Pacification was a big word back in the sixties and the seventies during the Vietnam War.
The program was to "pacify" the population as if the local people were, you know, like petulant children needing a "pacifier" to keep them happy. The central idea was to win "hearts and minds". First with material things, and if that failed, with a gun.
General McChrystal's proposal to increase troop strengths by 40,000 men and women was clearly part of that "gun" strategy in this new incarnation of Pacification a la Afghanistan -- after obviously not winning the battle for "hearts and minds".
Listen to a West Point instructor -- here.
The excerpt is from this article.
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