My eldest lemurling, who is seven, has been asking a lot of difficult questions lately. "Aren't we in a war?" "Two? Why don't people talk about it more?" "Why are we in them?" "Are we going to win?" And so on and so forth.

I found myself in the strange position of trying to explain the concept of insurgency and counter-insurgency to my little son at bathtime. "Unexpected" doesn't begin to cover it.

I worry at these moments. If I explain the situation with anything less than total clarity, he's going to repeat some garbled version of what I just said, which fills me with dread. But getting a little kid to understand, really understand some of these concepts and realities stretches my ability to explain to the breaking point.

Here's a rough transcript of my (futile?) attempt to explain insurgency:

Lemurling: So we have the best army in the world?

Lemur: Yes, absolutely. There's nobody who can stand up to us in a regular fight.

Lemurling: So we won.

Lemur: Not exactly.

Lemurling: So we're losing.

Lemur: No, not exactly. We're fighting what's called an insurgency.

Lemurling: A what?

[Long pause.]

Lemur: Okay, let's say aliens invade our town. There are alien gunships in the sky. There are alien tanks on the street. Aliens go door to door and ask a lot of questions. How do we fight them?

Lemurling: We only have a few police.

Lemur: Right.

Lemuring: How do we fight them?

Lemur: That's the question.

Lemurling: Um ... we can't fight them.

Lemur: Actually, there's a way. Let's say an alien comes to the door and asks if I'm going to fight. "Oh no, Mister Alien," I tell him, "I love you guys. Go aliens! Rah!" But maybe that night I plant a bomb by the road and I blow up one of their tanks.

Lemurling: But then they'd know and they'd get you.

Lemur: No, when the aliens come back I say, "Oh no, mister nice alien, I have no idea who blew up your tank, but I'll make sure to keep an eye out."

Lemurling: You'd lie!

Lemur: That's how you do it. That's how you fight when the other guys have all the guns and gear. It's always bad to lie, but we're talking about an enemy who has overwhelming force.

Lemurling: I get it.

Lemur: Okay, well here's the thing: we're the aliens.

Lemurling: WHAT?

Lemur: We're the ones with the helicopters, the tanks, the planes, the gear. We're the ones nobody can stand up to. Depending on how you look at it, we won the war in Afghanistan eight or nine years ago. It's this insurgency we're having a hard time with.

[Long pause.]

Lemurling: So why don't we just kill them all?

Lemur: [laughing] That's what the Romans would do. And it would work. But killing everyone, men women and children, that wouldn't go down well in the world.

Lemurling: No, no, no, separate the bad guys and just kill them.

Lemur: So who's the bad guys?

Lemurling: Ask them.

Lemur: Oh no Mister nice alien, I never did anything bad.

Lemurling: They'll lie.

Lemur: Yes. Of course. Wouldn't you?

Lemurling: This is tough. Let me think about this. I know I can figure this out.

Lemur: Puppy, the smartest people in our military have been thinking about this for years. It's a very hard question.

[long pause]

Lemurling: So how do we win?

Lemur: I don't know. How would the aliens win in our town?

Lemurling: I don't know.

Lemur: I think eventually the aliens just have to leave. There's no way we would ever accept them.

Lemurling: Or they could kill everyone.

Lemur: Yes, that would work too.

So help a lemur out here. If you have kids, have you tried to explain concepts like this to them? How did you go about doing it? If you're still a young'un, do you have any memories of how your mammy or pappy approached this stuff? I'd like to hear some real examples, if at all possible.

And lastly, am i on a fool's errand, trying to explain this sort of thing to a first-grader? He really wants to know, but should I put him off for a bit, let him grow up a little before I try to explain these things?