[12] Thompson and others have also argued that clear and hold operations can be successful by only isolating the population from insurgents, but some strategists point out that can have deleterious effects on public support for the government and its policies.
Military historian Lewis Sorley has argued that clear and hold tactics were markedly successful in the Vietnam War despite being implemented after a decade of conflict and under less than ideal conditions.
[6][17] Some analysts have also voiced the concern that the strategy relies too heavily on physical security issues and ignores the role that ideology, nationalism, and other belief systems play in fomenting insurgency in the first place.
[20] Journalist Fred Kaplan has argued that the revised doctrine is ethnocentric, capitalist, and materialistic and ignores such important beliefs as religion and cultural norms and institutions.
Kaplan also concludes that too little discussion is given to local versus national government (especially regarding corruption and trustworthiness) and situations in which a majority of the population is on the side of the insurgents.