David Galula (10 January 1919 – 11 May 1967) was a French military officer and scholar who was influential in developing the theory and practice of counterinsurgency warfare.

Born in Sfax, then part of the French protectorate of Tunisia, on 10 January 1919[1] into a family of Jewish merchants, Galula obtained his baccalauréat in Casablanca[3] at the Lycée Lyautey.

Galula's wife recalled that her husband went to China to follow Guillermaz, who was, "without a doubt, the most influential person in David's life."

Galula resigned his commission in 1962 to study in the United States, where he obtained a position of research associate at the Center for International Affairs of Harvard University.

Galula described his experiences in two books, Pacification in Algeria, published by the RAND Corporation in 1963,[7] and Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice in 1964.

Galula cites Mao Zedong's observation that "[R]evolutionary war is 80 percent political action and only 20 percent military", and proposes four "laws" for counterinsurgency:[9] Galula's laws thus take at face value and recognize the importance of the aphorism, based on the ideas of Mao, that "The people are the sea in which the revolutionary swims.

In conventional warfare, strength is assessed according to military or other tangible criteria, such as the number of divisions, the position they hold, the industrial resources, etc.

In revolutionary warfare, strength must be assessed by the extent of support from the population as measured in terms of political organization at the grassroots.

The counterinsurgent reaches a position of strength when his power is embedded in a political organization issuing from, and firmly supported by, the population.

[13][14] Notably, the United States military used his experiences as examples in the context of the Iraq War[15][16][17][18] and he is often quoted in the US Army's Counterinsurgency Manual.

[19] Galula's Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice is highly suggested reading for students of the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College.

[21] He was also influenced by Jacques Guillermaz, with whom he disagreed on the handling of counter-revolutionary warfare, but who gave Galula intellectual mentorship during the years following 1945 when they served in China.