Compare this to the situation in the Kurdish north of Iraq. Seldom is a shot fired in anger. The rare instances of violence that do occur are imported from other areas of the country. Why? Are Kurds less violent than others in the Middle East? The answer is, at least in part, Kurdistan’s booming economy. Irbil is, by orders of magnitude, the fastest growing city in Iraq. Western businesses are beginning to invest heavily in the region. Kurdish Iraq has even begun advertising on Fox News Channel and other American television stations to entice investors.

Bringing economic prosperity, shared by all, to the Middle East is not the key to winning the Global War on Terrorism, but it would certainly be a sensible first step.

Lesson 4: Foreign Assistance Fuels Insurgencies

Another important reason that Spain was a much harder fight than Naples was the intervention of outside actors. The British never fully committed to the war in Naples. The British did turn back the French at the Battle of Maida, but when the French came back in greater numbers, the British seemed to lose interest in the whole endeavor. By contrast, in Spain, the British arrived in great numbers to help the new Spanish junta, returned when driven out, and remained until the end of the war. Both the British and the free Spanish government funneled supplies to the guerillas. At one point, guerilla commander Francisco Espoz y Mina even received a commission in the Spanish army as a brigadier general.

In Iraq, Shia militias and political leaders get clandestine support from Iran. Sunni insurgents and former Ba’ath Party leaders get shelter, foreign fighters, and support from Syria. In Afghanistan, the Taliban and al-Qaeda are harbored in the ungoverned areas of Pakistan. The support these groups get from external actors fuels their struggle. Until they are isolated from this support, they will be very difficult to defeat.

Lesson 5: Population Control Is the Key
In 2006, America was pursuing a strategy of handing over security responsibility to Iraqis. The US military believed that its presence in Iraqi cities was fueling the insurgency, so it sought to reduce its visibility by pulling back into “mega-FOBs” (forward operating bases). However, in February 2006, al-Qaeda in Iraq bombed the Golden Mosque in Samarra and the country descended into an orgy of sectarian violence. Americans commuted to the battlefield each day, but otherwise watched from their bases while the country ripped itself apart.

French power in Navarre was focused around the city of Pamplona. The French would sometimes venture out into Montaña looking for guerillas. Occasionally they would descend on a town and inflict acts of horrific violence and retribution, but they would always leave again. The guerillas were always wherever the French were not. When the French left a town, the guerillas would return and punish anyone who had helped the French. Most importantly, the guerillas didn’t leave.

In Calabria, it was the French, rather than the brigands, that controlled the populace. The French occupied villages. When they caught civilians helping the bandits, they made terrifying examples of them. If a town was too supportive of the enemy, the French simply ended it; they drove all of the people out and burned the village to the ground. In short, the people feared the French more than the brigands.

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