Echoes of Aguinaldo?

“It was a war that the United States had not planned, and did not expect, to fight. It was a war in which the superiority of American civilization was supposed to bring grace to a foreign people. It was a war that the United States seemed to win quickly and with ease, but that somehow did not end.” Over at Slate, historian David Silbey ponders what the Phillippine War of 1899-1902 tells us about Iraq. Silbey’s emphasis on political counterinsurgency seems sound, but, given that the Philippines wasn’t on the verge of a sectarian civil war at the time, I’m not sure his strategy for victory plays out in Baghdad, particularly at this late date.

4 thoughts on “Echoes of Aguinaldo?”

  1. Niall Ferguson devotes nearly a chapter in his “Colossus” to this. His book, unfortunately, starts strong but loses steam fast.

  2. Remarkable. I subscribed to your blog about a week ago, and to have my name come up…

    You have a good point about Iraq versus the Philippines, and there’s an argument to be made that an Iraq analysis might start with other civil wars rather than insurgencies.

    But let me point out two things. First, Iraq wasn’t in a sectarian civil war for a substantial amount of the time after we had invaded, and there were opportunities then. Second, the level of ethnic and tribal tensions in the Philippines shouldn’t be underestimated. There are hundreds of different ethnic and social groups in the Philippines and they were often fighting each other as well as the Americans. For example at the time of the battle of Manila, Aguinaldo was fighting a quasi-war against a religious cult in the mountains of northern Luzon.

  3. My, that is quite a coincidence. Thanks for dropping by, David. 🙂

    I definitely agree with you that the situation in Iraq was much more tractable several years ago, before the administration badly misjudged the endgame and we got in the business of squandering opportunities right and left, from (not) securing the borders to deBaathification to nightmares like Abu Ghraib. As for ethnic conflict in the Philippines, I confess I know only the basics about our experience there, and defer to your much more comprehensive knowledge on the subject. Thanks for weighing in.

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