Lawfare Podcast Episode #57: General Stanley McChrystal and Kristina Talbert-Slagle on Lessons on Counterinsurgency from the Human Body

On December 19, my Brookings colleague Michael O'Hanlon hosted a remarkable event featuring General Stanley McChrystal (Ret.) and Kristina Talbert-Slagle of the Yale Global Health Research Institute discussing their recent research on counterinsurgency and human immune response. Here's how Brookings described the event:

Are there parallels between insurgencies and illness? Or between healthy bodies and healthy nations? Innovative new thinking argues that indeed there are. As understanding in various related disciplines grows, targeted responses are often able to alleviate at least some of the problems. On December 19, two Yale University professors, Stanley McChrystal (retired General, U.S. Army) and Kristina Talbert-Slagle, an associate research scientist at Yale Global Health Leadership Institute, presented their model of counterinsurgency warfare that likens that mission to the way in which the human body fights infectious disease. The presentation was not intended to produce specific recommendations for any particular ongoing or prospective operation abroad, but it did have interesting and potentially significant implications for the future of counterinsurgency warfare and for how the U.S. government prepares for such possible future missions.

It's a particularly interesting discussion exploring just how vital a comparison often used in metaphor really is.