"in irregular warfare, that between guerrillas and regular forces, time can actually be the prime weapon of the militarily weaker side."

This can be true, but the inverse can be true as well.

Under the guise of possession being 9/10s of the law, the longer a faction controls a state, the more legitimate that control will be perceived. As a corollary, the more entrenched a regime becomes, the more difficult it is to topple.

What the belligerents do matters more than how long they do it.

Didn't Mullen once tell a journalist, "In counterinsurgency, if you're not winning, you're losing?"

it ain't Clausewitz (guess first, then look it up).

I suppose were I still sitting on a foot locker in an old squad bay and heard the statement that "time is rarely neutral," I might cock one eye, look-up, and say: no shit Sherlock? : ) However, it must be important and worth remembering, because the individual I quoted above also felt it important enough to reinforce as one of his axioms.

The issue I found in "irregular warfare" was that by the time you and your unit hit that sweet spot, perhaps about mid-way in the deployment (maybe sooner?) in figuring out the area you're operating in, along with what we now call the human terrain, and start operating efficiently, too many start thinking about coming home, ease-up, and get into that force protection mode. . .All the while, your enemy who is already home and isn't going anywhere, is learning himself, adjusting, consolidating.

Now the above is more toward the tactical side, but it is a building block toward the operational level implemented to best accomplish the strategic goal. Which brings me to a core issue: visualizing with clarity the military (and political) situation confronting you, to determine the best course of action in which to base your strategy so that you don’t lose time, making course corrections throughout a campaign that costs you time and resources.

Also keep in mind that the individual whom I quoted, on time, also added that, “I am less concerned about the latter than the former. Space we can recover, lost time never."

However, he lost space in a campaign because he failed at what he was previously good at, which was understanding the strategic situation confronting him. . .and his real enemy, the local population, waged an irregular war against him, and it cost him space.

Great comment by TYRTAIOS based on practical experience! Seen any cougars?

... especially to anybody who reads The Art of War. With all such readings, most readers tend to pick out the stuff they like and fly past the rest of it. A current reading of Sun Tzu tells us strange things: Mr Hitler was in the late 1930s one of the greatest generals in history; the Taliban's ultimate victory in Afghanistan seems likely; timing if not all is still pretty damn important. The Sun Tzu prescription could be boiled down to “First know thoroughly, then swoop.” Still good advice. Take a moment to reflect on what we didn't know about Saddam Hussein as a threat in 2002, and what we invented. And the current GWOT is not so good in the Sun view on account of its length. As we are well aware, the military want to make it much longer. .

Hitler's generalship
Sun Tzu's "Supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting" describes Germany's overtaking of Czechoslovakia and Austria pretty well. Then those blasted Poles objected to being invaded and Mr Hitler abandoned the ways of general Sun, to humanity’s great loss and his certain defeat. One can’t say the ancient general would have been surprised: “In the practical art of war, the best thing of all is to take the enemy's country whole and intact; to shatter and destroy it is not so good.” Let's see how that works out in Libya.

Taliban-Haqqani campaign
“Be subtle to the point of formlessness. Be extremely mysterious, even to the point of soundlessness. Thereby you can be the director of the opponent's fate.” This seems a fair description of Taliban practice. The Taliban can also take comfort from “He who is prudent and lies in wait for an enemy who is not, will be victorious.” Recent headlines – a bus bombing in central Kabul, a day-long small-unit raid by heroic suicide soldiers nearby – suggest that being formless irks foes of the current ISAF occupation. Good news for ISAF.

Shock and awe
“Confront them with annihilation, and they will then survive; plunge them into a deadly situation, and they will then live. When people fall into danger, they are then able to strive for victory.” In Iraq, defense of the nation from alien invaders switched from the military to the civilian population. In Afghanistan, there was effectively no military, seemingly a reality disguised for the past decade. The world’s mightiest military power has matched itself against a citizens’ militia, plus the possibly false memory of al-Qaeda’s having some sort of military standing and presence in Afghanistan. In 2001; and even today.

Iraq when Mr Ricks was watching close-up
“In war the victorious strategist only seeks battle after the victory has been won, whereas he who is destined to defeat first fights and afterwards looks for victory,” a pretty good description of the post-invasion occupation. As to using time, we have “The quality of decision is like the well-timed swoop of a falcon which enables it to strike and destroy its victim.” About 2004, it seems, there was little understanding of who the enemy was, and what the enemy wanted; and back home, the vice-president was spouting untrue nonsense about such things. He wasn’t lying, just smugly ignorant. Those pictures of Iraqis with inky finger joints probably misled him.

Currently appropriate generalities about war
“There has never been a protracted war from which a country has benefited.”

“Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.”
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Many doubt that Sun Tzu ever lived. If he did, his name wasn’t Tzu. This is an informal honor title for great Chinese thinkers: Confucius is Kungfu Tzu, variously spelled. The Tzu spelling irritates and misleads. The word rhymes with “her,” or perhaps more happily for military folks, “sir.” And let’s not forget he supposedly rose to generalship by first killing his emperor’s two favourite girlfriends; great beauties both. A route to great military promotion unavailable to most officers on the planet today. Shortage of emperors, not government leaders’ pretty girlfriends.