David Galula

David Galula (1919 to 1967) was a French military officer and scholar who was influential in developing the theory and practice of counterinsurgency warfare. Born in Sfax in the French protectorate of Tunisia, he graduated from the Saint-Cyr military school in 1939 to 1940 and was expelled from the officer corps in 1941 under the Vichy law on the status of Jews, then rejoined and served in the liberation of France with the Army of the Liberation. After postings in China and Hong Kong and time with the United Nations committee on the Balkans during the Greek Civil War, he commanded a company during the Algerian War in 1956 to 1958 and applied his own counterinsurgency methods in the Kabylie. He recorded his experience in Pacification in Algeria (1963) and Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice (1964), which argue that the aim is the support of the population rather than control of territory.