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Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Hearts and Minds

I was reading Parameters on the can over the weekend and found this interesting quote taken from FM 3-24.

I am going to quote FM 3-24, the person was using this quote to explain where someone misunderstood "Hearts and Minds"

"Hearts" means persuading people that their best interests are served by COIN success. "Minds" means convincing them that the force can protect them and that resisting it is pointless. Note that neither concerns whether people like soldiers and Marines. Calculated self-interest, not emotion, is what counts

Interesting. Seems that almost everyone uses it wrong. I always assumed that it meant that you got the people to like you. In reality, its a less stringent condition, that they just believe that it would be better if they worked with you.

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