One very important reason, beyond the basic issue of legitimacy, is culture. Until those crafting counterinsurgency policies understand the intricacies of their beliefs, history, and traditions of “host population”, they cannot be effective. This is something the US has failed to do. The question remains of whether it is even possible at all. To do so would require one to look at a war from the point of view of the natives of the country. Doing this is inevitably difficult because as Americans, we have a certain way of looking at the world and where we see ourselves in it. Trying to change that and see the world through the eyes of another is difficult. So we should be much more hesitant to assume we can “win the hearts and minds” of a population as if they were a bunch of naive children.

For example, in present day Iraq, different regions are comprised of different ethnic groups that interact with each other in very specific ways. The US has disrupted the balance and does not possess the intricate knowledge of how to navigate between these groups and understand the deep historical and cultural context of present day Iraq to effectively “fix the problem”. Just by glancing at Nir Rosen’s An Ugly Peace in the December 2009 issue of the Boston Review, one can see how the intricacies of religion, culture, and history have played out in the war in Iraq today.
The culture gap between America and many of the countries in which they are attempting to use these counterinsurgency tactics is huge. We must realize the cultural intricacies of the countries at hand before we even begin to think we can have effective counterinsurgency policies.