Counterinsurgency Conference and COIN Qualification Standards

Counterinsurgency Conference and COIN Qualification Standards by Colonel Daniel Roper, U.S. Army COIN Center.

Conference: “To foster dialogue between ISAF members over tactical lessons from Afghanistan, particularly at the company level”—that was the purpose of a conference held at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) in London last December. The conference, organized by the British Army’s Counterinsurgency (COIN) Centre, the US Army COIN Center, the USMC Irregular Warfare Center, and the ISAF COIN Advisory and Assistance Team, drew civilian and military academics and practitioners from Afghanistan, Belgium, the Netherlands, the US, and the UK. Speakers included the former commander of Regional Command-South; the US Army Command and General Staff College COIN Chair; a US Army brigade commander, the director of ISAF CAAT, the director of the Joint Center for International Security Force Assistance, and an official from the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office. You can download the conference report here.

COIN Qualification Standards: The COIN Qualification Standards are nine tasks and fifty-two sub-tasks submitted by Gen. David H. Petraeus, commander, International Security Assistance Force (COMISAF), and approved by Secretary of Defense (SecDef) Robert M. Gates (see here).

RFI: “We would like to hear your thoughts on the COIN Qualification Standards and how they might help your unit prepare for deployment.”