Abu Muqawama COIN Update

Posted by Andrew Exum at Abu Muqawama: The State of COIN 2010:

… The critics of counterinsurgency have gotten better. Sure, there are still some yahoos out there whose criticisms can be safely dismissed. But I have always said that I thought people like Gian Gentile made counterinsurgency theory better, and this is also true for other critics — not all of whom want to throw the baby out with the bath water and just want to make counterinsurgency more effective…

For counterinsurgency to remain relevant as an art, its practitioners and theorists must be its harshest critics. In effect, we need to join the Gian Gentiles of the world. (Or at least the Eli Bermans.) I have no doubt, for example, that a lot of what is in the literature on counterinsurgency is simply wrong. What assumptions, when tested by Iraq and Afghanistan, have proven in need of amendment? How do we need to examine wars against insurgents differently? Have we gone too “soft” in Afghanistan? Have we spent too much time fretting over tactics and operations and not enough time thinking hard about the politics? …

Much more at Abu Muqawama.