Counterinsurgency (COIN) continues to be a controversial subject among military leaders. Critics argue that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have made the U.S. military, particularly the Army, “COIN-centric.” They maintain that equipping U.S. forces to combat insurgency has eroded…
The author examines the perceptions of victory and failure in counterinsurgencies throughout the 20th and 21st Centuries, and compares those perceptions with the British experience in Northern Ireland and the U.S. experience in Iraq. Most importantly, the monograph addresses the…
This monograph examines the U.S. Military’s struggle to find the correct balance between conventional and counterinsurgency/stability approaches. The author uses history to remind us that at the end of wars, Armies often “throw the baby out with the bathwater” and…
Participants at the seminar developed these key insights: ? Regardless of whether counterinsurgency (COIN) will be the dominant form of military activity in the future or simply one of several, the United States needs an effective national strategy which explains…
While deterrence is as old as human conflict itself, it became particularly important with the advent of nuclear weapons when armed conflict between the superpowers had the potential to end civilization. Today there is a sense that terrorism has rendered…
Dr. Steven Metz argues that the way the Department of Defense and U.S. military spend the time when counterinsurgency support is not an important part of American national security strategy determines how quickly and easily they react when policymakers commit…