Counterinsurgency book review

bruno

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Fairly good article by Elliot Cohen in yesterday's Post book review section on several new books/publications on COIN.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy...009120402602.html?hpid=features1&hpv=national
"...Counterinsurgency experts agree with McChrystal: Start with security for the population. Without security, neither governance nor development can move forward. The counterinsurgent must keep the sequencing tight; after the "clear" phase must come "hold" and "build," often in the same operation. In counterinsurgency, the dominant force wins all the firefights but loses if it does not stay to administer effectively.

The theory of victory lies in a competition for effective rule and legitimacy -- local political outcomes that are enabled by, yet distressingly independent of, military success. If you fight on behalf of a local ally, the key to success is building up your host's forces and capacity for governance, not your own.

A straightforward enough strategic language, one might think. Indeed, anyone can (and in Washington pretty much now does) learn enough to speak pidgin COIN, as it were. In the 1960s, the U.S. military studied the problem carefully, and the resulting manuals and surveys retain remarkable value. After Vietnam, however, counterinsurgency dropped from the curricula of war colleges and all but niche specialties within the armed services, such as U.S. Army Special Forces. In the latest Iraq war, some commanders -- H.R. McMaster, Petraeus and James Mattis to name just three -- applied the old ideas, adjusting for new technology and local circumstances. Now McChrystal's concept for Afghanistan reflects the knowledge relearned in Iraq.

However, a senior official slinging COIN argot ("oil spot tactics," "combined action platoons" and the like) at meetings far from the fight is one thing. An infantry captain plunked down in the mountains of Nurestan, figuring out how to control rugged terrain with a few American platoons, a larger force of questionable Afghan soldiers and police, and a mistrustful, war-weary population is something very different. With counterinsurgency, as with all military matters, implementing doctrine proves much more difficult than discussing it..."
 
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