Debates over how governments can defeat insurgencies ebb and flow with international events, becoming particularly contentious when the United States encounters problems in its efforts to support a counterinsurgent government. Often the United States confronts these problems as a zero-sum game in which the government and the insurgents compete for popular support and cooperation. The U.S. prescription for success has had two main elements: to support liberalizing, democratizing reforms to reduce popular grievances; and to pursue a military strategy that carefully targets insurgents while avoiding harming civilians. An analysis of contemporaneous documents and interviews with participants in three cases held up as models of the governance approach—Malaya, Dhofar, and El Salvador—shows that counterinsurgency success is the result of a violent process of state building in which elites contest for power, popular interests matter little, and the government benefits from uses of force against civilians.

中文翻译：

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“心灵和思想”谬误：反叛乱战争中的暴力、胁迫和成功

关于政府如何击败叛乱的辩论随着国际事件的潮起潮落，当美国在支持反叛乱政府的努力中遇到问题时变得尤其有争议。美国经常将这些问题视为零和游戏，政府和叛乱分子在这种游戏中争夺民众的支持与合作。美国成功的处方有两个主要因素：支持自由化、民主化的改革，以减少民众的不满；并奉行谨慎针对叛乱分子同时避免伤害平民的军事战略。对同时代文件的分析和对三个案例中参与者的采访，这些案例被视为治理方法的典范——马来亚、佐法尔、