Monday, February 18, 2019

The Counterinsurgency Novel

"It's difficult to explain exactly, but it's rather like bridge as compared to belote. When we make war, we play belote with thirty-two cards in the pack. But their game is bridge and they have fifty-two cards: twenty more than we do. Those twenty cards short will always prevent us from getting the better of them. They've got nothing to do with traditional warfare, they're marked with the sign of politics, propaganda, faith, agrarian reform . . .
"What's biting Glatigny?"
"I think he's beginning to realize that we've got to play with fifty-two cards and he doesn't like it at all . . . Those twenty extra cards aren't at all to his liking."

- From The Centurions by Jean Lartéguy

No comments: