs. Once we did this, the civil war collapsed. This was the social systempunkt that produced the network effects needed -- nothing else explains the speed of the switch.
What's interesting is that this result wasn't the result of planning at the White House or by Petraeus. As is almost always the case (when network effects are involved), innovation on the ground produced the formula necessary for the social systempunkt and the success was reinforced by command (after the fact). We are particularly lucky since the US military doesn't often support the "Open Decision Making" process that produced this result.
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