ISAF Intro to COIN Video Series

CSM Michael Hall, the ISAF Command Sergeant

Major, has created a series of Intro to COIN videos that are being featured on

the ISAF Channel at You Tube and

are worth a look.  He is one of the point people for helping to educate

audiences from average folks on the street to political leaders to the force in

theater about the challenges of COIN in general and Afghanistan in particular.

The featured blurb here is the 6th and last in this series, "Nobody’s an

Afghan Expert" and subtitled "Counterinsurgency Can’t Be Looked At Through

Western Eyes."

The other five are:

1. ISAF Vision

   for Counterinsurgency

2. ISAF

   Message

3. What is

   "Hearts & Minds?"

4. Partnering
5. Protecting

   the People

This is a nice, simple, applied blocking and

tackling reiteration of the challenges well treated in works from

Galula to

Kilcullen.

See also CSM Hall’s blog entry

How to Win in Afghanistan and How to Lose, where three other would-be bombers

create an interesting foil to the donkey-equipped bomber trio in the

first video of

the series.