Abstract
The intense debate over counter-insurgency (COIN) in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan revolved around three related questions. First, should COIN forces focus on attacking insurgents or protecting the civilian population? Second, was victory defined by destroying the enemy or by building a legitimate and self-sustaining government? Third, would heavy investment in COIN doctrine and training erode the Army’s conventional capabilities? These questions played out in fractious public debates pitting so-called ‘COINdinistas’, who emphasised the importance of population security and government legitimacy, against traditionalists who argued that the main role of the armed forces was to destroy armed enemies.
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Notes
For treatments of the rise of Petraeus and the evolution of US strategy in Iraq, see Thomas E. Ricks, The Gamble: General David Petraeus and the American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2006–2008 (New York: Penguin Press, 2008)
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Robert B. Killebrew, Review of Counterinsurgency Warfare, in ARMY (April 2006). On Galula’s efforts to promote his ideas, see Grégor Mathias, Galula in Algeria: Counterinsurgency Practice versus Theory (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2011).
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On escalation risks, see Joshua Rovner, ‘Air Sea Battle and Escalation Risks’, Policy Brief, no. 12, University of California Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation, January 2012, http://igcc.ucsd.edu/assets/001/503563.pdf. For two such proposals to minimise these risks while exploiting US comparative advantages, see Toshi Yoshihara and James R. Holmes, ‘Asymmetric Warfare, American Style’, Proceedings (April 2012); and T.X. Hammes, ‘Offshore Control: A Proposed Strategy for an Unlikely Conflict’, Strategic Forum, no. 278 (Washington, DC: National Defense University, June 2012).
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Rovner, J. (2014). Questions about COIN after Iraq and Afghanistan. In: Gventer, C.W., Jones, D.M., Smith, M.L.R. (eds) The New Counter-insurgency Era in Critical Perspective. Rethinking Political Violence series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137336941_16
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137336941_16
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