Yes, counter-insurgency has been around a long time. It's not a new form of warfare, but the type of counter-insurgency that's being encountered in Afghanistan today is really very different.
It's sometimes difficult to bring past experience to bear in military tactics and strategy, but there are some examples. In Malaya, the British forces fought an insurgency there and were really very successful. It took 14 years—which comes to answer an earlier question about how long we might be in Afghanistan.
The problem of national reconciliation ties into counter-insurgency as well, and this comes to the points that were made by two of my colleagues at the table here about just how we might bring a peace process into action in Afghanistan. Everyone around the table acknowledges there is no military solution to the situation in Afghanistan. It's necessary, but not sufficient, to establish security before other things can take place, such as development and peace negotiations, but it is not sufficient to solve the problem. That's something that has to be borne in mind.
Counter-insurgency is tough business. It does require military activity of a very special kind, and in itself, it is not the solution to the problem.