Counterinsurgency is Not the Problem
Counterinsurgency is Not the Problem – Jason Fritz at War on the Rocks.
In yesterday’s Los Angeles Times, Colonel Gian Gentile has written another article promoting Iraq and Afghanistan as exemplars of why “nation-building at gunpoint” (read : counterinsurgency or “COIN”) does not produce a “better state of peace”, the object of war as elucidated by B.H. Liddell Hart.* The article highlights the high cost in lives and money and the poor return on those investment in both countries: specifically, that neither place is stable and it is unlikely that they will become so in the foreseeable future. Gentile continues a familiar line of attack against the narrative of the “savior general” – specifically, the notion that General David Petraeus’ leadership turned the tide of the Iraq war – and the application of COIN tactics in the absence of a proper strategy.
Gentile has been an important voice over the years challenging conventional wisdom. But his attack on a specific operational concept misses the fundamental reason that counterinsurgency has failed to achieve its intended results…
