The Afghans' War, not the Afghan War

[Valin]

New Atlanticist :

Derek S. Reveron
7/1/10

The confirmation of General David Petraeus as the new commander in Afghanistan has sparked renewed debate on the efficacy of counterinsurgency and the likelihood of success in Afghanistan. Though there will be a new commander in Kabul, we should not expect a new strategy. After all, Petraeus is one of the architects of U.S. counterinsurgency doctrine, practiced counterinsurgency in Iraq, and supported General McChrystal’s counterinsurgency strategy for Afghanistan. At least until the December strategy review, counterinsurgency with a dose of counterterrorism is conventional wisdom in Afghanistan.
Not everyone agrees that this is a good thing.

The current issue of Joint Force Quarterly, the flagship journal of the National Defense University, offers two perspectives on counterinsurgency.

Representing the COINdinistas is John Nagl, who is now the president of the Center for New American Security. A retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel, Nagl is one of the champions of counterinsurgency strategy and a key advisor on the subject. In “Constructing the Legacy of Field Manual 3-24,” he wrote

The doctrinal manual was built around two big ideas: first, that protecting the population was the key to success in any counterinsurgency campaign, and second, that to succeed in counterinsurgency, an army has to be able to learn and adapt more rapidly than its enemies. Neither of these ideas was especially new, but both were fundamental changes for an American Army that had traditionally relied on firepower to win its wars.

(Snip)

Representing the traditional military is U.S. Army Colonel Gian Gentile. Gentile is a professor at West Point and is a prominent critic of counterinsurgency theory. In “Time for the Deconstruction of Field Manual 3-24,” he argues:

FM 3–24 [COIN doctrine manual] today…is incomplete, and the dysfunction of its underlying theory becomes clearer every day. The Army needs a better and more complete operational doctrine for counterinsurgency, one that is less ideological, less driven by think tanks and experts, less influenced by a few clever books and doctoral dissertations on COIN, and less shaped by an artificial history of counterinsurgency.

(Snip)


Derek S. Reveron, an Atlantic Council contributing editor, is a Professor of National Security Affairs and the EMC Informationist Chair at the U.S. Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island. He specializes in strategy development, non-state security challenges, intelligence, and U.S. defense policy.


Some very good stuff here...food for thought